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Edited by The Cellar Door:
8/17/2016 3:38:24 AM
23
The Product of Nostalgia
For a very long time, nostalgia has been an central way for companies to promote their brand. People like to relive the past, they like things that are "vintage." It's a great way to market a product that isn't exactly exciting or progressive. However, what I would like to bring up in this post is the increasing trend of nostalgic products, and hope to spark a discussion on the philosophical ramifications of this.
Games like Pokemon GO, and The NES reboot, and movies like The Jungle Book, and Finding Dory bring us back to a time that was simpler. These are just a few examples, but looking around you can find a wide array of brands going for this nostalgic/retro feel. To delve deeper, what these products accomplish, is getting the generation that is now in their 20's, back to being a consumer for these companies.
As I said, there seems to be an increasing trend of this occurring, as in, more frequent nostalgic products are being marketed towards this generation right now than there is normally in the market. Why?
If we tend to the Internet, we see memes from SpongeBob and Arthur being populated right now. We've seen the memes of "being a 90's kid," and "being born in le wrong generation." It's very obvious that nostalgia is central to the millennial's identity. Now I pose this question:
Does the increasing trend of nostalgic products in the market inversely correlate to the information age's decrease in communication boundaries?
To elaborate, we all know we can instant message someone this second if we needed to. I can show my cousin who lives in California pictures without having to develop them nor be in California. Ultimately, the Information Age has brought us this ease and speed in communication that then results in our lives being paced faster. Does this then imply products which incite nostalgia will then become more frequent, because life is passing at a fast enough rate which nostalgia can be achieved more readily than say 30 or 40 years ago?
What does this say about the corporations and their control over the market? Are they loosing control to the Information Age, or are they gaining it?
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[quote] Does the increasing trend of nostalgic products in the market inversely correlate to the information age's decrease in communication boundaries? [/quote] Correlate? Most definitely so. But I think the reason behind this is that the breaking of such barriers has led to the diffusion of information, thus allowing for a larger shared knowledge base from which nostalgia can occur. Consider from the past beauty products and all of the claims of wonder drugs that bring you back your youth. These are also nostalgia based, but we have only recently seen other types of such products because at the time the only shared knowledge base anyone could rely on is the existence of youth. [quote]Does this then imply products which incite nostalgia will then become more frequent, because life is passing at a fast enough rate which nostalgia can be achieved more readily than say 30 or 40 years ago? [/quote] I'm not sure if it is accurate to say that nostalgia based products will increase due to any increase to the speed at which life...occurs. Rather, it is natural for people to realize the potential profit from the phenomenon and capitalize on it more thoroughly. [quote]What does this say about the corporations and their control over the market? Are they loosing control to the Information Age, or are they gaining it?[/quote] I think it goes both ways. In this particular context, corporations can capitalize on the Information Age, but they don't really have a say on what people are nostalgic about. As such, it is also still up to the consumer to give corporations the capacity to go back to previous products and profit. And as per certain laws, not everyone can just jump on the financial bandwagon as it comes along.
