Aleister Crowley wrote: 2018-10-15 08:19pm
Nostalgia is a good and a bad thing. It reinforces a "things were better in the past" mentality. Sometimes that is a good thing because it allows you to have a good time to look back on and a way to improve one's current time. However, it becomes bad when it encourages stagnation. There is nothing wrong with liking the cars from the 1950s. There is something wrong with wanting to do away with the advances in automotive technology to go back to the exact level of technology in the 50s.
Aye. As you say later, I’ve no love lost over dial-up, even if it was a fun time trying to have online strategy games tied up in the two hour limit of continuous up-time, or missing the modem noises. A lot of the geekery has gone from being online, which is somewhat depressing.
I understand this. Sometimes I go and look at stuff I made a long time ago. Sometimes it can make you pause and reflect. Sometimes it can inspire new thoughts. For me, it mostly helps me to realize what I need to grow out of.
Mainstream culture thinks nostalgia is pandering to a better time. Like Stranger Things and the It remake. They're not wrong...but they're slightly off base. I think there's more to it than that.
I find it hard to believe that many people would want to post on a forum these days. Not to say that it doesn't have an appeal to people, but it does feel rather antiquated. I mean, I remember the time when you could access many forums on dial-up internet. America Online. Yeah...that was crazy. Shit was slow even if you weren't loading a page full of images. Even the worst wi-fi based internet is still better than that. I have almost no nostalgia for how shitty that was. It's just bittersweet because of how much good was on the internet and how freer it was. People now will never know that. That's mildy depressing. I too sort of miss the old culture of internet boards.
It’s funny how much of our media now seems to play on this. Star Wars is obviously another one, given how many reacted to TFA as being a rehash of ANH for a new generation. Yet, I can’t not enjoy the re-emergence of synthwave, or the ‘80s æsthetic in film, or 8-bit mobile games. Stuff like that can’t really be considered bad if it’s delivering a unique take on the genre or is executed well. Only so much originality in art, and it’s not like people who, say, shoot on film do it because they want to be hipsters, but because certain things are lost in digital, for instance.
But overall, I feel a malaise over wanting to relive a past moment and then realising that things have changed, and that it can only happen in my head. I can still enjoy that film I grew up with, but I can’t relive being a teen on an early Internet where exclusivity was more a thing, and where users I enjoyed talking to were often online and without other life distractions.
Additionally, I am surprised that places like SB.com are actually not only active, but thriving. I was hoping SDN would be on some level the same too, alas, not to the level of its glory days. Which is sad, really, because I think a forum community is something of an exception to the modern take on online circles, such as subreddits and WhatsApp groups. There’s something timeless to me about a good ol’ bulletin board, and he’ll, USENET groups would still be great to me, as primitive as they are, given that is some of their charm. No voting system for posts or obnoxious emoticons and memes being posted with little else. ASVS was, like here and SB, where I cut my teeth on navigating the online realm before the Average Joe got onboard and made it a less special place.
or 
Brings back the warm and fuzzies. 
