A trip down memory lane An in-depth look at Nostalgia by Karen Briz
Before I start this blog post, I want you to take a moment and watch this video and tell me if it also gives you a warm, happy feeling after.
When someone mentions nostalgia, I immediately think about my childhood. According to Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having and Being, nostalgia describes the bittersweet emotion that arises when we view the past with both sadness and longing so my thoughts of childhood makes perfect sense.
I love thinking about my childhood because it gives me indescribable feelings. I’m in that state where I am both sad, happy, excited and a tiny bit mad. Sad because those memories are in the past, happy because I got to experience those moments, excited because I am able to relive those seconds in the present and slightly mad because I know the present will never be like the past. Each person is different, though. We all feel differently when we think about our childhood or certain times in the past and depending on the situation, some might not even want to remember the past at all. This is true for people who had traumatic experiences like losing someone they love or failing to achieve something. Whatever the case may be, it is important to understand that not everyone will react the same when talking about the past so you should be open-minded when it is brought up in a conversation.
When I turned five in December of 2004, my mom gave me a Barbie pillow as a present. I was so excited to receive it because as a child, I loved watching the Barbie movies (Princess and the Pauper was my personal favorite!!). I remember being so obsessed with it and my mom told me that there were a few times when I asked if I could bring that pillow to school with me so I could show it to everyone in my class (she said no every time). The picture below is me at six-years-old, admitted at the hospital for Dengue (a mosquito borne disease) and as you can see, my Barbie pillow was right next to me. She was my best friend and I remember always sleeping on my right side so I could hug her face.
15 years later, in February of 2020, Barbie is still my favorite pillow. She has been through a lot in the past few years. When my family and I moved to the United States in 2012, I accidentally left Barbie at our old house and when I finally realized that she was missing, it was too late and we were already in Japan. For the rest of the flight, all I did was cry because I did not want Barbie to be away from me. It took 2 years to be reunited with her again when my aunt came back from a visit to the Philippines and brought Barbie with her, as per my request, and it was undoubtedly the best day ever. Today, Barbie is extremely deformed. She has holes and her inside is cut up from all the adventures she has had. Despite that, I still take very good care of her because she brings back so much memories from the past and from my childhood in the Philippines and she has remained the best memorabilia from my days in Manila.
Now that we have gotten my personal story out of the way, let’s go ahead and talk about how Nostalgia is used in our consuming behavior.
According to an article by Shilpa Madan titled Those good old days and the power of nostalgia, “Tapping into fond memories is a powerful emotional hook in the marketers’ toolbox…” This explains why we see so many trends from the past coming back today (yes, I’m talking about you extremely flare jeans and super cute scrunchies). Because people today put a lot of emphasis on being unique, we try to put a twist on each trend and when companies update their version of a brand from a prior historical period, they are called a retro brand (you can thank the VSCO girls for Champion being sold at Walmart at a low price to now being outrageously expensive at the trendy stores like Pacsun and Zumiez).
If we are talking about nostalgia, there are a few things that will trigger it for a person. For some it may be a picture. For others, it could be a song or a certain sound and because nostalgia was seen as something negative in the past, “commanders forbade their soldiers from singing traditional Swiss songs for fear that they’d lead to desertion or suicide” (Clay Routledge). This effect is known as spontaneous recovery and according to the book, this reestablishes connection and can explain a person’s “powerful emotional reactions to songs or pictures they have not been exposed to in quite a long time.”
Of course, looking back at old memories is not always sad. An article in the Journal of Consumer Research titled Slowing Down in the Good Old Days: The Effect of Nostalgia on Consumer Patience revealed that “Nostalgia can serve a variety of functions. It can induce feelings of being loved and protected and thus can counteract feelings of loneliness…can increase prosocial behavior and decrease antisocial acts…also enhance self-esteem (the positivity of a person’s self-concept) and optimism about the future” (Huang et al. 2016).
Here is a fun website if you want to listen to some of your favorite bops from whatever year you want. I have personally spent a few hours on this website choosing different years and listening to some of my favorite songs from the past and it is so entertaining! Go ahead and try for yourself!
Now I want you to think about your own childhood. What things make you feel nostalgic? Is it the voices of the cartoon characters you used to watch when you were sick and stayed home from school? Maybe it is the smell of grass you used to roll on with your friends before your mom called you inside for dinner. What about those burnin’ hot slides you used to go down on at the playground during the summer? Ooooh and those pens with different colors that you tried clicking all at once. Whatever it is, I hope it brings you happiness. Look back at those memories. In that time, those things seemed so simple and so random but when you think about those moments now, I hope it makes you smile. Try to remember that those little moments made you happy at some point and has shaped the person you are today. One day, you will think about this exact moment and I hope it makes you smile.
References
Huang, X. (I., Huang, Z. (T., & Wyer, R. S. (2016). Slowing Down in the Good Old Days: The Effect of Nostalgia on Consumer Patience. Journal of Consumer Research, 43(3), 372–387. doi: 10.1093/jcr/ucw033
Madan, S. (2017, January 7). Those good old days and the power of nostalgia. Retrieved from https://www.livemint.com/Sundayapp/jyHvNAFpaEq9c5mo3DA1yI/Those-good-old-days-and-the-power-of-nostalgia.html
Solomon, M. R. (2020). Consumer behavior: buying, having, and being. Harlow, England: Pearson.
TED-Ed. (2016, November 21). Why do we feel nostalgia? - Clay Routledge. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiTgn5QH_HU
The Nostalgia Machine. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://thenostalgiamachine.com/
Credits:
Created with images by Tobias Tullius - "We took the old van up to Oslo, Norway with nothing but tapes." • Brooke Winters - "Warehouse fun" • Modern Affliction - "Reflection of Desire" • frank mckenna - "san diego"