Nothing makes me more nostalgic than kids TV from the 90s, but...why?
There's a reason we experience nostalgia the way we do.
‘Did you know the Ghostwriter, in the kids show by the same name, was the ghost of an escaped slave?’
I’m listening to a podcast called VS with Eve Ewing as a guest (in a 2017 episode), with co-hosts and poets Danez Smith and Franny Choi as they go on to discuss Samurai Jack ‘Wait’, Franny stops them, ‘is this…racist?’
After being reassured, they go back to the point — the pens we wore around our necks.
I sigh. I remember. I remember all of this.
That pen, those colours, the size, the audacity of the space it took. Nothing was in the way as much as things are now. I think about wearing it, and how I navigate space in this body, with my lifestyle.
But I focus back on Ghostwriter. I can’t help but remember about how much I loved that show. A feeling of nostalgia rises in me, I hold it. I don’t want to let go.
I think of Alex Mack. Did she wear one of those pens? I can’t remember. She seems like the kind of person who would. Did Fred Savage in The Wonder Years?
And just like that, I’m basking in a cloud that engulfs in, emitting images of my past, softly keeping me content.
I smile, everything is kid safe here — padded and rounded off, with pastel colours and large dungarees on blonde white children. Films have carried these feelings sufficiently, but TV shows held them differently.
Moesha’s scrunchies and crop tops. That rose tattoo.
That wind-up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toy that swam in your childhood sink.
The Demon Headmaster.
Through the Dragon’s Eye.
Through the GODDAMN DRAGON’S EYE.
I just rewatched an episode.
But why does this feeling sit softly in me, with such purity and comfort? I don’t ‘yearn for those years’ but there’s something about them, that make me…happy.
A lot of this sits in memory — a memory we have the ability to pick and choose from. My childhood wasn’t the best, I spent a large amount of it suffering from panic attacks and navigating puberty alongside my culture.
But I rarely think of those moments. Instead, Top of the Pops comes to mind. I’m sitting on the floor, legs tucked under me, my butt raised off them slightly, unblinking and hypnotised, as I somehow move closer and closer to the TV without actually moving.
Or I would grab a block of cheese as a snack and lay awkwardly on the floor, chewing on slices of chunky cheddar, while watching BraveStarr or Ren & Stimpy.
I remember putting on the coveted CD of Michael Jackson’s Bad while flicking through the pages of album artwork and lyrics, as I danced awkwardly in the living room.
All these things have one particular thing in common: a good feeling.
That’s essentially what my mind and body are yearning for, and what better period, than the innocence of youth?
The older I am in these memories, the more they are interrupted with negativity, bullying, puberty. So I quickly rewind and I’m back to reading the X-Men comic books I’ve taken from my brother’s shelf.
Many of us encounter this, but sometimes as we age, the harder it gets to access these memories. So they become feelings. And these feelings are nostalgia.
That surge of emotion is a feeling of happiness. We retrieve them to remind ourselves that happiness is accessible — we were once happy, in a wholesome and innocent way.
TV nostalgia makes perfect sense - it offers escapism, all in the safety of home and warmth. It is the softest of happy memories, because it’s so far removed from reality.
While many of us embrace nostalgia, some turn them into ‘the good old days’, using it to diminish the lifestyles of young people now. The truth is, when they are older, their feeling of nostalgia will be similar.
There’s no best decade, or superior year. No matter how much we believe it, what we do is look at this with rose-tinted glasses, in order to experience happiness.
War, genocide, racism, discrimination, mental health issues, diseases, abuse — much of what we’re worried about now, existed then.
But sitting in that comfortable, kid padded cloud, is there to remind ourselves that happiness exist within us.
How beautiful is that.