What’s it called when you’re nostalgic for a time you didn’t live through, like teenagers feeling nostalgic and “looking back” on i.e. the 80s or 90s?
I was born in the 2000s, but somehow I feel a sort of longing to live during the 80s. I have watched a bunch of movies produced during that time, and I realise they may not be a totally realistic depiction of the time period, but for some reason I “miss” the 80s. I don’t mean the struggles of marginalised groups or the politics, but rather the feeling of “old school” and people socialising, the shows playing on TV during that time, the diners, the discotheques, the clubs, the music and fashion and hairstyles… there’s just something cozy about the 80s, how technology wasn’t super developed, how people were still discovering things. Don’t misunderstand me though, I’m glad about the technological advancements we have achieved today, and I realise my image of the 80s may be skewed since I literally didn’t exist during that time, lol.
What’s this feeling called? Has anybody else felt the same way about a time period that isn’t the 2020s?
That feeling is called “anemoia”. It’s apparently a recent word.
Maybe a new word but it seems to be a popular feeling throughout history. Everyone seemed to have an imagined golden age that the current time had degraded from.
The theme explored in ‘Midnight in Paris’ - the Woody Allen film. And probably countless other movies and books.
Coined by John Koenig about 10 years ago. Upthread there are other options that have in the language for much longer. I did not expect to start my day as the grumpy-conservative-language-originalist-crank. 😄