30 Times People Were So Blinded By Their Own Nostalgia, The Internet Called Them Out For It (New Pics)
Interview
Ah, The Good Old Days(™)! A time when everything was (allegedly) better: the music, the food, and even the fabric of society. Though… which era are we talking about, specifically? For some, it might be the ‘70s and ‘80s. For others, it’s the ‘90s and early 2000s. While others yearn to live a century or two ago, periods they never experienced firsthand.
Nostalgia is great in small doses, but too much of it can make you miss the beauty of the present. The r/lewronggeneration subreddit is a witty online community that is “dedicated to satirically mocking” folks who are completely and utterly “blinded by their own nostalgia.” We’ve collected some of their most cringeworthy posts to show you how many people wear rose-colored glasses to an unhealthy extent.
Bored Panda got in touch with the team that runs r/lewronggeneration, and one of the moderators, u/oh_dangit, was kind enough to answer our questions. Read on to see what they told us.
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J’accuse!
Like Three People Will Get This
Well, I'm one (I grew up with cassette tapes). So.... who are the other two here?
Inverse Reversal
I found my dad's old Gameboy today. Sad thing is it doesn't work, but his gamestar does
We were interested to get the moderator's take on why the r/lewronggeneration subreddit has seen so much success over the years. "I think that the anti-nostalgia baiting message that is attached to the subreddit and has been there since its inception resonates with a lot of people who don't have strong feelings of nostalgia for one thing or another," u/oh_dangit told Bored Panda.
"One of the core beginnings was based on music; such as people who becry musicians nowadays for creating their own sound and making it unique to themselves," they said.
We were also curious to find out more about what it's like to moderate an online community of this size. According to u/oh_dangit, being a moderator mostly "comes down to dealing with spam and people leaving comments that break rules."
Not Sure If This Has Been Thrown Around Before But I Think It Belongs Here
Romantic music then: Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down Romantic music now: Yummy yummy yummy yummy (no offense, I just wanted to rickroll)
🦓
they did what they wanted around the world and created so the terrorists----
I Got No Words
Remember when: What other people might think of us controlled our lives.
They added: "Though there is a lot of reposting since heaps of [stuff] like this is reposted constantly. Maybe in the past, when there were more actual posts and popular posts, I think that there'd be far more time committed to moderating," they said that the times have changed a bit.
The moderator also shared their thoughts on where the line is when someone's become far too immersed in nostalgia: "Looking too much towards the past will only hurt your perspective towards the future," they said.
The r/lewronggeneration community has been going strong for nearly a decade now. Founded in mid-August of 2013, the sub has grown to house over 300k members since that time.
According to the moderator team running the whole show, the subreddit itself was created out of annoyance over the ‘born in the wrong generation’ that fans of ‘60s and ‘70s rock often express. So there’s a special emphasis on music on r/lewronggeneration, but other forms of nostalgia are welcome, too, from other forms of media to societal trends.
Kids Today Are So Stupid
Ah yes, because every young person is eating tide pods these days, definitely not just a small number of stupid people
Never Realised You Had To Listen To Modern Music, And That Statements Just Blatantly Untrue
That’s Probably Not The Flex You Think It Is…
Breaking news: teens of EVERY generation (yes, it’s true. Some generations worse than others) break the rules, do drugs, drink, cheat, push boundaries, swear, screw, steal, lie etc. You all did at least one of those things, and probably knew someone that did it all. That’s just what teens do, test waters, figuring c**p out, rebelling. It’s just a fact. The only thing that really matters is getting past it all and coming out the other end a sane, healthy, law abiding, loving, kind, well adjusted adult. THATS what’s worth bragging about and being proud of.
The mods ask the members to post images and videos that fit the spirit of the subreddit. In short, the content should be focused on “quasi-nostalgic attitudes, often with a sense of superiority.” However, posts can’t have anyone’s identifying information displayed in them, whether that’s actual names or internet usernames. The point is to gently mock over-the-top nostalgia, not the individuals themselves.
