this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2026
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Not just music! (Though that is probably the strongest example)
It's telling how many people are nostalgic for a society that only existed before they were born. Recent History education sucks.
The one that surprises me is TV. It has objectively improved in quality so much, it’s basically on par with movies at this point. Writing, acting, costuming, all of it. I’d never claim that TV from the 90s was superior to now, even though I was a teen back then.
I will absolutely argue that TV was better between 2006-2016 than 2016-2026. I think the detailed ratings (especially on streaming) ended up feeding studio decisionmaking into shallower works that their algorithms suggested audiences would like, and that we lost something in the process. The collapse of mid budget basic cable original programming also has hurt the genre as a whole.
Also, there's nothing quite like a high budget but mediocre show, that looks visually stunning but just doesn't resonate with you.
Damn we humans are bad as shit as forming our subjective opinion that doesnt get extremely distorted by nostalgia
I always go back to that line from Men in Black about the difference between a person and people.
In aggregate we really are the worst.
People often forget that nostalgia is the secret spice that makes the past great.... not the actual past.
And nostalgia is nothing more than there's shit happening in our brains at 10ish-20ish that doesn't happen any other time. Hormones and energy and lack of responsibilty and first experience bias combine to create a dopamine cocktail we cannot recreate.
I mean, I'll die on the hill of 90s was the best music, TV, movies, video games, and fashion. But I know that it's not objectively true. But that's how it feels for sure.
I feel like it has way more to do with how knowledgeable you were at the time. Kids generally don't have the most critical eye for any of those things and most people don't go back to see what they missed.
I just said to a friend this morning, "every kid's favorite movie is the last movie they saw"
I'm way too analytical to fall into that curve, and I'm sure most people on Lemmy are like that too. Like, we literally have data going back decades on most of these metrics, so why are people even going with their gut? Quite a few are literally numbers you can check!
But alas, your average nobody ignores data...
It would be interesting to see that study carried out in other countries as well. In my country, for example, many older people will tell the tales from hiperinflation and how they had episodes of starvation when younger. I believe most people would agree with the best economy being post mid-90s, only varying on when, so it woud give a considerade skew to that chart.