Reaching for Nostalgia
I've noticed a large trend of nostalgia rising again in the spheres I'm in, and I've absolutely loved it personally, but I have to ask, why? I know plenty of folks have talked about the degradation of the internet, often with cute references to the Dead Internet Theory, but I think there's even more than that.
I've been a pretty outspoken critic of the "Marvel-ification" of films. I deeply love film as a medium, but the quest to a product, rather than actual art for its own sake, has lead to stuff slowly becoming what many deride as "slop", but I think a better way to view this is "Capitalist Content". This isn't to say that independent films are not made with profit in mind, we all exist under this system and no amount of hope will change that, but films that are made entirely for that purpose. The ever more polished, more computer generated, less flawed and more focus tested products this system creates are banal and bland at the end of the day, so why do we see the rise of the "PS1 style games" and similar?
During COVID there was a spider-man film that was shot almost entirely on green screen. Not just the scenes of fantastical weirdness that needed it, there were shots of a party where it was all comped in post. I don't think CGI and "fixing it in post" are evils that don't have a place in proper creativity, but when it's all in post, you fail to commit, you fail to actively care during the initial creation. I think that the through line here is that using these low poly, low resolution textures, you have to make decisions as to how you're going to work within those constraints.
I think we like these nostalgia things in part because of the simple fact that they seem more intentional, and in an ever more algorithmically fueled nightmarescape of our own making, that level of intentionality can feel like a breath of fresh air. I think moving forward, more of these very intentional pieces and even services (bear itself falls in here) will begin to find an audience who truly appreciate it.
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