Moreover, members of r/lewronggeneration ought to avoid posting content that they created themselves. Meanwhile, if anyone’s in the mood for some satire, they’re welcome to go for it, but they have to add the ‘Satire’ flair to make it clear to everyone else.
In the meantime, everyone’s asked to be civil, and polite, and to “keep the elitism at the door.” While disagreements are perfectly fine (and, if we’re honest, completely unavoidable on the internet), calling other users names and insulting them is way over the line. What’s more, the mods frown upon low-effort posts, redditors who spam memes, and repost irresponsibly.
Quite Literally
We Are Not The Same
Men Today No Longer Want To Break Free
Valentina Stoycheva Ph.D. explains in a post on Psychology Today that nostalgia can lead to unhelpful behaviors and have negative consequences when taken to an extreme.
“The difference between helpful and harmful nostalgia is the difference between incorporating the positive emotions of reminiscing into the present versus renouncing the present for the sake of reinstating and perpetually reliving some moment in the past,” she writes.
Those Were Ye Good Ol' Days
Man, Boomers Who Post [things] Like This Completely Forgot The Message Of The Breakfast Club
![Man, Boomers Who Post [things] Like This Completely Forgot The Message Of The Breakfast Club](https://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/blinded-by-their-own-nostalgia-posts-14-64a28c0142b5b__700.jpg "Man, Boomers Who Post [things] Like This Completely Forgot The Message Of The Breakfast Club")
Modern Cartoons Suck Now
In Stoycheva’s opinion, overindulging in nostalgia is similar to overusing salt or pepper in your dishes, leading to the present being “colored by the negative emotions, in favor of glorifying some moment in the past.” There’s a need for balance here so that nostalgia doesn’t consume someone’s life.
Is This Welcome Here?
Fyi - The Thing On The Right Is A Pencil Sharpener And The Thing On The Left Is A Pencil
The funny thing is, I seem to still be using these untensils now....
"Cars Now Don't Have Any Character"
Some individual examples where people go overboard with nostalgia include getting excessive plastic surgery in order to create the illusion of youth, hoarding things, and using social media to track down their ex-partners. On a societal level, overindulging in nostalgia can lead to people glorifying their historical past without acknowledging the collective traumas of the past.
For Reelz
Damn :((
Vintage Le Wrong Generation
Nostalgia, according to Stoycheva, is focused on simplicity rather than complexity, so it can backfire as an emotional regulatory strategy because the world itself is so complex. According to her, this can be countered by coming face to face with our own biases and beliefs and tackling uncomfortable feelings of shame and longing.
Ah The 80s, You Know The Time When You Could Make Real Friends And Walk Around Not Being Scared
Same c**p different decade. Only difference is that without the internet there was a lot more ignorance around issues. You didn't know you were living next to a sex offender and that there was a serial killer two towns over.
You still don't know. Most of them just haven't been caught yet.
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80's. It was okay unless you were gay, in a union, or a person of color. GRID/AIDs became a thing by the early 80s and it killed a lot of really good people, there were very few treatments and the stigma around this disease was immense. Economically it was a rough decade, better than the 70s but rough- started in a recession and had a big meltdown in the late 80s. We raised ourselves, many homes were one parent or had two working parents and there weren't after school activities so we spent a lot of time figuring stuff out on our own, lots of teen mothers back then. We were plenty scared, gang violence was a big thing and getting really bad by the late 80s. Los Angeles spent a summer hiding from the Night Stalker. Adam Walsh was murdered and we met John Walsh for the first time and learned to be afraid. The concept of date rape wasn't understood, being drunk or high or wearing revealing clothes was consent. It wasn't remotely perfect.
Not forgetting the threat of nuclear war, all the TV ads telling you how to prepare for it, and the TV shows like Threads or The day after.
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The one cool thing about being an adolescent in the eighties was you could do lots of stupid sh!t without running the risk of your friends filming and posting it on youtube.
