The Emotional Cost of Nostalgia | Ephemerality and Collecting

We’re looking at the emotional cost of nostalgia this week on the Videocast as well as ephemerality and the anxieties of collecting!

music:
Auto Modellista - Track 25
TMNT 4 (SNES) Music: Skull & Crossbones 

Clips used:

Theme: La Card - Za Tebe

I do not own any of the content presented. Credit to the copyright holders and thanks to the original uploaders.

For the purpose of review/education.

[TheCurtRoberts]

I have found YouTube to be very therapeutic for my own personal nostalgia. Just about every cool toy I ever had is on multiple YT channels run by collectors. And I enjoy supporting them🙂

[elpipiripau]

Hobby Collecting: To those who understand, no explanation is necessary. To those who don't understand, no explanation will do. 🎤👋

[stationminute]

Occasionally I'll get these waves of absolute regret over long-gone comic books and toys I owned when I was a kid. I'll look them up on online and see the insane money they go for now and I just have to accept that it's out of my price range. The only thing that keeps me level is the realization no amount of money will bring back the actual exact thing I lost -- only a different copy of it. The one I owned, the one I cherished, is gone forever.

[redroversk]

my collecting is things I was never allowed to have growing up so I'm not really reliving anything, just more developmentally arrested by bad luck and shit parents

[stevedenis]

Collecting dust is the best hobby it is cheep and easy to start and maintain. What really sucks about collecting is when you decide to sell with high hopes for a big pay out and it is virtually worthless. collect for your own enjoyment and collect what you can afford.

[Monkey_Boy]

I've been a collector since I was 12 years old, starting with comic books. I was never one who collected them in the hopes of getting rich one day, but because I liked the artwork and thought the stories were fun. I discovered that the Omnibus existed a few years ago, so I gave my comic collection to my daughter and I 've started yet another one!

When toymakers finally started making toys look more like the characters, I started collecting them as well. Especially Build-A-Figures! (I have 35 of them. Including Pitt & Timmy, Fin Fang Foom, the 14" Apocalypse, and Galactus.)

I never intended to collect a bunch of Simpsons stuff, but since I'm a huge Simpsons fan, my brother got me a Playmates Bart figure for my birthday, but I liked Homer the most, so I went and got him. Then I wanted the whole family because what's the point of having just the two of them? After that, it became "How many can I get?", and now I basically have an entire wall dedicated to The Simpsons!

I even have an extensive collection of movies on DVD & BD. Over 1, 000 altogether.

I told my family that when I die, let everyone come and grab the things they want. The rest, I want placed in the coffin with me so that only my face shows (like E.T. in the closet). Whatever can't fit, they can just throw on top of the coffin after it's lowered instead of flowers. I want to be buried with my treasures, like the pharaohs of old.

[theoldar]

Try being a historian! The passing of time is always with you. I started studying history at the college level in 1970's. Think how much farther in the past World War 1 is now than when I first taught college lessons about it in 1984!

[nope]

Maybe I feel a bit targeted by the thumbnail and the video using old TMNT as an example (cuz I collect vintage TMNT toys)...but I digress.

There is definitely a problem with nostalgia obsession in our culture. But not everyone who indulges in it is some state of arrested development and sadly clinging to the past.
Engaging in nostalgia does not automatically equate to being a slave to it.

Some of us are perfectly capable of indulging in hobbies and still being adults and know how to compartmentalize these things. And we're still capable of expanding our interests. I don't JUST collect toys. I'm a cinema buff. And I go out of my way to explore as much varied cinema as I can.

Same with novels, etc.

And I'm not JUST my hobbies. I'm a adult. With a job. With bills. With a social life.

Maybe the problem with capitalism crushing our very beings that's the real issue...not people who have fun collecting stuff they like.

[wst]

When my grandmother died, I went to her house the next morning to help with her stuff. I'll never forget pulling up to the house and seeing a dumpster in the driveway. Inside the dumpster were trinkets from her travels, photos, paintings, clothes, dishes, and a bunch of other stuff that nobody wanted. One of the paintings was one that I commented on when I was a kid. She thought it was cute and said she would save it for me and I could have it when she was gone. Over the years, any time she caught me looking at it, she would tell me it's going to be mine someday. Now, there it was, sitting in the dumpster. I could have rescued it and taken it home, but it was rather large and in a gaudy gold frame. Ultimately, I thought, where am I going to put that so I let it go. It made me realize that 90% of the things you have and cherish now are going to be thrown out one day. The rest will either be sold or kept by family members.

[NexusARC]

My buddy sold his Transformer's collection for land. It was beautiful.

[theoldar]

As far as collecting, I only collect what I have room to display. Nothing is ever in boxes. I collect fossils, video game consoles (but not rare games), and Roman coins, but only a limited number of each category, and I never collect anything that is expensive.

[nicholasbullock]

Collecting toys, games, movies is no different than collecting art and music. People hang paintings and listen to music to evoke wide ranges of emotions. Games and toys provide the same feelings and with the bonus of being able to interact with them.

[michaelquinones-lxks]

As the old saying goes, 'Enjoy It While You Can' almost everything is a fad they just come and go.

[toonman]

At 63, I see the wisdom in this video. I am a collector of many things and feel overwhelmed that much of it has become a burden. My wife even joked at one point of using a dumpster when I die and I was so taken aback that it became a topic of much discussion. My solution is to make a list of the categories of what I have and where it is located so an antique dealer can come and get it. This is the best I can do at this time.

[acrodave]

I collect vintage toys, it's simply a hobby. When I die, it'll go to my family and they can sell it or throw it away, I won't care on account of me being dead. I don't even care what it's worth as I never sell anything, let my family worry about that!Humans are creatures made of memory and sometimes the best memories are those you can see and touch in the present; without the things that they have, humans are nothing more than clever animals. Perhaps we ARE nothing more than clever animals, but we can be clever animals and also have fun just being that! 😁

[davebooshty]

The Heavy Price Of Nostalgia To Me at 54 Years old is the overall can be huge amounts of Storage for Such Stuff things and objects and such.

[ajthefunkmonster]

I used to collect comic strip treasuries (FoxTrot, Calvin & Hobbes, Garfield, Baby Blues, etc). When COVID hit, I went through
a lot of personal BS and came to the conclusion I can't enjoy certain comics like I used to; last summer,
I donated a few to my library and I honestly don't miss them, but I still have fond memories of reading them years ago 😅

[SuperSwimTeam]

I really loved this video man, put a lot of things into words that I've struggled with. Thanks for making it

[niveketihw]

I'm 49 and I had to come to terms with the fact that around 99.6% of the stuff I want / wanted to read, listen to, watch, and play... I'll never experience in my entire life.

Has helped me control my spending and collecting.

One day in about 1996 I was at Target with my buddy and his girlfriend. I was checking out the awesome new LEGOs with my buddy while his girlfriend went and shopped. When she came back to get us, we realized we wouldn't be going home with any of those sets, and would probably never build them. He said "some day when we're younger." That always stuck with me. It's sad. It's wistful. But it's reality.

EDIT: one other thing I realized a while back is that there are really only two things I love in this world: dopamine and serotonin. It's all the same brain chemicals that let you enjoy life. Be happy with what you're doing at the time (in your leisure time), because life's too short to be worrying about missing out on something else -- remember, that something else produces the same chemicals as the thing you're doing now.

[augustascetic]

In trying to downsize, I made some decisions that I regret. I got rid of a lot of comic books but in doing so, I realized that I inadvertently got rid of three issues that I really want to keep. It was regrettable so I had to Re-buy them.