Is nostalgia a never-ending story?

If you remember these bad boys, this one might hit a little close to home. CREDIT: PEXELS

TAYLOR PIPE

Iam a millennial. As much as I don’t want to admit it - I am. I was born in the 1900s and remember things like pogs, purple ketchup, and the sweet feeling of eating dunkaroos while sitting on a dirty gymnasium floor. I remember when The Simpsons was actually a good show, I remember when Eminem was Slim Shady and I also remember that time Madonna kissed Britney Spears and Christina Aguileira live on the MTV VMAs.

Which is a huge reason why I am so angry that everything that I once loved, and found nostalgic, is getting a long-awaited sequel or is getting rebooted.

Bel Air, Hocus Pocus 2, Gossip Girl, Wednesday, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - the list goes on. Why are we rebooting things that were perfectly good to begin with? And why the heck is Winnie the Pooh becoming a low-budget horror movie? What is going on with nostalgia lately? I want off this wild ride.

A huge part of it is that millennials are getting older. They’re the biggest generation to walk the planet since baby boomers. Most millennials are roughly 26 to 41. As generations get older, they tend to procreate - which leads us to the next point.

They want to share their childhood experiences with their own children. Or with their fur babies. Most millennials will tell you the late 80s to the 90s was the best time to be a kid. Loaded with sugary cereals, pizza pops and Power Rangers - how could we not believe that?

Since millennials seemingly crave the days before cell phones and social media took over their lives, and since we are the new largest demographic, it makes sense to market to millennials, or the people in Gen Z who are y2k fanatics.

Heck, we even had Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J. Blige play the superbowl show last year. It’s clear that millennials are being targeted and everything is shifting to being marketed toward them, instead of their older counterparts, Gen X and the Baby Boomers.

The same goes for Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The newer version is more dramatic than the original - even if the original did have one of the most heartbreaking scenes of all time.

Cue the: “Why didn’t he want me, man?”

But whether you prefer the originals, (and their catchy theme songs) or you’re a fan of their remakes, we can all agree on one thing:

than the original? I miss Screech.

A lot of the reboots are swapping the tone of the originals. For example, the original Sabrina the Teenage Witch was a lighthearted sitcom that featured a poorly puppeteered talking cat. Whereas the newer version has a darker tone and the Sabrina of this day and age is definitely a bit more risque than Melissa Joan Hart. else? It’s all thanks to a little thing called public domain. 50 years after A.A. MIlne passed away, his beloved characters Winnie the Pooh, Piglet and Eyeore became public domain. That means that nobody owns the intellectual property that is the entity of Winnie the Pooh and therefore, anybody can use it.

The typical rule is to add 50 years after the death of a creator, and then whatever they’ve created becomes public domain and is usable by anyone.

So, here’s the deal with Winnie the Pooh. Him and all his friends - except Tigger, became public domain in January 2022. That meant that anybody could use his likeness for anything.

That’s why we have an extremely unsettling movie where our favourite childhood characters are running around killing people. And more things like this will occur within our lifetime.

I know I said I hated remakes, but this one actually piques my curiosity just because of how absolutely wild it sounds.

One of the things that is making remakes so popular is characters entering the public domain. Have you ever wondered how every celebrity gets away with recording the same holiday song as everyone

Have you noticed that Nicki Minaj’s new song, Super Freaky Girl is rapped overtop of Rick James’ Superfreak? Or did you think it was MC Hammer’s Can’t Touch This?

If you have, then you’re probably like me. Getting mad that everything old is new again and complaining that there are no original ideas anymore.

But this is a phenomenon that’s been happening for decades, actually. Even Aretha Franklin’s hit song Respect is actually an Otis Redding song from 1965. The advent of TV is still relatively new in the grand scheme of things, and it was just a matter of time before that creative restructuring of classics reached our generation.

So when your dad busts in your room while you’re listening to Grrrls by Lizzo to tell you she’s sampling a Beastie Boys song, or when your mom rolls her eyes at Hold Me Closer by Britney Spears and Elton John, know that one day too you’ll be doing the exact same thing with a young person.

We all get older and one day we will all be telling children to “get off our damn lawn and listen to some real music.”

But as long as we don’t mess with Shrek or remix I Write Sins Not Tragedies in the meantime, I’m cool with it. Also,I will admit that I am pretty excited about the new Little Mermaid.