Dirtside's Journal: Doctor, this man has a severe case of Nostalgitis

Quiz:

• Do you believe that one or more of movies, books, video games, music, or art used to be better than they are now?
• Do you believe that everything that comes out today in one of the above fields is crap?
• ...or at least, crap compared to stuff that came out in days past?

If you've answered "Yes" to any of these questions, then you have a common ailment known as Nostalgitis. It's characterized by a refusal to accept reality and the donning of rose-colored glasses. <medical>

I see this all the time on /., although it's been a common enough meme in our society for many years. Kids find new things to entertain themselves, and forge their own identities, rebelling (in ways more or less subtle) against their elders -- meanwhile, the elders are befuddled by the New Thing, be it rap music, drugs, Beat poetry, or Pokemon. The war cry of the fogey goes something like this, "All this [MEDIA TYPE] these days is crap! Back in my day, we had [AGED ENTERTAINER] who did real [MEDIA TYPE]." It can be music, movies, books, video games, art, and of course particular subsets thereof.

In the usual manifestation, the Fogey claims that today's media products are crap compared to products of a past era. This can be as recent as a few years back (I've heard people bitching about how all music sucked in the mid-90s, but is now better), or decades ago (truly old people talking about how much better movies were in the 30s). The main problem with these claims is that, except in certain specialized situations, they ignore the fact that just as much crap was produced "back then" as is produced today. Yes, there were a lot of great movies in the 30s -- but there were reams upon reams of worthless, boring, disposable trash produced as well. In some cases, even more as a percentage of total output than is produced today (in Hollywood's earlier days, movies had much smaller budgets -- even taking inflation into account -- and it wasn't uncommon for a movie to go from concept to premiere in a month or two).

The "certain specialized situations" I mentioned usually means the very early days of a media format. The absolute earliest movies were mostly junk -- people experimenting with this new art form. As happens, most of it failed. Within a relatively few years (by the mid-to-late 1930s) we saw the first truly great epic spectacles. Compared to the movies of the 1910s and 1920s, they were, for the most part, vastly superior. But since then, things have slowed down -- children grow fastest in their youth, slower as they age. So in the 40s, movies were actually, on the whole, far better than they had been a couple of decades earlier.

Then there's the flipside, when the overall quality goes down over time... which I'll address later, as I have to go home now. :)

Interesting analysis...

[MonTemplar]

My feeling is the amount of good-quality stuff, in all fields, hasn't changed - the perception comes from the increasing quantity of junk and/or failed attempts at new styles/techniques, coupled with the rise in the number of punters.

The trick, of course, is to seek out the quality items from the past, see what made them successful, and try and apply the lessons learned.

When it goes wrong, though, you end up with 'sequelitis' and masses of derivative works trying to ride the coat-tails of the successes of the past.

I look forward to reading the rest of your analysis.