My girls have a friend that we had to stop allowing them to play in their house because the parents have a YouTube channel starring the friend and included our girls without permission. They really didn't understand what the issue was. 🙄
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I grew up in the 80's. It was ok. Bad things happened then too. Miners strikes. Destruction of the working class. High profile sex offenders getting away with the most awful crimes until way later. Just your regular decade.
Wow, to be so delusional. Real friends? Well they didn't know they were excluded until a few hours or days later. Kidnappings/abductions happened. Rapes happened, and the usual first question of the victim was "what were you wearing? Why were you there? etc" Bullies were around and teachers looked the other way, mainly because it was the privileged jocks or cheerleaders doing the bullying.
Cool, funky clothes? Walking round, not being scared? Lol, obviously this person has never read an 80s teen magazine or they'd know how awful fashion was, with big hair and shoulder pads; and people always had to be careful, there were sexual offenders in the 80s too, you know. Miss the music though!
Remember stirrup pants and scrunchy socks with cuff boots with an oversized shirt and a chunky belt. Can’t believe I actually wore that stuff. Lol
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Also the decade that capitalism started to really liberate itself from the tethers of regulation and solidarity. Reagan, Thatcher et al.
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Nuclear drills in school, very special episodes of sitcoms where there was a nuclear threat, nuclear drills on tv shows, nuclear accidents all over our movies...they really beat into us that it could be all over any minute now, but there's was nothing we could do about it, so just be very afraid. Strangers want to give you free drugs that will destroy your brain instantly. Oh, and get a gun. Kids now are actually getting slaughtered in school and US conservatives plug their ears and sing "this is not happening."
I was a kid in the 80s. Literally no one I knew dressed like the 80s kids did on TV or in movies. Jeans and t-shirts, baby! Never goes out of style.
Idk, growing up in the aftermath of the Adam Walsh abduction, we weren't walking around with no fear. I wasn't allowed to cross my street until Jr high because my mom was convinced I would be kidnapped. I actually think this is where we got all the helicopter and steamroller parents from
I was an 80's teen living in a town of no more than 3000 people. I had a pedo jump out of the bushes and try to drag me off, a man killed his baby by repeatedly swinging the poor thing against the wall, someone got killed with a shotgun outside my house and there were other sexual assaults on teen girls. All this within a 2 mile radius. Its literally that there was less ways to spread the info back then.
I loved being a latch key. But when I think about how if I had been grabbed it would have been hours before my parents found out is scary. Need to split the difference. Kids don't need every minute supervised and curated, but also a bit more supervision then leaving at daylight and back at sundown
Whenever I remember the 90s, when I was young, I get the same kind of tunnel vision. Nostalgia is the best kind of selective ignorance.
The only thing we had to worry about in the 70’s and 80’s were serial killers. DNA testing wasn’t a thing and police forensics had a hard time catching killers. My mom always had me walk with a friend so that we wouldn’t be kidnapped. Stranger Danger was real man.
I was an 80s teen. I was told not to do maths and sciences cos I was a girl. That's just one of the things that sucked.
Bland clothes, real/fake friends and the chance to robbed/raped/murdered are universal (i.e. BTK was free for decades before he got caught).
Don't mess with 80s bullies, they will straight up try to murder you. Remember in Karate Kid when they toss Daniel down that steep hill? Could have killed him. Or in the goonies when the bully is driving a car and grabs onto Josh Brolin, who is on a bike, and begins driving quickly and erratically.
Unless you're a straight white boy, no you do NOT wish you were an 80s teen.
There was still the threat of nuclear war back then, and that makes me incredibly hopeful about the turnout of the tensions between the US and Russia. People in the 80s were terrified about the future, and we are today. If that’s any consolation, everything’s going to be fine 👍
80s teen here and I gotta say that the "Nothing to be scared of" part is bull. We had cold war nuclear bomb drills, gang violence, a Crack epidemic and an explosion of serial killers. There was a lot to fear, but the existential dread of consumer capitalism, medical and personal debt wasn't part of it.
Uh.... we were scared. Believe me, we were scared. But I do admit it was great to have no internet!
