Well, while it is not possible to actually turn back time, one can go some years back with the help of nostalgia and boy, do we have triggers prepared to set it off; at least for those feeling nostalgic over all things 2000s. Today, we have put some of the best memes shared by the ‘Do You Love The 2000s’ Instagram account on this list for you to enjoy, so scroll down to find them and see if they can take you back to the wild 2000s. In order to learn more about the 2000s nostalgia, Bored Panda turned to a professor of literature and linguistics at Mars Hill University, Hal McDonald, Ph.D., and a professor of psychology at Georgia Gwinnett College, David Ludden, who were kind enough to share their insight on the topic; you will find their thoughts in the text below. While some people hate the said low-rise jeans (which seem to be making a comeback, by the way), others view them as tokens from the past, reminding them of the good old days; especially if those were the days of their youth. Dr. Ludden added that food is another common trigger for nostalgia. “For example, when people talk about ‘comfort food,’ they’re referring to favorite foods from their childhood. And comfort food is very personal. I mean, what you think is comfort food may be very different from me.” The expert continued to explain that one of the reasons why the years 10 to 30 produce so many memories is because virtually every experience we have during those years is something new—first kiss, first day of high school, getting our license, going to college, getting married, getting our first job, having our first child, you get the gist—and new experiences are more memorable than the daily routines that characterize the more stable periods of our lives that we settle into in our 30s, 40s and later in life. Prof. Ludden seconded the idea that many people are nostalgic for their adolescent years, especially high school. “Compared to the stresses of adult work life and the responsibilities of raising a family, high school is a relatively happy and carefree time for many people. “You’re more mobile, you spend more time with friends than family, you’re exploring your identity, you start dating, and so on. But, of course, this isn’t an absolute, and different people can feel nostalgia for different times in their life,” he suggested. “There’s about a 20-year gap between the beginning of the nostalgia bump—our adolescence—and the years we start feeling nostalgic for that time period, so that accounts for the current cultural wave of nostalgia for the 2000s; as it does for the cultural nostalgia for the 1990’s we went through during the 2010s, and the cultural nostalgia we felt for the 1980s in the early 2000s, and so on.” “There’s also an economic aspect to the phenomenon,” McDonald added. “Since people emerging from their 20s into their 30s are starting to play a major role in the economy, nostalgia marketing tends to be directed at that demographic, which right now means that a lot of nostalgia marketing is based on the 2000s.” “For instance, many Americans think of the 1950s as the ‘Happy Days.’ Even though most Americans alive today weren’t even born then, we all know that that was supposedly a happy time for Americans. This is because we tell stories about the ‘good old days’ and the media can reinforce this kind of collective nostalgia. There was even a popular TV show called Happy Days that aired in the 1970s, and it was all about the ‘good old days’ of the 1950s.” “There’s actually a word for that phenomenon. In his 2012 project Dictionary of Obscure Sorrow, American writer John Koenig coined the term ‘anemoia,’ which he defines as ‘Nostalgia for a time or place one has never known’,” Prof. McDonald pointed out. “Psychologists have researched the feeling and some think it has to do with the fact that autobiographical memory is ‘constructive’ rather than ‘reproductive.’ When we retrieve a memory from the past, our brains don’t just replay it like a video, but construct a simulation of the experience out of fragments of sensory memory, in the same way we construct simulations of future experiences we might have, but haven’t had yet. “Since nostalgia is a feeling of yearning for the past, that feeling can be attached to a simulated memory of a past moment we never actually experienced in much the same way it can be attached to a simulated memory of a past moment we did experience,” the professor explained. “That is why the early weeks and months of COVID spawned a tsunami of old TV shows, movies, and music; people reached for nostalgia to alleviate the loneliness, fear, and boredom they felt during lockdown,” he pointed out. And if it’s the 2000s that you find to be the most comforting time, feel free to continue your time travels by browsing these nostalgic pics and memes about the 2000s today’s kids will probably never understand or checking to see if you remember any of these cartoons that raised the kids from the 2000s. Follow Bored Panda on Google News! Follow us on Flipboard.com/@boredpanda! Please use high-res photos without watermarks Ooops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.
