Dose Our Generation Have a Nostalgia Gatekeeping Problem?

[Orby]

Mainly talking to late Gen X early millennial (maybe late millennial too).

I say this having been on the internet a lot and watching and hearing people behaviour over their beloved childhood.

I am 38 years old, I grew up on shows like He-Man, Thundercats, TMNT, Duck Tales, Ghostbusters and Count Duckula to name a few. I grew up with movies like Goonies, Ghostbusters, Land Before Time, Back to the Future, and ET, once again to name a few. But here's the thing, among my generation or those just after it, I have seemed to notice a certain behaviour when nostalgia is either milked, exploited or even done in good faith.

We get super gatekeepy. I recently saw the Master of the Universe cartoon, I thought it was okay but being a guy who left social media in 2016 I wasn't aware of the vitriol around this show until after I watched the first 5 episodes (guess it pays to not be on social media), People furious over it for whatever the reason I do not care there are multiple reasons I have heard and seen. Take a movie like the 2016 Ghostbustrers that came out (I still haven't seen it nor do I intend to), or maybe Thundercats got a recent cartoon series that people hate becuase of the animation style, and yes it is awful but I don't care because, first, the original still exists and second, this new one isnt for me. But people get super mad at shows that have long since left their used by date, we have grown up, children are watching these shows now and probably are enjoying them, meanwhile us 30+ year olds are here crying about our cartoons that are generally not aimed at us anymore.

Have we failed to move on from our childhood? Why do we connect so much with the media we grew up on and why can we not let it go? For whatever reasons we are upset about our nostalgia being 'ruined' or 'destroyed' why do we really care? I am really not that bothered personally, but it seems us 30+ year olds are really concerned about children's TV shows more than any other generation before us?

This may be because of Hollywood and culture in general is really cashing hard on things we loved and altering them to fit social norms of today, and I say whatever, go for it, if I don't like it I don't like it, if I like it then hey good for me. But some people get so aggressive about it. And I don't get it. I mean that's a lie, I really hated the Michael Bay Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but I never went on a social media tirade about it like some people have done for their nostalgia.

Now this seems to be common thing in our generation. My dad who is a big conservative guy grew up with a lot of shows and never once complains if they have changed or been altered, he takes it at face value then just says if its shit or good. Its just really off that our generation is so attached to these things. I am not sure you fellow zoomers will be in the same boat as us... time will tell.

What are your opinions on this?

EDIT: Also mods can you fix spelling error in title 'Does' not 'Dose' thank you <3

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

The 80s & 90s were amazing times to grow up in (I'll be 45 this year, so I'm definitely biased). We got many franchises during those decades that became iconic and have persisted to this day. They might have been made to sell toys, but they became something more to us, they became our heroes and role models.

I think as fans we're a passionate bunch, and often when something is remade or rebooted, people just want it treated with respect, Thundercats Roar would be an example where fans didn't feel like it was treated respectfully.

We also have portions of our fan bases that give us a bad name, they've always been there, but now they are more visible because of the internet.

I used to get upset by changes to franchises I grew up loving, but I've gotten to the point where I don't care anymore. I don't have to watch them, I don't have to support them. I don't have to buy merchandise. I have most of the old shows on DVDs or streaming, so I can watch those instead if I'm feeling nostalgic.

I was impressed by the animation, music and voice cast of the new MotU show, but the characterization of Teela completely ruined it for me, which is a shame because to quote Director Krennic, "We were on the verge of greatness, we were this close", but I think they dropped the ball with how they handled Teela, which then effected the rest of the series. I don't know that I'll watch the second half. For the record, Kevin Smith repeatedly said this MotU WAS made for the older fans.

[Fencers]

Have we failed to move on from our childhood?

Entertainment companies keep repackaging this stuff more so than there is an active desire for it. Mostly because this stuff never goes away anymore.

If I wanted to watch All in the Family or Ed Sullivan back in the day, I had to catch a rerun on some affiliate channel or buy a VHS collection for $29.99 on a late-night infomercial.

But I can bring up like any episode of the Pirates of Dark Water or Bravestar if I wanted in a few seconds. I mean, I don't. A retelling of the classic tale of Silverhawks is what I am clamoring for necessarily. Probably not a lot of other people are either- they just recall it and say, "Oh yea."

But that's enough for an entertainment company because they just need eyeballs on the product on content. Voluminous, unending content.

The whole gatekeeping thing is really just a small amount of nerds. To be frank.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Mainly talking to late Gen X early millennial (maybe late millennial too).

I say this having been on the internet a lot and watching and hearing people behaviour over their beloved childhood.

I am 38 years old, I grew up on shows like He-Man, Thundercats, TMNT, Duck Tales, Ghostbusters and Count Duckula to name a few. I grew up with movies like Goonies, Ghostbusters, Land Before Time, Back to the Future, and ET, once again to name a few. But here's the thing, among my generation or those just after it, I have seemed to notice a certain behaviour when nostalgia is either milked, exploited or even done in good faith.

