Although we don't think of the 2010s as nostalgic yet, Ian told us what he thinks could qualify for his page from that decade. He calls it a 'very digital time.' "The 2010s was a decade of struggle, hate, retribution, and massive division. Trump, Brexit, #Metoo, austerity, and over-sensitivity. It was the age of streaming music and TV. The birth of TikTok and silly dances. Snapchats and Roblox. It’s a very digital time."
"I'm biased, obviously. If one is talking of nostalgia, all that goes out of the window. People remember with nostalgia the good things," the creator also added in a previous conversation with Bored Panda. And he does strike a nerve here – there is such a thing as nostalgia bias. Christopher J. Ferguson, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Stetson University, wrote about why we are so attached to our "mediocre childhoods."
What is nostalgia bias exactly? According to Ferguson's article on Psychology Today, it's "our tendency to overinterpret the positive aspects of the past." He explains how we tend to remember only the good things we experience from our childhood. We might remember our high school with a pang of nostalgia even if we've experienced bullying and loneliness during our time there.
Ferguson suggests one explanation for this. Maybe nostalgia is a normal part of evaluating our past lives and understanding mortality. "Perhaps it's natural to relive our imperfect childhoods as we take stock of the entirety of our lives," he writes.
"Perhaps the best way of thinking of it is that I rather liked the little guy who was the younger me. With the wisdom of age, perhaps I could have handled the challenges of some of those experiences better. But sadly, there are no do-overs."
