'There is an idea of a psychological immune system,' continued Routledge. 'Nostalgia seems to be adaptive, and weaves even unpleasant experiences into meaningful narratives.' 'Negative emotions tend to fade faster than positive emotions,' said Routledge. It helps them make predictions about life, and know what to expect from people and situations.' 'But when you look back on it, you have to make sense of it… Humans are in a constant endeavor to make sense of all the stimuli they're taking in, so it's not just a random stream of data.

Clay Routledge, psychology professor at North Dakota State University, in an interview with Motherboard. 'When you experience something in the present, it's often complex.' said Dr. Current research suggests that people use nostalgia to organize their lives into cohesive narratives.

The term 'nostalgia' was first coined in 1688, and it was originally held as a negative character trait or even a disease American military doctor Theodore Calhoun viewed nostalgia as indicative of weak will and 'unmanliness.' But the modern view of nostalgia is far more positive. But oddly enough, they can also feel nostalgia for time periods when they weren't alive perhaps their parents played old music to them when they were young, and now, they associate those sensory details with positive memories. People usually feel nostalgic for their own past, commonly referred to as autobiographical nostalgia. The feeling that every advertiser wants to evoke in millennials is nostalgia that warm, comforting sensation that one experiences when recollecting the past. This is the time when they're expected to buy cars and houses and furniture and all sorts of major purchases.' And in terms of marketing, that's because those are the childhood memories of millennial consumers, who are growing into their adulthood. 'It seems that there's a cycle every 20 years,' said Stuart Elliott, who served as The New York Times' advertising columnist for over 20 years, in an interview with Motherboard. The company's mini NES Classic flew off shelves, and the rumored SNES mini will likely do the same. Even video game companies like Nintendo rely on their long-established franchises to drive current sales. And the trend won't be declining anytime soon over 120 remakes or reboots are currently in production.

Current box office behemoths like The Fate of the Furious, Power Rangers, Smurfs: The Lost Village, and Kong: Skull Island are either continuations of long-established franchises or reboots to pre-existing properties. And after that? Over a dozen more live-action remakes of Disney animated films are in the pipeline, and they'll be released at the approximate rate of one film per year.īut Disney is not the only media company mining its past for box office gold.

Disney will be remaking and releasing Mulan in 2018. Then came Maleficent in 2014 ( $750 million), Cinderella in 2015 ( $500+ million), The Jungle Book in 2016 ( $950 million), and Pete's Dragon in 2016 ( $140 million). The Mouse's latest penchant, of turning those animated films into live-action remakes, started with the release of Alice in Wonderland in 2010, which also made over $1 billion at the box office.

Childhood nostalgia 90s sells