A Defense of Nostalgia

See, if the Spice Girls had first emerged today and had just now become popular, I would find them as annoying as Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers; I would say, “They have no talent! Why are they so popular?? They don’t deserve to be making all that money!” And that still may be true for the Spice Girls, but to me, the Spice Girls will always signify 4th grade sleepovers, speaking with British accents with my cousin Lynn while watching SpiceWorld, and the music that stuck with me through my pre-teen years even when a lot of my so-called friends didn’t.

And for that, I can’t hate them. No matter how talentless they may be.

Those who don’t like the Spice Girls probably assume that I, as a fan, have bad taste in music, which really isn’t the case. There’s a big difference between “I love the Spice Girls!” and “The Spice Girls are amazing!” and I fully understand that difference.

So, I do agree with Mr. Insightful YouTube Comment; people definitely confuse nostalgia with quality. I certainly have been guilty of this. We, as a people raised in a country where entertainment is our main guiding light, need to admit that not everything we thought was great when we were kids is actually THAT great.

Some things are. That is obviously true. For me, movies like The Lion King or Edward Scissorhands. Books like The Giver or Harry Potter. These are things I loved when I was little and, not only do I still love them today, but my love for them has grown as I have been able to appreciate their quality.

Then there are some things, like the Spice Girls, Pokemon, Nickelodeon’s All That, and the Backstreet Boys, that we need to re-asses. We need to isolate these things from our own emotions and memories and look at them objectively, for a change. We need to acknowledge that these things are, for lack of a more dignified word, stupid. And bad.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t still like them! That might be what some people would call a “guilty pleasure,” but I don’t think so. A guilty pleasure is something you know is stupid and/or bad for you, but you indulge in it anyway because you like it. Sometimes I get sucked into those terrible Vh1 reality shows, and sometimes I catch an episode or two of The Girls Next Door. Those simple, stupid things that you have no good reason to like and can’t explain why you like them, you just do; THOSE are guilty pleasures.

Things from our childhood that we still love, those aren’t guilty pleasures, because we CAN explain why we love them; we have damn good reason to love them. They’re tied into our past. There’s nothing wrong with liking something dumb because it reminds you of something good. Nothing at all.

So I say, blast “Wannabe” in the car! Sing along at the top of your lungs! Go watch episodes of The Secret World of Alex Mac! Have a Poke-Battle!

Just remember that you don’t love these things simply for what they are, but because of how they are a part of you.