Born in the 80s - went to school every day afraid, saw my bestie beat to a snot in front of me IN the classroom, gr.8 classmate got suspended for punching a teacher in the face, I only had one true friend and she moved away in grade 6, I was bullied and witnessed daily fights, now I have anxiety disorder, depression and c-ptsd. Not the "good ole days" for me!
You mean the Red Scare 80's, the Stranger Danger 80's or the Satanic Panic 80's? lol
I was a teen in the 80s. It wasn't as awesome as you think it was...
The 80s weren't all that great. It had it's moments but I don't look back at the period all that fondly.
They're All On Cocaine
Of Course All The Comments Were Saying "Sad But True"
Stoycheva suggests that everyone who’s feeling nostalgic for an activity, a period of time, and people to ask themselves these questions: “What emotion am I after? In engaging in nostalgia, what former self-state am I seeking to recreate? How will this help me and also how can I stay rooted in the present while I also feel the positive emotions of reminiscing? Am I avoiding complex emotions? If so, what are they, and why are they so hard for me? Where else can I seek help in managing my emotions?”
I Too Am Absolutely Horrified By Men On Scooters
In 79 a young adult could afford a clunker and it was simple enough to fix up. Today it might be 1 scooter is all the two could afford.
"Why Aren't Soldiers Like My Hollywood Heroes"
Today's Generation Is Lazy
As a Gen Xer, I disagree with this. I know people like to portray the Millennials and Gen Z like this, but it's nonsense. My generation got hosed. But nothing like these generations have. I admire how they don't take c**p from companies and challenge the idea of "work hard and you'll get ahead". The truth is their is a natural reaction to companies exploiting them. And all you need to do is open your eyes and you will see it. The model businesses operate under now demands that kind of response. They broke the social contract between between companies and workers. And they did it in a deceptive manner. Pensions, healthcare, and social security are a few examples. They made sure to take care of the Boomers so they wouldn't call foul and let Gen X & Y work old school style without the rewards. And we were too inexperienced to see it. From the time I turned 18 I have seen home costs jump from $30k for a house to $350k. While the federal minimum wage went from $2.35 to $7.25. Insane.
In the meantime, Bored Panda has previously written about how people tend to be the most nostalgic for those periods of time when they were happiest. For many, that’s their childhood because they had fewer responsibilities. However, if someone had an awful childhood, you most likely won’t find them reminiscing about that period of time.
Though nostalgia can be a good coping strategy when you’re feeling blue, it can interfere with our daily lives. For instance, if we constantly compare the present to the past and feel like nothing ever measures up in terms of values and quality, then we’ll feel disappointed.
Quirky
So We've Come To This Now
Bruh
Note: this post originally had 64 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
It’s vital to remember that our memories aren’t perfect: they’re not as accurate as we might think and we might be reliving only the moments we want to remember. Meanwhile, the present has many opportunities to be seized, even if the world has changed and will continue to change.
For some more posts about nostalgia and r/lewronggeneration, check out Bored Panda's earlier feature over here.
This is less about nostalgia but more of the "Them V Us" conflicts that really should not be happening. History has taught us this time after time and yet it still happens.
I hate these nostalgia memes and I'm a middle-aged man. I love a bit of nostalgia but I hate the way it is weaponised to make younger generations seem bad. It's just dumb. Every generation complains about "kids today" while simultaneously contributing to the culture they are complaining about. Hate modern movies? How old do you think the studio execs are? Hate the internet? How old do you think the people who run TikTok (and benefit most financially) are?
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." --Socrates
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This thread... It's bad. Whoever thought it was a good idea to post should feel bad...
This thread sucks... and also, why did I get downvoted for saying I liked the art style of the GoldenEye game?
There's a lot of bigotry that BP calls nostalgia in many of these posts.
Sheesh, this article sucked. It was pretty much young people bad, old people good. This was a waste of an article.
New rule! Anyone who does some sort of "Blah Blah Blah.... We are not the same" whinge gets an instant swift kick in the shins so that they actually have some real and legitimate pain to whine about.
