The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
12 — Wednesday, March 10, 2021
statement
Nostalgia in the time of COVID
BY EMILY BLUMBERG, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
I
t was yet another lonely, end-
less night in the spring of 2020
spent
mindlessly
rewatching
“Parks and Recreation” for the third
time. The painfully familiar feeling
of restlessness washed over me —
my glossy eyes began to burn from
countless hours of screen time and
my brain’s insatiable appetite for
unachievable social stimulation had
returned. I shifted my position in
my teal and pink chevron-patterned
childhood bed as a desperate attempt
to feel any remote sense of change.
All was calm and yet little was well.
Suddenly, a sound I hadn’t heard
since my preschool days blared out
of my phone’s speaker: the gritty,
pixelated music of early 2000s chil-
dren’s computer games. I felt a rush
of serotonin as I pulled a long forgot-
ten memory out of my brain’s deep-
est crevices. For the first time in the
weeks since the shutdowns of mid-
March 2020, I had actually felt some-
thing.
I had randomly stumbled upon
a TikTok showcasing an old Holly
Hobbie game I suddenly remembered
playing as a kid on an account called
@noughtienostalgia.
Hearing
the
forgotten yet familiar “Hi! I’m Holly!
And I’m Perri. Amy here! And we’re
the Hey Girls!” was the most exciting
event I had experienced in almost
three months. It whisked me right
back to staring at my dad’s clunky old
computer, choosing sparkly dresses
for my Polly Pockets and baking cup-
cakes with Barbie.
The pure, unadulterated excite-
ment of rediscovering a silly, mind-
less computer game I hadn’t played
in over a decade allowed me to travel
back to what felt like simpler times.
For just one minute, it was if I had
reverted back to being four years old,
pink Barbie brand glasses and all.
I spent the rest of that lonely night
diving deep into the abyss of child-
hood memories on the brink of be-
ing forgotten. I chased that nostalgic
high until I had drained every ounce
of my curiosity.
Nostalgia is an undoubtedly and
underratedly powerful emotion. It’s
what drives your best friend to get
back with their clearly problematic
ex-boyfriend and what convinces col-
lege students to blast Hannah Mon-
tana’s Greatest Hits at pregames. It
gives bygone music artists the chance
to milk their last profits through re-
union tours and draws viewers’ at-
tention to bland reboots of once
successful TV shows, like “Fuller
House” or “Arrested Development:
Fateful Consequences.” It’s what
drove me to spend an embarrassing
amount of time trying to redownload
Adobe Flash Player on my computer
so I could play “Holly Hobbie and
Friends Muffin Maker.”
Nostalgia, defined by Oxford Lan-
guages as a sentimental longing or
wistful affection for the past, can
be a positive emotion. Studies have
shown that nostalgia in healthy doses
can provide us with feelings of conti-
nuity and purpose in our lives.
As New York Times columnist John
Tierney wrote in his piece “What is
Nostalgia Good For?”: “When people
speak wistfully of the past, they typi-
cally become more optimistic and in-
spired about the future.”
Hearing songs or seeing photos
that spark old memories of an el-
ementary school graduation or fam-
ily vacation can remind us of how
far we’ve come. Acknowledging our
pasts allows us to understand the
scope of our lives and find meaning
in personal growth and development.
It prompts us to reconnect with old,
cherished friends and appreciate
what may seem like simpler times.
I
felt trapped in my childhood
home and chose to spend my
days unproductively waiting for
an alternate reality to swoop in and
create some miraculous COVID-19
cure that, of course, never arrived.
Rediscovering those silly, low-qual-
ity Holly Hobbie games gave me a
sense of purpose in a time of extreme
uncertainty. Reminding myself of
such a random yet warm childhood
experience inspired me to appreciate
every moment of that forced family
time I could because I would hope-
fully be leaving for college in a few
short months. I was put back on track
and focusing on how I could make the
most of our family quarantine rather
than angrily ponder what experienc-
es I was being forced to miss. Those
games brought me back to simply be-
ing young, easily fascinated by every
object, activity and person that en-
tered my life; but more importantly,
they reminded me of the atmosphere
of my childhood — the comfortable
feeling of being entrenched in famil-
ial love. It reminded me to be eternal-
ly grateful for the endless sacrifices
made out of compassion so that I
could go to school each day and come
home excited to experience the fun
that was in store. My parents worked
tirelessly to ensure my happiness,
even in times of extreme financial
difficulty like the 2008 recession. My
grandparents came over rather than
spending a night with their friends
to give my parents a break, simul-
taneously providing me with all the
love I could dream of. And the ironic
beauty of it all is that they were so
successful that my biggest concerns
as a child were choosing what color
icing to put on my virtual Holly Hob-
bie muffins.
In an interview with The Michi-
gan Daily, Hollis Griffin, an LSA
Communication and Media profes-
sor, discussed how we often utilize
nostalgia as a comforting tool to
soften the blow of a currently stress-
ful reality.
“I think there’s a way of looking
back that is understanding the past
as somehow simpler and more desir-
able than the present moment,” Grif-
fin said. “We tend to look back when
we’re nervous about what’s going on
around us in the present, and there’s
a way in which when you’re nervous
about, express trepidation about or
have kind of wary cautious feelings
about something going on in your
immediate surroundings, there’s a
way in which looking back is deeply
comforting.”
Nostalgia can be wonderful. It can
bring us back to our roots and revive
our excitement for the pure, simple
joys of being alive. But like anything,
excessive focus on the past can hin-
der our personal progress. Spending
our days reminiscing may cause us to
neglect the necessity of moving for-
ward.
When does it get to be too much?
When does rewatching “Friends” for
the nth time transition from harm-
less reminiscence into an emotional
downward spiral driven by rever-
sion? Where is the line between ap-
preciation and excessive longing for
times we will never get back?
It’s tempting to get wrapped up
in reliving what seems like the glo-
ry days, particularly in a pandemic,
where daily life often feels simul-
taneously monotoaI have spent so
much of this time reminiscing on
simpler days that I have lost almost a
year and counting’s worth of poten-
tial memories.
Hollis also noted humans’ tenden-
cy to oversimplify the past. When I
think about that Holly Hobbie game
and its association with the warm
love of my family and early child-
hood, it’s easy to quietly disregard
the time’s miserable meltdowns and
ever-present stress.
“I think that there’s a way of see-
ing the past that way as being sim-
pler than it was a lot of times,” Hol-
lis said. “It doesn’t mean the past
was without its problems, it means
that the conditions of the present
are looking at the past in particular
ways.”
After hearing from Hollis and giv-
ing it more thought, I believe what
we have learned and experienced in
our past is necessary to propel us to
elevated personal happiness and suc-
cess, but our past should not prevent
us from advancing to the nextstages
of our lives. The past is an indispens-
able mechanism for learning and
growth so long as we use it wisely
and moderately.
A rewatch of your favorite Disney
Channel show or a scream-singing
session of 2000s pop hits may not
clue us in on how to solve a global
pandemic, but they can, and have,
kept our endurance high in these infi-
nitely trying times. When the present
reality feels suffocating and stressful,
sometimes the best escape is to allow
ourselves, even just for a moment, to
revert back to the simple joys of be-
ing an imaginative, naïve child. Nos-
talgia essentially provides us with
the chance to time travel, allowing
us to rediscover the brightest aspects
of our past in order to motivate and
comfort us in the present.
ILLUSTRATION BY EILEEN KELLY