Don't ask me what I think, as I'm over 50 years-old and played Pong as an EARLY GenX!

I'm even older than Mike Morhaime.

That said, generations are per decade. People born in the 1960s have nothing much in common with people born in the 1980s (the early 80's were my high school years!). Someone born in 1980 wouldn't have the same experience people had living a decade through DISCO! They can read about it and watch TV/Movies about those days, but they didn't live the life and times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDSRGnS7l3A

(Single women with children could only be shown as widows [and later on divorcees] on TV. Only in the 1990s when Murphy Brown "came out' as a single woman mother did those restrictions lift -- and oh the horror the media had over it!). That's a CULTURE someone born in 1990 wouldn't understand.

In my day women couldn't even get a loan, forget credit cards. It was extremely sexist. THAT nostalgia I don't want to remember! What my mom and older sisters endured, yeah, the only nostalgia I liked then is the music!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_dRrDsDIGE

(Yeah, where is our dance studio??? lololol)

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Have we failed to move on from our childhood?

Starting with the baby boomer generation, parents started abandoned their kids to grow up in daycares and public schools (read: prisons), come home and find no parents in the house. What do the kids do? They turn to each other and get sucked into the pop cult, being raised by TV. They become consumers who want toys and merch of the franchise they worship. And then their parents shuffled them into college. So by the time a man is 25 years old, he has spent his entire life having no responsibility, having no good role models, and being a partyier. Hence why you have 40 year old manbabies who still live with their parents and spend all of their money on Star Wars merch.

The other problem is that they are indeed correct: franchises today are shit. All of the people who worked on your favorite franchise as a child has long since left. Corporations don't care about staying true to the spirit of their franchise or satisfying fans; they just want to milk money from you before you die. Hence the reboot craze that began in the late 2000s starting with Star Trek, trying to extract money from that fandom as they start exiting the market. And yet, despite pop cultists being scorned time after time again by corporations, they still haven't learned the lesson to stop worshipping franchises, and instead continue to cling to them (and get inevitably upset when they realize that their franchise died long ago).

[unfilteredJW]

2 minutes into episode 2 I posted on a discord that the neck beards were gonna hate Teela.

Cue the next day.

I found it to be a fantastic love letter to the cartoon I watched growing up, and can’t wait for part 2.

[Grimbold21]

I don't really recall having watched any remake or update to something i watched when I was a kid, unless you consider continuations as such. For instance, i watched DBZ in my teens, and then watched the newest one and about to only thing objectively wrong with that was the crap animation early on in the show.

On the other hand, when I was between 15 and 17 there was a channel showing series like All the Family, a House in the prairie, M. A. S. H. I enjoyed those shows a lot at the time and still do today, and would not expect or request that they be catered to the current time/cultural frame.

[xChurch]

I think a big part of the problem is that our increased cultural sensitivity and diversity has instead of broadening our media landscape, has just been fed into the Hollywood reboot machine. Reboots were already getting obnoxious but now they can use diversity as an excuse to reboot even more. Not that I'm against the idea of switching things up now and then, but I don't trust Hollywood not to reboot everything possible using this as cover. After all, under the surface, they aren't nearly as progressive as they try to signal. I just want new ideas and different perspectives in media, not seeing the same stuff with a slightly different coat of paint, in order to cash in on nostalgia.

[Zaqwert]

The problem is that modern day creators think being "subversive" makes them geniuses. That's why the whole "subverting expectations" thing has become a meme.

People don't want things they loved "subverted" and it's not clever or deep, it's actually completely hacky. Anybody can destroy.

[Orby]

2 minutes into episode 2 I posted on a discord that the neck beards were gonna hate Teela.

Cue the next day.

I found it to be a fantastic love letter to the cartoon I watched growing up, and can’t wait for part 2.

I liked it too. The first episode had a lot of call backs to the old toys I had as a kid too. lol. I binged all 5 episodes this morning. a 20 run time per episode helps

The other problem is that they are indeed correct: franchises today are shit. All of the people who worked on your favorite franchise as a child has long since left. Corporations don't care about staying true to the spirit of their franchise or satisfying fans; they just want to milk money from you before you die. Hence the reboot craze that began in the late 2000s starting with Star Trek, trying to extract money from that fandom as they start exiting the market. And yet, despite pop cultists being scorned time after time again by corporations, they still haven't learned the lesson to stop worshipping franchises, and instead continue to cling to them (and get inevitably upset when they realize that their franchise died long ago).

I don't believe that, I just think you grew up and your tastes are very different. You are entering boomer stage, everything before you was great and everything new is bad. That doesnt mean what you say isnt true, but its never in absolutes.

There are many good cartoons out there, they just don't appeal to you anymore because you are not a child anymore. So you are not the audience either. People would say kids shows today are too preachy, yet, they were very preachy bad then too, we just didn;t see it, becuase we were kids, as we grow older we notice things more.

