OUR comfort seeking brains enjoy the familiar. Such temptation there is to hibernate in the past, swaddled in straw layers of the well-kent and personally poignant. This desire explains the success of Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife and the proliferation of Keep Calm and Carry On flatly stamped on everything from mouse mats to matchboxes. Nothing explains the return of Dad’s Army but ours is not always to reason why.
It explains rock bands, Black Sabbath and Grateful Dead, on farewell tours and the childhood heroes of Star Wars boldly going on adventures in The Force Awakens.
Yes, it was Star Trek’s crews who boldly went but fear not - it returned last year too, in Star Trek Beyond.
After a five year hiatus the band Steps is planning a new UK tour. Otherwise sensible people are excited about securing tickets to see this five piece pop group because “it makes us feel like we’re back in 1997”.
I was a young teenager in 1997 and I can’t say I’d like to be back there. I’m a minority though.
Look: the Twin Peaks remake of the 1990 original. The Gilmore Girls remake - originally 2000. The new series of The X Files, a programme first shown in 1993.
The Trainspotting - 1996 - sequel T2 was met with raptures and and determination to be the first to see it. I’d never seen Trainspotting but still saw T2 twice - it was impossible not to be caught up, despite being clueless as to why.
The announcement of Love Actually’s sequel to the 2003 film caused fits of joy, even after fans realised they’d been slightly swindled and the sequel would be a mere 10 minutes for Comic Relief.
My Facebook timeline could be from 20 years ago, had Facebook existed then. It’s no wonder: nostalgia is a lucrative tool.
At this year’s Mobile World Congress, brand owner HMD Global announced the relaunch of the Nokia 3310, a phone from 17 years ago. In the face of incredible smartphone technology, the world went doolally over a fresh chance to play Snake. Demand for the resurrected phone has been “astonishing”, according to the Carphone Warehouse.
A nostalgia for long ago decades, partly the driver behind the success of Downton and Midwife, not to mention Strictly Come Dancing and the Great British Bake Off, seems more reasonable. That past is past enough to be viewed through rose hued glasses. To sigh fondly and say things were better then. But this sort of nostalgia holds some danger; it’s a nostalgia that supports the return of grammar schools and the curbing of immigration.
It leads to slogans such as Take Back Control and Make America Great Again. It can also be a great form of hope, of memories of neighbourliness and community.
The 90s though. We remember the 90s, we can still see them - they are just over there. Our 90s icons are barely wrinkled. They’re hale and productive and on Twitter now.
My generation is nostalgic for its youth while barely into adulthood. Is it because Millennials are repeatedly told there’s much to fear, is that why we bask in the recent past?
Our comfort seeking brains need to innovate, not hibernate.
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