The longest blog post title in the history of ever.
Yes, Mr. Wheat we remember you and the entire gang.I’m sorry I’m not getting anything off my chest, with a nod to Kevin Hart I’m about to say this with my chest… You, I, we, them, they, dem, nem all remember unless there is a neurological challenge that prevents us from remembering. There are public/pop culture memories and of course private memories. Today I’m taking on the public/pop culture memories and the cottage media outlets that have sprung up around this need for nostalgia.
It’s not that I have a disdain for nostalgia. I have lots of fantastic memories surrounding the tools, toys, shows, clothes and music of my childhood and teenage/young adult years. I go there in my mind from time to time… but I cannot stay there, because if I do I am no good to myself or anyone else because all we have is right now. Oh I get it. We cling to the nostalgic because it is familiar, it gives us comfort and reminds us of a happier time in most cases (although if we were honest the good old days weren’t always good).
Again, I don’t want anyone to think that I’m advocating for forgetting one’s past or not looking back to celebrate and remember when things were different and perhaps when the bar was higher. But if we are really honest what good does that do? Like, seriously: thinking and remembering are one thing but actually working in the now and doing something is completely different.
But my really, really big beef *Cue B.J. Thomas* is a trend that I have seen as of late that is a complete lowest common denominator race to the bottom for clicks, likes and views.
I really wish some of these sites would stop with the “Do you remember when so and so celebrity did this or that bad thing?” What is the point? It’s not news. I’m not saying we should pretend that people haven’t had challenges and sordid activities in their lives and that they are entitled to get a pass because that part of their life has passed but then again that part in their life and all of our lives has passed because we’re in the present. That’s not nostalgia, that is a form of communication necrophilia. Why? Because the attraction is to the salacious “Did you know???” but the offending act has long since died and in many cases the persons in the headlines have passed on as well.
No, this isn’t to say we should look for a sanitized version of what life is… to the contrary I think that when we are well-informed about persons and the totality of who they are or were with proper context it does give us insight. No my beef is with recycled yellow journalism, lazy recycled yellow journalism at that… if you want to reach into the past in this arena tell us something we don’t or didn’t know. Yes, certainly we cannot know everything and some things we missed because of our age, but to post common knowledge as something that is ground breaking is not ground breaking at all, it’s just, well, common.
Ivan Orr is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, performer, and writer. A native of Charlottesville, Virginia Ivan was involved with the forming and nascent days of The Music Resource Center as its first Program Director. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Music, Ivan currently resides in Richmond, VA where he maintains an active performance and production schedule while serving as the Music Editor for Grown Folks Music, a position he has held since 2010.