Ambient Nostalgia
07.25.07By Collin DavidDeanna’s been talking a whole lot about nostalgia and it’s relationship to collecting, and recently, those talismanic toys of the 1980s. Of course, when the conversation turns to He-Man and Ninja Turtles, I’m inclined to chime in.
As one of those 80’s nostalgia kids, and being only 25, I fall directly into the retro-collectibles demographic. And I’m a sucker for it, as are a vast majority of my friends. I think that beyond even pure market value and simple nostalgia for the items themselves, we all have one thing important thing in common : we’re actively unhappy with the way the world is turning out, which is unabashedly violent and complicated and divorced from our own personal goals and ideals. Plus, no Jetsons cars, teleportation, or 
robots to do our bidding / make sweet love to. We were promised these things and we’ve come to collect. But mostly, my friends and I are all political subversives in our own casual ways.
As a result of the current sociopolitical climate, all of us seem to hearken back to a time when the sociopolitical concerns and the frontiers of destructive sciences were so much simpler. I’ve discussed this at length with my comrades-in-nostalgia, as well as some older generations, inquiring of them if things were in fact a lot simpler just 20 years ago, or if it was just my youthful perceptions that were coloring things so damned rosy - and while the word ’simpler’ is subjective, the response was unanimous - yes, things are more complicated now. To be incredibly general about it, some things are better, and some things are worse - but it remains complicated.
THIS, I believe more than anything else, has been affecting the insurgence of the 80’s toy market. Us children who spent their formative years concerned with Krang’s exploits in the Techodrome, or how Egon was going to ensnare the spectre du jour, or the secret adventures of Lion-O on Thundera. Us sympathetic pseudo-denizens of Tatooine. We remember these times, but it’s not only our explicit love of the TV shows and that lenticular Eye of Thundera premium rings from Burger King. The key to the appeal of these things also resides in the ambient memories, ostensibly unrelated to the objects of our nostalgia-lust. And now, we have some disposable income.
When I think of riding my bike to my friend’s house to play Astyanax on the NES, I have an organic memory of fearlessness. We were not, at that time, in a world where every week held a new announcement of an abducted child or three, and I could ride my bike unconcerned. The ozone layer wasn’t quite so thin, employment wasn’t quite so difficult and the cost of living wasn’t quite so high. These shiny, flashing, plastic things existed, and are charming by their own virtues - but they also are representative of a better time, not just a cartoon show.
I’m certain that ‘better’ is also an arguable adjective, but I can tell you that my young, restless comrades and I can usually be temporarily sated by a boxful of Ninja Turtles - and even in the middle of our social and emotional unrest, it’s tangible proof that things can be simpler, and things can get back on the right track, and in a general sense, that spells out hope. And that’s where ‘collecting’ comes in - our senses reconnecting with something physical, and the need to consume it in quantity. Maybe Muppet Babies was a really stupid show - I don’t honestly remember, but I do remember watching it every Saturday while eating biscuits and bacon, and then playing in the yard and building lizard cages on the back porch. Buying a Muppet Babies DVD will never be the equivalent of being back in those times, feeling the same things, thinking the same magical thoughts, having all of your hair back and not regretting that skeevy girl you hooked up with in college, and that’s probably why I’m always looking for the next fleeting connection to the ‘better’ times. Each small memory is brief and powerful, but they fade in a modern context.
Deanna’s answer on ‘whether or not to sell your 80s toys now’ was more than complete, but as someone who is both actively buying and selling relics from my 1980s childhood, I can tell you that my personal attraction waxes and wanes. The happier I am with how my life is moving forward, the less I have the need to nest myself in regression. In the many, many times when I find myself floundering in depression, I built up a fort of NES games and couch cushions around me and shut out the scary world. So are us children of the 80s who actively collect these things just a gathering of malcontents?
Maybe, but we’re not dangerous.
