Hello and welcome to this very special video.
This week marks the fourth year of weekly-ish content creation.
I can’t believe it.
It’s been a ride and this channel has grown far beyond my wildest dreams.
So thank you, all of you, for your continued interest and support.
Now I’ve talked before about what inspired me to start creating content, why I do this,
so I thought this year it may be fun to look at some the ideas that I’ve been exploring
and will hopefully continue to explore around memory, specifically nostalgia.
Patrons know I’ve been working on a book for the better part of a year that on the
surface is about the world of regional video game collecting.
Obviously not everyone is into video games but they are just a jumping off point to explore
the larger themes of memory, identity and nostalgia.
This extends and is relevant to the channel as well.
Two ideas in particular that inspire me are nostalgia as a form of grief and the memories
of others.
I obviously wasn’t alive through all the periods featured on here but many of you were.
This media could be full of memories for you and would have a different meaning than to
me, or even to each of you.
Sleepcore is the most popular thing here so using that as an example.
It grew out of this idea.
Our memories and dreams are informed so much by the media we consume, from how they look
to how we remember them, their pacing, the rhythm.
Sleepcore is based off of this but the great thing about Sleepcore is that can exist on
multiple levels, aesthetically or philosophically.
It can be what is, a curated collection of media, maybe that you grew up with, and have
memories of, and that’s how you watch it, or it can be a hypnagogic state we all recognise,
even if we can’t explain why this media we may have no relation with, is somehow familiar
or comforting to us.
A shared metaphysical space we all show up at from time to time.
I love thinking of Sleepcore, and memories in general as sort of metaphysical spaces,
ideas, that we create and live in.
These are obviously inspired by real places, or people, but what you are seeing, feeling,
is also informed your experience and reflection.
Think of a recurring dream.
A dream is just a memory you have no control over, at least direct control.
Every time you have it, it feels the same, you wake up with the same feelings, and recognise
it as something you’ve experienced before, but it may not have appeared exactly the same
as it did last time.
Some details may be similar but it’s the feeling, the emotional affect, that’s the
same.
In writing fiction or producing Sleepcore, I think this space or phenomenon has a ton
of potential for storytelling or immersion.
Nostalgia.
People like to get profound about their nostalgia.
Some people like to gatekeep it, and put a date on it but nostalgia knows no era.
There is no amount of time that has to past before you are allowed to feel it.
You can be nostalgic for anything from anytime and that includes the bad times.
I can revisit media from times in my life that were far from great and it produces the
same sensation as revisiting the happy times.
I feel like most would associate nostalgia with happiness, warm feelings but I think there is something
very sad about nostalgia, the rose-coloured glasses, the good old days, because framing
our lives like this isn’t fair to the present.
When given time to reflect, we get to have control over our memories which informs how
we view them and the time they took place in.
Because we don’t have the distance and time to step back from today, it’s easy to think
that in hindsight, times used to be better.
We miss people who used to be in our lives and sometimes that includes ourselves.
We grieve for our past selves, the things they don’t know or haven’t done yet.
It’s also possible we envy them, all the things they could be doing, or are going to
do.
Maybe even resent them a little bit, depending on how satisfied we are with our own current
lives.
People often equate younger with better, again, the good old days, which is of course a lie.
The idea that things used to be better is an extremely negative outlook.
It’s never going to be 1999 again, or 2012, or 1983, so learn to love 2021, or ’22 or
whenever you’re watching because it may not feel like now, but one day you will feel
the same way about today that you do about yesterday.
These are obviously not academic theories, just a couple of ideas I am navigating and playing around with.
I also acknowledge that I am limited by my own experience, as much as I try to step outside of it.
This may come as a shock to some of you, that I am not somebody who lives in the past.
I am also an extremely optimistic person, despite some of my takes on this future we’re
living in.
How could I not be?
Even though it’s not always easy doing this.
Creator burnout.
Stagnation.
Sometimes the algorithm pulls the rug out from under you and leaves you stewing in your
own irrelevance but I'm loved. I’ve been told my videos have gotten people through grief, the loss
of a loved one, or that they watch them while staying up, caring for their newborn, which
are such honours.
It’s great knowing that.
I’m someone’s favourite.
I’ve been told I’m a lot of people’s favourite.
What I do is loved, which is such an amazing feeling.
It makes it all worth it.
So thank you for sharing these times and making memories with me.
If you liked the feel of this video, and you have the means, please, come join us over
on Patreon.
There is plenty of content just like this over there, just as self-indulgent. We actually have a whole series around it.
As well as the series I promote all the time, Century of Schlock, Futurefilm. There is also media profiles,
which are structured like Sleepcore, that explore the aesthetics that have inspired
the locales of the book I mentioned and zines and the book itself when it’s done.
Hopefully sometime next year.
And yeah, once again thank you all so much for your interest.
Seriously, it’s been such a rewarding experience.
I look forward to seeing what year five has in store.
Thank you.