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It's like Synthwave, which was never a thing in the 80s. It's a modern reinvention of how people assume the 80s felt, filtered through a gauzy haze of nostalgi
by TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
It's like Synthwave, which was never a thing in the 80s.
It's a modern reinvention of how people assume the 80s felt, filtered through a gauzy haze of nostalgia for an imaginary pop culture that never existed in that form.
Which is similar to computing and other tech nostalgia. An Amiga was out there on the edge in the 80s, now it's a source of fond reminiscence. Likewise 1980s music equipment, especially synthesizers.
The modern anti-pop-culture equivalent would be asking what's out on the edge today. And there isn't much, because the vibe of computing - actually the vibe of everything - has changed from excited exploration and boundary breaking with constant invention and surprises, to backward-looking and derivative commoditised corporate consumption and collectorism, and the generation of content and items for same.
The most innovative thing at the moment - AI - is an evolving set of automated systems for summarising what has already been generated, rather than for generating something completely new from out of left field.
- ben7799 4y agoThe Amiga is such a perfect example. I grew up in the 80s in a software engineering household and all my parents friends were likewise engineers in the computer industry. So I grew up and ended up in the industry too. I was around lots and lots of different computers that were not common in the 80s due to being a "tailgate" kid into facilities. And yet I've still never seen an Amiga in person I think, and I have never had a "IRL" friend who ever had one either. And yet you'd think from nostalgia that we all had them in the 80s.
- googlryas 4y ago(in the style of manya, Seinfeld's elderly relation): I had an Amiga!
- thewebcount 4y ago> It's like Synthwave, which was never a thing in the 80s. > It's a modern reinvention of how people assume the 80s felt, filtered through a gauzy haze of nostalgia for an imaginary pop culture that never existed in that form. Not really. I write Synthwave music, and I was alive in the 80s and writing similar music back then. I have a deep respect for the bands that pioneered the way via New Wave and Industrial music at the time. I really enjoyed at the time and still enjoy things like the incidental music in Miami Vice, for example. (And Jan Hammer, who wrote much of it, has an interesting history going back to Mahavishnu Orchestra, for example.) It sounds like your own experience is different than that, but don't assume everyone who's into something are into it for naive reasons.