Your name is Marno, my name is Marco. We are not the same.
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Yes. That is exactly what happens to most people and there's nothing you can do to stop it. It's all perfectly normal, unfortunately.
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wow what a wonderfully hateful article. keep it up! /s
Couldn't even make it through the whole list. Griping about how "things were so much better at (insert time in the past)" is boring, depressing, predictable and stupid. YOUR parents said the same thing about your generation. So just stop.
Remember that it's good to look back and reminisce every now and then, but people often start romanticizing the past because maybe their present isn't looking all that great and their future brings a lot of uncertainty. I get it, life seemed much simpler and less complicated back then compared to today. But, they start having a distorted view of the past while both ignoring problems of the past while currently ignoring the present.
The one about "vibrant LA chicks" is a picture of the three girls who were part of the Manson family and involved in killing a senator's wife.
The title says that this is about seeing the past through rose-colored glasses, and forgetting about the bad stuff. That's what the title says, but that's not what the list is about. Like, at all.
As a boomer (born when Truman was president) all of this nostalgia nonsense is nonsense. Times are better now, even with all of the current drama. In 30 years people will be talking just as nostalgically about the 2010s.
Generational politics does not equal nostalgia. It amounts to bigotry and stereotyping which helps no one.
I was hoping (as the title suggests) to see the internet calling out the misplaced nostalgia... not just the misplaced nostalgia posts
The posts on BP are getting steadily worse.
Load More Replies... This is less about nostalgia but more of the "Them V Us" conflicts that really should not be happening. History has taught us this time after time and yet it still happens.
I hate these nostalgia memes and I'm a middle-aged man. I love a bit of nostalgia but I hate the way it is weaponised to make younger generations seem bad. It's just dumb. Every generation complains about "kids today" while simultaneously contributing to the culture they are complaining about. Hate modern movies? How old do you think the studio execs are? Hate the internet? How old do you think the people who run TikTok (and benefit most financially) are?
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." --Socrates
Load More Replies... This thread... It's bad. Whoever thought it was a good idea to post should feel bad...
This thread sucks... and also, why did I get downvoted for saying I liked the art style of the GoldenEye game?
There's a lot of bigotry that BP calls nostalgia in many of these posts.
Sheesh, this article sucked. It was pretty much young people bad, old people good. This was a waste of an article.
New rule! Anyone who does some sort of "Blah Blah Blah.... We are not the same" whinge gets an instant swift kick in the shins so that they actually have some real and legitimate pain to whine about.
Your name is Marno, my name is Marco. We are not the same.
Load More Replies... Yes. That is exactly what happens to most people and there's nothing you can do to stop it. It's all perfectly normal, unfortunately.
Load More Replies... wow what a wonderfully hateful article. keep it up! /s
Couldn't even make it through the whole list. Griping about how "things were so much better at (insert time in the past)" is boring, depressing, predictable and stupid. YOUR parents said the same thing about your generation. So just stop.
Remember that it's good to look back and reminisce every now and then, but people often start romanticizing the past because maybe their present isn't looking all that great and their future brings a lot of uncertainty. I get it, life seemed much simpler and less complicated back then compared to today. But, they start having a distorted view of the past while both ignoring problems of the past while currently ignoring the present.
The one about "vibrant LA chicks" is a picture of the three girls who were part of the Manson family and involved in killing a senator's wife.
The title says that this is about seeing the past through rose-colored glasses, and forgetting about the bad stuff. That's what the title says, but that's not what the list is about. Like, at all.
As a boomer (born when Truman was president) all of this nostalgia nonsense is nonsense. Times are better now, even with all of the current drama. In 30 years people will be talking just as nostalgically about the 2010s.
Generational politics does not equal nostalgia. It amounts to bigotry and stereotyping which helps no one.
I was hoping (as the title suggests) to see the internet calling out the misplaced nostalgia... not just the misplaced nostalgia posts
The posts on BP are getting steadily worse.
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