Return of the Blog - Re: Nostalgia

"No, what? Why?" ask the ten former readers.

I used to do this back in the day - blogging. 

This would have been in the early days of “Web 2.0” - for those of you who are not computer literate (or, like me, barely computer literate), that term denotes the move away from simple, olde fashioned, handcrafted websites into our current social media hellscape. 

Basically, we used to have a bunch of pages with bizarre and random facts about, I don’t know, sexy Bigfoots and other hot cryptids or something, run by devoted nerds. Now we have streams of soulless commercially targeted, AI generated rage-bait displayed on tiny computers that we keep in our pockets at all times, because you never know when you might need a little hit of anger and dopamine to get you through the day!

Anyway, kids: blogs were like a bridge connecting the old to the new - they were user generated and updated occasionally but still run by devoted nerds (cough cough, me) with eccentric interests.

Nostalgia

To confess, I’ve been feeling it lately, that nostalgia - not unusual for people drowning in the sea of existential dread that our daily lives have become. Humans have been suffering the exquisite pain of nostalgia pretty much forever. I’m sure there were plenty of hovel-bound spelt farmers who missed the good old days of gathering berries and hunting animals in the open plains, forgetting of course that sometimes the berries tasted like ass and sometimes the animals hunted you back.

My blog was called Clever Title - a title which I honestly and quite sadly believed at the time to be clever. My last post was in 2013 and was a shameless plug for some sketch comedy shows. I did a lot of that; it was the precursor to the “like and subscribe” mentality of modern day life on the internet.

Still, things have changed a lot since 2013. Back then, I lived in Chicago - a beautiful city that is currently under occupation by the national guard for nonsense reasons. Now I live in Los Angeles - a beautiful city that is still somehow under a reduced occupation by the national guard for nonsense reasons. In 2013, the national guard occupied (to my knowledge) no cities in the United States for any reason, nonsense or otherwise. Please award one point to Nostalgia.

Between dropping off the face of the blogging world and resurfacing here, I went on to get an MFA in Screenwriting (a terrible financial decision but a great life decision otherwise), found a job doing development work in independent film where I’ve managed a couple of opportunities to write on film projects. Most importantly, I met my wonderful wife and started a family. Please award one point for… the opposite of Nostalgia?

What would that be, the opposite of nostalgia? Acceptance of the moment? Contentment? Funny that there’s not a dedicated word for this - maybe the Germans have one. Those Germans tend to have very specific words. If anyone knows German and can think of a word for this phenomenon, please hit me up.

One of the great bummers about screenwriting, though, is that if the movie or the show doesn’t get shot and released then nobody knows you’ve done anything. Don't get me wrong - I'm incredibly grateful and excited for the opportunities that I have in the works. But still, there is no reading audience for screenplays. Have you ever read a screenplay? Likely, no. They’re bizarre. The formatting is funky and the sentences are stilted and weird. Trust me, I read them for a living. It’s like looking at a blue print - you can see hints of what the building might look like but without actual bricks and mortar nobody’s going to care.

So now I long for the “good old days” when I had an audience of, like, ten devoted readers and a smattering of random people from, like, Sweden who happened to stumble across a post while searching for something tangentially related to a subject of interest (Hej, Sverige!).

I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you, reader. I’ve missed you, Sweden. 

Regression

And so, I fall back on former modes of expression - I suppose to feel like I have some modicum of control over my creative life. This is the comfort of nostalgia: if we can just return to “the way things were” then surely we’ll be as happy as we were back then. Right? Right??

Well it turns out that nostalgia, despite seeming like a comforting blanket, can also smother you. 

I don’t know if y’all saw, but lately there’s been this AI generated video going around about how great Walmart was in 2002. Walmart! The giant predatory store that killed and ate all smaller stores! The glorified warehouse thing that gives me nervous hives just walking into it! A low(er) rent Target! And in 2002, of all years!

I’d link to the video here, but it is unadulterated garbage and also I’m worried that invoking it might conjure the AI slop demons and unwittingly invite them onto my website, like saying “Bloody Mary” into the mirror three times. I cross my fingers at you, Grok. The power of Christ compels you - begone!

I’m old enough to have lived through 2002. Of all the years that I could wish to relive, 2002 is maybe towards the bottom of the list. Certainly above 2020, although it seems like we’re determined to relive aspects of 2020 pretty much every year now for the foreseeable future. Welcome back, protests! Welcome back, pandemics! Welcome back, excellently efficient governance by a pack of non-incompetent… I can’t even finish this bit. Call it Covid fatigue.

What even was 2002? The War on Terror? Rampant islamophobia and paranoia? Desperately trying to claw our way out of a recession only to plunge into a bigger one in a few years? Hoobastank?

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones? Who wants to relive that? 

I suppose for certain folks, maybe those who were less aware of what was going on (like, children) or who were insulated from the horrors of that particular year (people who missed Star Wars: Attack of the Clones), there may be some appeal in harkening back to a time where they weren’t confronted with real life quite so often or so directly. That confrontation is inescapable in our current media environment - we’re assaulted by everything happening everywhere all the time, via those rage-baiting pocket computers that we love so very much.

This is the allure of nostalgia - to reminisce about the nice things that we think we remember while forgetting or neglecting our myriad problems. This is why it’s not always so productive, and why it threatens to strangle us. 

Don’t think about how lonely you were at the time because your self-destructive behavior destroyed every close personal relationship you ever had - yes, even with Nana! Instead, meditate on how great you had it, living the lone-wolf lifestyle with no responsibilities to anybody except, of course, to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and resolve to do everything you can to reclaim that momentary high, like the one you felt by getting your money back after beating those prostitutes to death in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and ya know I’m starting to see maybe 2002 was a bit problematic after all.

When you idealize the past, you do not interrogate the past. When you do not interrogate the past, you have no chance of learning from the past. You are instead stuck in a loop of chasing a feeling that never existed. These are the sort of unhelpful behaviors that snake oil salesmen, social media algorithms, politicians, etc. exploit for their own gain. 

This is why certain someones are so desperate to stop teaching real history in schools. This is why certain someones want you to wax poetic about turn-of-the-Millennium Walmart and the War on Terror. This is why certain someones, who publicly claim to be defenders of the First Amendment, are so desperate to tamp down your ability to exercise your freedom of speech.

Use It or Lose It

And yet, for all that griping about nostalgia, here I am dipping my toe back in the waters a little bit. What can I say? I’m just another flawed meatbag, much like anyone else. I crave attention and comfort and the feeling of doing something.

But in thinking back on my old blogging days, I do feel some comfort in that I am maybe more clear eyed than the average nostalgic. Because truth be told I really wasn’t very good at it.

My “process” was usually scanning the news for something to be snarky about, or else to complain about some minor thing that happened to me or to talk about some show or meal that I really liked. If I went full-bore and actually reread the blog beyond just a passing glance, I might only find one or two posts to feel legitimately proud of - there was one such that actually spawned a minor holiday/fundraising event for my old sketch group that I like but even still I probably could have written it better - and then I’d end up feeling hopelessly embarrassed by the rest. 

I can remember that time for me as a writer - desperate for a voice of my own but without much of anything to say. I hope I’ve grown into someone with more substance, though I guess time will tell. 

So let’s try this one more time. I have a decently sized piece of satire I’ve already written that I’m very excited about that I’ll be dropping here in chunks pretty soon here. I’m looking forward to exploring fiction and newsletter writing and, heck, just seeing what feels good and taking my time to put out things that I actually enjoy.

God, give me something to say this time. I’d like to put some sort of good out into the world if I’m able. 

Although, history being what it is, I make no promises.