4 ms·

Is there a term for nostalgia for a time and place that one never experienced? Triggered by music or movies or reading about history, some people experience a k

Is there a term for nostalgia for a time and place that one never experienced? Triggered by music or movies or reading about history, some people experience a kind of nostalgia for life in times they never lived and places they've never been to. (A popular one is Japan during the economic boom of the 1980's.)

rightbyte 2y ago
There should be a term for it. A couple of people I know seem nostalgic for Marvel movies but I know they did not read Marvel comics when young at all. Some kind of manufactured nostalgia.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  I didn’t read their comics, but there were Xmen cartoons, plus Spider-Man, when I was a kid. Also the Justice League which of course is different but hey when you are 8 you don’t know that. Also toys. When the Marvel Movies started up I was mostly excited for Iron Man, a character I’d never actually seen in anything, but I had a couple different colored Iron Man’s when I was a little. It turns out that they are mostly all the same guy which is sorta boring. Other people probably were nostalgic for the movie about the silver robot from Marvel vs Capcom.
schneems 2y ago
Reminds me of “Paris syndrome” where people fall in love with the idea of a thing/place and the disillusionment of experiencing the real thing can be so violent that people can have panic attacks. Not what you’re talking about exactly, but it seems like a similar vibe.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome BTW we got to meet the psychiatrist who coined the term, he went independant and was still practicing with a florishing business in Paris mainly targeting Japanese patients.
brippalcharrid 2y ago
Hiraeth is a Welsh word that describes a longing for a place that cannot be visited, perhaps because it no longer exists or has never existed.
BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
Anemoia https://www.thedictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/concept/anemoia https://www.thedictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/concept/anemoi... https://aeon.co/essays/nostalgia-doesnt-need-real-memories-an-imagined-past-works-as-well https://aeon.co/essays/nostalgia-doesnt-need-real-memories-a...
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  I enjoy soviet-era rock, which wasn't really a thing until the 1980s, but to better understand its context, I've sampled a fair number of 1970s VIAs as well. The strangest thing happened while I was watching Частное пионерское 2 (set in 1979, including computer printed samizdat): a song I knew came on in the background, and I had a very strong nostalgic sensation, as if I had just heard "Heart of Glass" as diegetic music — but for music I'd never heard before this century and YouTube (2005).
omnibrain 2y ago
Have a look at the portuguese word "saudade": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade
achairapart 2y ago
Check out Hauntology[0] by French philosopher Jacques Derrida (also used as a music genre[1]). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauntology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauntology [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauntology_(music) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauntology_(music)
neilv 2y ago
I actually felt something like that, both times I played the LA Noire video game, years apart. (It's a film noire-ish detective story set in booming postwar Los Angeles, with a mostly open world you can drive around in accurate models of period cars, and walk around.) I didn't feel that because it was a nice social environment (it wasn't), nor did I want to be the traditional white male head of household (it was especially not-nice for POC and women), and I actually dislike cars. I think what caused the feeling was the immersion in the prosperity, and new/recent construction, which seemed accessible to most. (While in real life living in overpriced, deteriorating old New England apartments.) I'd guess the game atmosphere like background music also contributed. It's a persistent general feeling of curiosity tinged with melancholy while in the game, longing for something I want maybe more than I realize, but that I believe doesn't exist or is inaccessible.
xandrius 2y ago
A word for it is "sehnsucht".
- holgerschurig 2y ago
  "Sehnsucht" is however more general than the seeked word "Fernweh". See my other post on "Heimweh" vs. "Fernweh" here.
pessimizer 2y ago
Minstrelsy? Pretendianism? Xenophilia? Autobiographical mythomania? Media addiction? edit: weeaboo?
miki123211 2y ago
I would say the US is a far more common one, outside the US of course. Maybe not as much now because of the "gun", "bad healthcare" and "expensive college" memes (in the scientific sense of the word "meme"), but it definitely used to be a thing.
holgerschurig 2y ago
In German language we have two compound works: * "Heimweh" (what the articles names as "Nostalgia") * "Fernweh" The common part, "weh", means something like the english "hurt". "Heim" means "home" "Fern" means "abroad" or "distant". Since Germans are VERY travel friendly (e.g. if we can pay for it, we do one holiday per year in a foreign country), we're people that have a high amount of "Fernweh". But ... "Fernweh" for us is mostly only some mild kind of yearning. If we cannot travel, e.g. due to finances or due to COVID-19, we won't die. The extreme form of "Heimweh" described in the article however is some kind of serious illness. Something that one will never attribute to "Fernweh".
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

rightbyte 2y ago

There should be a term for it. A couple of people I know seem nostalgic for Marvel movies but I know they did not read Marvel comics when young at all. Some kind of manufactured nostalgia.

