Back To The Future

In the past I've speculated that the internet is so big that it has moved on from everything being on the internet somewhere, to putting every combination of things on the net, starting with geeky things. That had been further confirmed today: superheroes combined with the stars of British post-punk? check. 

(That was pretty funny, but they should have included "The Uncanny XTC-Men.")

I made the mistake of glancing at the comments, the first of which speculated that the 80's musicians featured would be before-the-time of most of the site's readers. Subsequent comments didn't come right out and say, "shut up you humourless troll," but their praise of the content seemed to imply it.

That stuck in my mind because later in the day I heard the song "Lifted Up" by Passion Pit on the radio, which has the corus, “1985 was a good year.” That’s odd, since their singer-songwriter Michael Angelakos was born in 1987.  So what's with young people hanging out with their parents' decade?

I noticed a long time ago that there's a kind of constantly moving window of nostalgia. When I first became conscious of popular culture in the 1980's, nostalgia pretty much meant the birth of rock and roll through to the end of the 60's. As time went on, the seventies were added, and then the fifties were quietly dropped. That always seemed sad; it's bad enough when your favourite music slips out of style, but it has to be much worse to know it will never be back.  So I've been kind of dreading the day when I will take my place along side the Chuck Berry fans on the Island of Unwanted Culture.

With all that in mind I have to ask: is out just me, or are the eighties hanging around longer than expected? Although the generational troll in the comments I mentioned earlier has a point about today's young people not being familiar with eighties musicians, the counter-argument is that demographics be damned, people just keep revisiting that decade.  I mean, two different Ghostbusters reboots?

You wouldn't think the eighties would be the decade that keeps going and going.  The people who have the closest connection to it are Generation X, who are fewer in number.  Maybe it's just a fun decade; you can image how much trouble the Internet is going to have doing a mash-up of Lord of the Rings characters and Grunge stars.  Maybe it's how easy it is to consume media today.  For instance, I as a child didn't really have a chance to view movies from thirty-years earlier even if I had the inclination to do so.  But the various incarnations of home video has ensured that - starting in the eighties - people can revisit past movies.  Whatever the reason, I won't be questioning the decade's longevity, since it keeps me from feeling too old.