I wish we could go back to the [insert regressive decade] is the most blatant display of white privilege in meme form

[HamSandwich]

We have all seen these memes on social media like Facebook where people post shit like this. Now the issue is that I've seen people post stuff like this who aren't actually racist people (at least to my knowledge). And yes some are more dog whistle-y than others.

Yes let's go back to a time where women felt oppressed and minorities were beaten and killed so you can live a "simpler life". No PoC would ever post something like that.

/rant

For fun:

 

[dudefriend]

i'm brown and i constantly wish we could go back to the 90s lol

 

[Inuhanyou]

Unfortunately, nostalgia for times that were pretty shitty in their own right isnt an uncommon occurrence. The leading Presidential candidate thinks the racist GOP will become good guys if Trump gets beaten after all..back to the days where you could rub elbows with segregationists to fight against segregated bussing eh Joe?(that's an actual quote)

 

[Gatti-man]

It's also because social media has forced these things into the open and older/less smart people think that means it simply didn't happen "back in the day". I hear that all the time from older people.

 

[TacomaSCDisaster]

Nostalgia is an excuse for ignorance, bigotry and stupidity

There's a reason it was the central theme of the Trump campaign

 

[skillzilla81]

Time travel stories are always funny to think about as a black dude.

Going anywhere past the early 90s is like...nah, I'm good.

 

[NoirSuede]

Oh that sentiment's not just in the US, here in Indonesia we got a (Javanese) saying:

which means "Ello there, ain't my era's better?"

And the era in question is of the dictatorship of President Soeharto's, who forced the ethnic Chinese back in his day to renounce their Chinese names because of anti-communism sentiments...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suharto

 

[Zelenogorsk]

Wanting to live in the past is a dead giveaway that you're an idiot.

 

[Transistor]

I wish I could go back to the dinosaur era is a time that everyone can enjoy

 

[Deleted member 32374]

Excellent op except for the "for fun" part.

For serious though, I remember the first time I thought of this in college and it was an "oh...." Moment. I chuckle when people wanna go back to 50s-80s. No you don't.

 

[Brutalitops]

I would like to go back to the 90s because the 90s were awesome and I wasn't a cynical husk yet

 

[GrapeApes]

Instant swipe left on a dating app is if a white girl is romanticizing shitty eras. Like I know you think wearing a flapper costume is cool but please don't tell me you trying to go back to the 20s.

 

[Pwnz]

Nostalgia in itself is a distorted, cherry picked recollection. I get what you're saying OP, but I don't think people really consider that social rights are more unjust the further in time (generally) you back.

Like I think fondly of the 1990s because I was coming of age and technology was advancing so fast (compute, internet, video games, TV, etc) but do I want to ban gay marriage? Hell no. I remember getting in an argument with my Dad when I was 14 in the 1990s that gay people should be able to get married, which of course made him suspect I was gay because fucking suburban Tennessee for you.

With that said, longing for the 1950s and especially the 1800s is some highly suspect bullshit.

 

[fireflame]

It is more because the people I loved where alive back then.

 

[EOS-HDC]

It's really dumb to want to go back in time, but I have no problem with nostalgia.

Every once in a while I wish I was as young, dumb and innocent as I was 10 or 20 years ago, not because everything was objectively better but because I was innocent enough to not notice that it was actually worse.

 

[Deleted member 1476]

Now that's some quality hot take.

 

[Hollywood Duo]

Wanting to live in the past is a dead giveaway that you're an idiot.

Click to shrink...

Not necessarily. A lot of people are miserable as adults and want to go back to their carefree childhood.

 

[Cels]

when people are nostalgic for a certain era they obviously are cherrypicking the good things they remember from that era. maybe they miss the music, the fashion, the activities of that time. not necessarily the bigotry or regressive attitudes.

 

[KillstealWolf]

You gotta take the good with the bad, this decade saw the grand rise of Social Media, which is listed as one of the main reasons why Trump and Brexit happened, events that are no doubt going to have cascading knock-on effects for decades to come, but because of social media we also had the long needed #MeToo movement that's helped call out some of the worst people in the world and given the voice to many that had no such voice at all.

 

[Whitemex]

John Oliver did a good segment on the Daily Show about this. A lot of Fox News talking heads were talking about how much better the good ol' days were and he went down the list decade by decade about how shitty those days were for anyone not white. I can't find a video of it though

 

[Aaron D.]

