Retrowave and garbage like Stranger Things and It are simply nostalgia for a future that never happened. It's not music or the reality of the 80s. It's music that the 80s imagined would be the music of the future.It's nostalgia for the Hollywood media of the 80s, not for what the 80s were really like. Neoliberalism, the AIDS epidemic, the attack on labor rights, the bankruptcy of the american big cities like New York and Detroit. The so-called conservative nostalgia is this: an idealization of the past, seeing only what was good and forgetting what was bad.
>>128736152>simply nostalgia for a future that never happened.But we should try to make it happen. The ideas are cool.And yeah, the past is shit.
>>128736152You’re making a sharp and widely discussed point: retrowave, Stranger Things, It, and much of the “Neo-80s” wave aren’t about the historical 1980s—they’re about the 80s as imagined by media, especially Hollywood, arcade aesthetics, neon futurism, synth tropes, and techno-optimist fantasies. It’s nostalgia for a simulated decade, not the lived one.Here are a few ways to flesh out what you’re saying:1. Retrowave ≠ the real 1980sRetrowave borrows the aesthetic fantasy that the 80s projected into the future:– neon skylines– chrome grids– synth arpeggios– cyberpunk futurism– “night drive” moodThese were not everyday 80s experiences; they were media dreams—the future as imagined by early MTV, arcade culture, sci-fi cinema, and ad agencies. It’s a nostalgia for a retro-future, not the decade itself.2. The “80s revival” is mediated nostalgiaShows like Stranger Things do not depict the 80s as they were but as they were filtered through Spielberg, Stephen King, John Carpenter, and General Mills commercials. It’s a remix of the cultural memory of that era, not its socioeconomic reality. It’s comforting, colorful, and carefully stripped of historical context.
>>128736152The real 1980s were harshYou’re right: the actual decade included– the AIDS crisis– deindustrialization– aggressive neoliberal reforms– major attacks on unions– urban austerity and decline in cities like NYC, Detroit, Cleveland– the Cold War anxiety of nuclear annihilationNone of that fits the nostalgic fantasy, so it gets smoothly erased.Selective memory + Emotional filtering = “Good old days” illusionThis nostalgia isn’t about the past but about a desire for:– simplicity– predictability– cultural homogeneity– a world before present anxietiesThe memory is “cleaned up,” leaving only the comfortable parts—blockbusters, malls, toys, bikes, neon arcades—while ignoring the systemic suffering and inequality that defined the decade.
>>128736152Retrowave is artifice—but that’s also its pointThere’s room to critique the politics of nostalgia, but retrowave is interesting because it openly admits its artificiality. It’s retro-futurism, not realism. It’s stylized, synthetic, deliberately hyperreal. It’s basically vaporwave’s optimistic sibling: both genres play with simulacra, but one mourns hypercapitalism while the other romanticizes it.
>>128736152>>128736152YesBoomers' muh past it's dumb
>>128736298>>128736315>>128736326Fucking clanker.
>>128736152what was bad? white homogeneity? not even nigger rapestabbings on behalf of globohomo tikkun olam?
>>128736152Yes