Also lets not forget back in our days (or at least mine) cartoons existed merely to sell toys, so its no different than corporations today? A cartoon would live and die on the amount of toys it sold.

[Ladey Gags]

This rampant nostalgia consumer machine is nothing more than the infantilization of adults to further the degradation of society and culture. People who buy into this rubbish are literally manchildren. Yea, it’s time to grow up and move on. But the idea of growing up bothers a frighteningly large amount of people, that I’m not surprised so many adults today unironically watch cartoons

[Santti]

The problem is that modern day creators think being "subversive" makes them geniuses. That's why the whole "subverting expectations" thing has become a meme.

People don't want things they loved "subverted" and it's not clever or deep, it's actually completely hacky. Anybody can destroy.

I've never heard of this being a meme. Can you give an example of what you mean?

I mean, I can't see subverting expectations being a bad thing. I guess you can do it in a rather tortuous fashion (can't think of any examples), but I'd imagine it's still better than being utterly predictable.

[Gorsameth]

Risk aversion in big companies only looking at their stock prices leads to reboots instead of new idea's which leads to comparisons between old and new and then nostalgia wins most of the time.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Can you give an example of what you mean?

Ryan Johnson is the posterboy for "subversion".

[Rageadon]

Your generation dosnt have a nostalgia gatekeeping problem, im a zoomer, and i get why the older guard thinks a lot of the new stuff is dogshit, cuz it is
also people are just fed up with pleasing the blue checkmark mafia which never gets happy about anything, they're generally very toxic and unlikable people, they also judge you based on the colour of the skin and wrongthink

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I don't believe that, I just think you grew up and your tastes are very different. You are entering boomer stage, everything before you was great and everything new is bad. That doesnt mean what you say isnt true, but its never in absolutes.

I do like some new stuff but almost all if it is being produced by the East or indies now. Mainstream western pop culture has been gutter trash for the last 20-30 years. They don't make good stuff with family values anymore like Bonaza or Little House on the Praire or the Waltons. It's all poster modernist garbage. Maybe some films are technically impressive, like the cinematography of Nolan films, but they aren't meaningful.

[unfilteredJW]

I do like some new stuff but almost all if it is being produced by the East or indies now. Mainstream western pop culture has been gutter trash for the last 20-30 years.

Not catering to your incest and misogynistic interests isn’t a bad thing.

[Myradin]

This rampant nostalgia consumer machine is nothing more than the infantilization of adults to further the degradation of society and culture. People who buy into this rubbish are literally manchildren. Yea, it’s time to grow up and move on. But the idea of growing up bothers a frighteningly large amount of people, that I’m not surprised so many adults today unironically watch cartoons

Animation is but a medium. It is not inherently childish or mature.

Is Diehard or Terminator innantely more mature because its real people using (technically fake) guns to kill eachother. But seeing animated tough guys and robots shoot animated guns at people is childish?

[Zaqwert]

I've never heard of this being a meme. Can you give an example of what you mean?

I mean, I can't see subverting expectations being a bad thing. I guess you can do it in a rather tortuous fashion (can't think of any examples), but I'd imagine it's still better than being utterly predictable.

After the Last Jedi came out and fan backlash arose, specifically in regards to the treatement of Luke Skywalker's character, someone found some interview with Rian Johnson where he stated he wanted to subvert expectations. In other words Luke was always this idealistic, hopeful, inspiring character, so by making him a jaded, pessimistic, cranky hermit he totally blew everyone's minds! Form that point on "subverting expectations" has become sort of a meme to point out terrible things done to franchises.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subverting-expectations

So many pretentious critics seem to always praise things simply for being "subversive" like that alone is so awesome. It comes across as antagonistic, like they want to see the elements that the franchise was built on destroyed. But it's actually one of the most hacky things you can do really. If you ordered a ice cream sundae and they served you a bowl of dog turds your expectations would have been subverted, but nobody would be particularly pleased.

It's why touching old beloved franchises is difficult to do well I wish Hollywood would stop doing it. They seem to either just wallow in fan service and repeat all the same stuff, which is how it was traditionally done but is obviously lazy and boring. But instead now we've entered this new era where they seem to determined to try to flat out destroy the old stuff which people actually liked and was the reason people are actually interested in the IP, and that's not only just bad business but really is sort of insulting to the IP and the fans of it.

[unfilteredJW]

This rampant nostalgia consumer machine is nothing more than the infantilization of adults to further the degradation of society and culture. People who buy into this rubbish are literally manchildren. Yea, it’s time to grow up and move on. But the idea of growing up bothers a frighteningly large amount of people, that I’m not surprised so many adults today unironically watch cartoons

What’s childish is thinking ones interests make one a child. No, you worrying about what makes you childish is what makes you childish. I’m just an adult enjoying things.