Nostalgia has a way of elevating the highs and downplaying the lows.

Age has a lot to do with it as well as many tend to romanticize their youth, when they were vibrant with energy and the world was an open book of possibilities.

Life can be grueling over time and people can easily become jaded the older they get. But when you look back, youth has a lot of naive innocence associated with it and sometimes people long for that simple blindness.

Hell, I look back at the '80s with nostalgia as those were my teen years, but it was still a crap time (Cold War, getting bullied at home and in school on the regular, etc.).

I also wonder how much the toxicity of The Internet comes into play. I think things really were simpler before the home computer. Now it's just a constant barrage of information. The good, the bad & the ugly. It can feel overwhelming. Don't even get me started on living in a post 9-11 world with school shootings every other day.

 

[skillzilla81]

when people are nostalgic for a certain era they obviously are cherrypicking the good things they remember from that era. maybe they miss the music, the fashion, the activities of that time. not necessarily the bigotry or regressive attitudes.

Click to shrink...

And the very point is that people of color don't have that luxury. We can't ignore bigotry and regressive attitudes. It's baked into our existence.

 

[Chase Lebowski]

Nostalgia is now a display of white privilege...

ok

 

[HamSandwich]

when people are nostalgic for a certain era they obviously are cherrypicking the good things they remember from that era. maybe they miss the music, the fashion, the activities of that time. not necessarily the bigotry or regressive attitudes.

Click to shrink...

I get it, but when the pic is a bunch of white people having fun, it makes you think that minorities didn't get to experience that luxury without enjoying something similar today.

Nostalgia is now a display of white privilege...

ok

Click to shrink...

Nostalgia is fine. I mean I wish I could play Pokémon again with my friends on our game boys. It's not wrong to cherry pick the advances from those times. But when people flat out want to live in those times, to me it shows that it's awfully convenient to them as opposed to other people.

 

[Cels]

And the very point is that people of color don't have that luxury. We can't ignore bigotry and regressive attitudes. It's baked into our existence.

Click to shrink...

yea i mean when mad men came out some people were like wow i wish people still dressed like that and had hair like that.

they weren't thinking about how women were treated or how there's like no black people in the show

 

[Aaron D.]

I get it, but when the pic is a bunch of white people having fun, it makes you think that minorities didn't get to experience that luxury without enjoying something similar today.

Click to shrink...

I get what you're saying, OP and you're not wrong.

You're just talking about two different things.

MAGA is a very real dog whistle for white privilege.

At the same time, nostalgia for the past, esp. as one ages, is completely natural and as old as time.

One does not automatically equal the other.

Besides, is anyone going to refute with a straight face that the 80's weren't the absolute pinnacle of popular music? :p

 

[Doomsayer]

Besides, is anyone going to refute with a straight face that the 80's weren't the absolute pinnacle of popular music? :p

Click to shrink...

I agreed with your post up until this point. Scust.

 

[Aaron D.]

Someone around here has never heard of Oingo Boingo.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Besides, is anyone going to refute with a straight face that the 80's weren't the absolute pinnacle of popular music? :p

Click to shrink...

Yes

 

[Strangelove_77]

I imagine that's shit only white people say/think about. Im not white so I've never wished for that shit.

 

[samoyed]

Life appeared easier when no one was voicing their complaints, but people mistake this to think things were actually better instead of being glossed over.

 

[Z-Beat]

Most common one I hear is wanting to go back to the 50s for the aesthetic. Grease and BttF romanticized that era for people, and they never think that you only get that stuff if you were white

 

[astro]

Both my grandparetns, in their late 80s/early 90s.

"We voted Brexit because we wanted to go back to how it was after the war."

I asked why and my Grandfather said something vague about "Muslims", and when pressed he was completely unable to articulate what he meant.

They've always read the Daily Mail, but always voted Labour except for last time when they voted Tory. I would have told you they were the sweetest, kindest, generous grandparents ever, but they're clearly holding bigoted views and consider all this social change too much to handle.

My grandfather apparently made some comment about my sister marrying her fiance, but came to the wedding and was perfectly polite.

A different era, I guess.

 

[Dbltap]

Wanting to live in the past is a dead giveaway that you're an idiot.

