I once read an article trying to explain why the millennial generation feels a certain nostalgia unparalleled by any other generation before us, and it has stuck in my brain like a memory I cannot forget ever since then.
Before learning there was a whole sector of the internet already analyzing and justifying this nostalgic pull, I wondered if I was the only one who thought like this. I would listen to a playlist aptly titled “TBT Songs” and drown in the voices of Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys, looking back on my early years of life with a bittersweet pang in my heart. Simpler times of scrunchies and "Beverly Hills", "90210", and cartoons on Nickelodeon on Saturday mornings that we watched while playing on our Gameboys.
But the more I yearned for these times, the more I was forced to consider a critical fact: I was only four years old by the end of the 90s, and yet I sat listening to "Backstreet's Back" on replay like I remembered the day it was released.
Only I couldn't remember the day it was released because that happened when I was only a year old. So why did I constantly feel this nostalgia? Why did I always feel compelled to like posts on Twitter and Facebook that proclaimed “Only '90s kids will remember this” even though I could genuinely barely recall much from the first four years of my life?
It was simple really; I am a byproduct of a generation in between. That’s what millennials really are—the generation that still clings to the simple wonders of the end of the 20th century but has also been the first to enjoy the splendors of the 21st century. Maybe Y2K didn’t mark the end of the world, but it did mark the end of the world as we knew it. It is hard to ever declare a clear turning point in history, but perhaps the year 2000 really was the beginning of a new era.
As “90s” babies, this part of the millennial generation was thrust nearly head-first into a technological era where innovations occur so quickly, you barely have a chance to catch up before something new comes along. Before we were even fully adjusted to the trends of the 90s, we were plunged into a world of advanced computers and fast internet, new fashion trends and lavish lifestyles. With the world constantly changing around us—and big historical events like the terrorist attacks on September 11th—we were shocked into the 21st century whether we wanted to be or not.
We are not a clearly defined generation like the ones before us were or the ones after us will be. Being on the cusp of a new era is a big weight for us to handle, and it feels almost as though we have nothing concrete of our own to offer the world. Instead, we get to revel in the memories of the past and partake in the dreams shaping the future.
That is why we have such a strong sense of nostalgia. Maybe not because we actually miss things like "Hey Arnold!" and boomboxes, but because everything changed so quickly while we were still growing up that we are fighting so hard to grasp onto those memories while we still have a chance.
And maybe, twenty years from now, I will still be listening to playlists filled with “TBT” songs while I long for something I never truly even had in the first place, just like the rest of my millennial generation.