bee_rider 2y ago
I didn’t read their comics, but there were Xmen cartoons, plus Spider-Man, when I was a kid. Also the Justice League which of course is different but hey when you are 8 you don’t know that. Also toys. When the Marvel Movies started up I was mostly excited for Iron Man, a character I’d never actually seen in anything, but I had a couple different colored Iron Man’s when I was a little. It turns out that they are mostly all the same guy which is sorta boring. Other people probably were nostalgic for the movie about the silver robot from Marvel vs Capcom.

schneems 2y ago

Reminds me of “Paris syndrome” where people fall in love with the idea of a thing/place and the disillusionment of experiencing the real thing can be so violent that people can have panic attacks. Not what you’re talking about exactly, but it seems like a similar vibe.

makeitdouble 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome BTW we got to meet the psychiatrist who coined the term, he went independant and was still practicing with a florishing business in Paris mainly targeting Japanese patients.

brippalcharrid 2y ago

Hiraeth is a Welsh word that describes a longing for a place that cannot be visited, perhaps because it no longer exists or has never existed.

BugsJustFindMe 2y ago

Anemoia https://www.thedictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/concept/anemoia https://www.thedictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/concept/anemoi... https://aeon.co/essays/nostalgia-doesnt-need-real-memories-an-imagined-past-works-as-well https://aeon.co/essays/nostalgia-doesnt-need-real-memories-a...

082349872349872 2y ago
I enjoy soviet-era rock, which wasn't really a thing until the 1980s, but to better understand its context, I've sampled a fair number of 1970s VIAs as well. The strangest thing happened while I was watching Частное пионерское 2 (set in 1979, including computer printed samizdat): a song I knew came on in the background, and I had a very strong nostalgic sensation, as if I had just heard "Heart of Glass" as diegetic music — but for music I'd never heard before this century and YouTube (2005).

omnibrain 2y ago

Have a look at the portuguese word "saudade": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade

achairapart 2y ago

Check out Hauntology[0] by French philosopher Jacques Derrida (also used as a music genre[1]). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauntology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauntology [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauntology_(music) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauntology_(music)

neilv 2y ago

I actually felt something like that, both times I played the LA Noire video game, years apart. (It's a film noire-ish detective story set in booming postwar Los Angeles, with a mostly open world you can drive around in accurate models of period cars, and walk around.) I didn't feel that because it was a nice social environment (it wasn't), nor did I want to be the traditional white male head of household (it was especially not-nice for POC and women), and I actually dislike cars. I think what caused the feeling was the immersion in the prosperity, and new/recent construction, which seemed accessible to most. (While in real life living in overpriced, deteriorating old New England apartments.) I'd guess the game atmosphere like background music also contributed. It's a persistent general feeling of curiosity tinged with melancholy while in the game, longing for something I want maybe more than I realize, but that I believe doesn't exist or is inaccessible.

xandrius 2y ago

A word for it is "sehnsucht".

holgerschurig 2y ago
"Sehnsucht" is however more general than the seeked word "Fernweh". See my other post on "Heimweh" vs. "Fernweh" here.

pessimizer 2y ago

Minstrelsy? Pretendianism? Xenophilia? Autobiographical mythomania? Media addiction? edit: weeaboo?

miki123211 2y ago

I would say the US is a far more common one, outside the US of course. Maybe not as much now because of the "gun", "bad healthcare" and "expensive college" memes (in the scientific sense of the word "meme"), but it definitely used to be a thing.

holgerschurig 2y ago

In German language we have two compound works: * "Heimweh" (what the articles names as "Nostalgia") * "Fernweh" The common part, "weh", means something like the english "hurt". "Heim" means "home" "Fern" means "abroad" or "distant". Since Germans are VERY travel friendly (e.g. if we can pay for it, we do one holiday per year in a foreign country), we're people that have a high amount of "Fernweh". But ... "Fernweh" for us is mostly only some mild kind of yearning. If we cannot travel, e.g. due to finances or due to COVID-19, we won't die. The extreme form of "Heimweh" described in the article however is some kind of serious illness. Something that one will never attribute to "Fernweh".

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]