Click to shrink...

So me wanting to go back to a time where my legs worked, I could see properly and not be in bed 23 hours a day, makes me a idiot?

 

[Deleted member 33412]

I wish the piano concerto was still as big as it was in the 1890's....

On topic:
Yeah you're right OP, in most instances.

 

[Ryu_Ken]

Now that's some quality hot take.

Click to shrink...

This.

Being nostalgic and reminiscing is now white privilege? GTFO!

 

[Barrel Cannon]

Eh that's an ignorant take OP. Racists are gonna be racists but I can bet most of those people are referring to the positive aspects they remember and not the negative aspects.

My childhood/teenage years were in the 90s/2000's. I look back fondly on those simple times, as do most people who look back at their younger selves. It's important we don't forget the negative aspects of the past or we won't learn for the future but there's no need to be so dam sour.

 

[Wein Cruz]

Eh that's an ignorant take OP. Racists are gonna be racists but I can bet most of those people are referring to the positive aspects they remember and not the negative aspects.

My childhood/teenage years were in the 90s/2000's. I look back fondly on those simple times, as do most people who look back at their younger selves. It's important we don't forget the negative aspects of the past or we won't learn for the future but there's no need to be so dam sour.

Click to shrink...

This so much.

 

[Torpedo Vegas]

I just want to play with my Centurions and Dino Riders again.

 

[Panther2103]

I think it's more of people wanting a certain aspect of that specific time, or a few aspects of it. Me wanting to be with older friends again or with people who are now gone isn't really white privilege.

 

[Deleted member 25712]

Eh that's an ignorant take OP. Racists are gonna be racists but I can bet most of those people are referring to the positive aspects they remember and not the negative aspects.

My childhood/teenage years were in the 90s/2000's. I look back fondly on those simple times, as do most people who look back at their younger selves. It's important we don't forget the negative aspects of the past or we won't learn for the future but there's no need to be so dam sour.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much this. Rose tinted glasses isn't a white people thing. Nostalgia isn't a white people thing. Curmudgeonly old people thinking "back in my day..." isn't a white people thing.

 

[Surface of Me]

I mean you're not wrong that it's white privilege. But to insinuate it's a dog whistle puts you in tin foil hat territory.

 

[Strangelove_77]

I think there's a big difference between wanting to go back to a time - on a personal level or an overall level. I personally wish I could go back about 4-5 years so I could right some big mistakes I made. But I don't want to be in 2012/2013 again. I just want to fix a mistake.

 

[Gakidou]

I agree tbh, i think its more to do with the difference between saying "ah, i miss *personal experience from another time*" vs saying THE OLD DAYS WERE BETTER, with the implication being that everyone else should agree, showing obvious, possible wilful ignorance that some large groups of people did not have it better back then.

You also have to be suspect of when exactly this topic gets brought up? Do people suddenly get nostalgic for SIMPLER TIMES when the new movie with a black protagonist comes out? When they see LGBT themes in media? I see appeals to nostalgia commonly crop up when people express distastes for a very specific pattern of themes...

I'm a white bi woman and I certainly do not want to go back to the 90s. Sure we had rights, but you know all that shit you hear about dudes screaming in your ear and making "kitchen" jokes during any sort of online gaming or discourse or situation where you're a minority, being constantly told you're "pretty good for a girl" and that your interests are "gay" and lesbians are a phase, being followed home, hit on by men in positions of authority, etc? Imagine all that but with the icing on the cake of people either not believing how bad it is or speculating that it's kinda your fault for not being modest enough and WELCOME to the GOOD OLD 90s!

 

[ConanEd]

There is nothing wrong with wishing for better movies, better pop music and less hyper connected world. Asian myself.

 

[EssBeeVee]

i guess i don't have friends posting these meme. is it only OP

 

[L Thammy]

'50s nostalgia in particular has been prominent as long as I can remember and always had this sort of the sense. The white picket fence house and a wholesome family sitcom with an all white cast.

 

[Anustart]

Hopefully time machines are never invented. Talk about a disaster!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Secondspace]

I think a lot of it is honest nostalgia for childhood for most people, but there is an element there that simpler times were simpler because certain voices weren't heard.

 

[Bakercat]

I wanna go back to the days of Gilgamesh where we beat each other over the head with clubs to assert dominance.