I'm leaning towards the latter. From my experience anyhow. Something you have in you already can emerge, maybe at different points and levels, depending on your environment and experiences, but people can't just exhibit behaviour and tastes that they have no predisposition to. At least that's what I've some to see in the world around me and myself.
Well, it is a complicated subject, and we all have our anectodal evience. From my experience, I tend to think different aspects, that already existed in a person, are exhibited throughout various parts of life, and eventually fewer than them are left, and form the "personality". Nobody in my life has ever truly "changed". They're the same as when I met them, be they kids we grew up together or grown men and women. No matter what happened, no matter their wrongs or failures, they just kept being themselves.
That's a main reason why I don't think people can "really" change; it requires too much introspection and will to actually do anything. And most just prefer the path of elast resistance.
I think, in the end, what we call "change" would be choosing one of the paths available to us. We have some in-born characteristics, predispositions and all of that. Those can result in a few different people. Not every kind of person, but more than one. How you lived your childhood may not be the same as how you ended up in your 30s, and that could be the result of a "change". That "change" being the choice of a certain lifepath. Example: Someone who's talented but lazy coasted off his childhood being fairly accomplished, for those standards. As things got tougher, he had to make the choice; work on his talents, or give into his sloth. If his laziness wins, he becomes a failure and it's seen as a "change". If he works harder he's perceived as the same, still getting top marks, but inwards he's trying to overcome to his sloth and become more hardworking; he's made a choice, he has changed. That's generally how I see the whole thing. We have specific things pulling us, and any change comes from choosing what to give in to.
Star Wars has been a part of my childhood, so yes, Nostalgia is involved. Apart from that, I can't say that I can bring myself to care about the Universe as a whole. I was into it for the Space Opera and Magic Knights aspect of it. I could never care for the supporting characters, the smugglers, all of that. For me, it was a story with an Epic Scope and huge scales. And being inherently edgy, I favour the Sith. Everything that I care about SW stems from Anakin/Vader and the Sith. I'll never buy a Han Solo fig because I don't get the point. He doesn't attract me. The result of that is that I tend to be into specific Eras and characters, instead of the entire brand. So then it becomes the question of whether I should cut the cord and be done with it. But after all is said and done, I think I like enough of it, and I've come to lose any interest in so many other properties, that I can still involve myself in the property, at least on some level.
All cards on the table, I feel that for pretty much everything. I look around, and there's precisely nothing from Pop Culture that makes me feel anything anymore. I have no desire to truly engage with something. Most of my Nostalgia is less of an attachment towards something specific, and more of a patchwork of certain moments and a "reworked" past that is tied to some properties which I'm mostly forcing myself to be interested in. There's no franchise that I look at and go "oh boy, I wish there was more content" or anything that I want to rewatch/reread/replay. The only things I still have an interest in are based on how good the core concept/idea is, and less so because of the execution. I like things based on a hypothetical version based on my thoughts, not the actual product.
Which is why I've been rethinking my collections for a while now. When you feel nothing towards them, is there any point in collecting? But I think that even collecting based on an "idea" of a nostalgia has some merit. Maybe I don't much care now, but I cared back then. So what's the harm in representing a tiny fraction of that? In all honesty, we never had lots of comics around here, it was mostly Bande Dessinee and a couple of translations of then-current titles. By the time I got into comics properly, I was already old enough for those memories to not sway me that much. My nostalgia for those things is mostly based on the early days of the Internet where I couldn't get the actual titles, but would look them up online. So, really, I never had a special relationship with Batman or whoever. I caught the cartoons, bought a cool-looking figure (it should be noted that I have literally none of them still in my possesion) but never cared. However, it can be argued that while I wasn't obsessed, I did have some relationship with the IP, in a time where almost nothing else from that Pop Culture existed in my life. But, it can be argued there are other things that were a much bigger aspect of my life, even back then. I had a bigger history with VGs, because they were all readily available. Going to friends' houses, exchanging games, older brothers letting us play "naughtier" stuff. That I remember more and I find myself scouring the market for older games to relive those moments. But as time becomes shorter and the new installments destroy the original games, again, what's the point? All IPs are milked. All stories dilluted. Everything retconned. So why bother? What's to be gained? Nothing.
As for those YT People, I don't get it either. I look at my HDs sometimes, filled with issues and packs, and I can't imagine doing a chronological read ever again. Where do they even find the time? It actually takes devotion to still engage in them and I just don't get it. I see them all over too, guys in their 30s talking about the importance of super-heroes in their lives, and... It's weird.
I know what you mean. As I mentioned above, my "nostalgia" is waning. And sometimes I catch myself trying to reinforce it by consuming things that were present during my childhood but I never cared for. An attempt to maybe try and recapture that spark by sort of creating a "new" nostalgia. One based on product I never engaged myself with, which means there's more for me to explore now, but tied to a time I look back fondly, thereby combining the two to create more powerful feelings. I'm mostly resisting it because I see it as useless, but this is the only case where I actually "feel" any sort of nostalgia.
I don't know. I look back and realize that all of that were just distractions that ultimately occupied a little amount of my time. So why should I care enough to keep involving myself? Why should I drop 200 or 300 or 500 euros on products based on them? We all love a certain movie or book, nostalgia or not, and chances are said book and movie won't be getting any 400$ anytime soon. So why spend them on Pop Culture figs? For my money, I think that it functions as a reminder of sorts. Your own personal filter. There are things I've dropped completely and never looked back. There are some I have some attachment to, even though it's waning. The former I'll never give into. But the latter, I'll dip into. Maybe it's illogical, but I want some connection to remain, however trivial. I spent 700 euros on the DX15 Jack Sparrow. Do I absolutely adore the character still? Eh. Do I constantly rewatch the films? Eh. But there was a time I did, so I didn't feel bad about spending the cash. I like having him. And I feel that way about a couple more characters and properties. I outgrew Hellblazer years back. I don't find much in common with JonCon. But I'd still like a comic-based, high end 1/6th figure. I'm not building an X-Men army or the entire Avengers, but those few Vertigo titles I'd like to represent through a JonCon, a Morpheus, a Lucifer and so on. They had their stories concluded, I have formed an opinion about them, so I can decide to keep a "relationship" with them. But with long-running and endless franchises I simply can't. It's why it's easier with vidya. You get a couple of installments and that's it. Or it all builds up to an eventual conclusion. Marvel, DC, Wars, Trek, they just keep on building and building and building and... In a way sometimes I feel that Disney buying LF is "good" because I can pretend SW finished in 2012, the same way I can pretend Marvel ended in 2015 with Secret Wars. And it's why I still have an attachment to MGS. For better or worse, with all its problems, it was still mostly one guy's story. It's "complete" and I can judge it. See if I care about the characters and setting. Something finished can be judged. Something in perpetuity can't. Not in that way.
My point is, my days of being actively engaged in anything that has to do with Pop Culture are done. Once every blue moon I'll feel a tiny pull towards something and I'll be glad I have kept that one memorabilia of it. I won't end up with 200 HTs, 100 XMs and whatever else. But a few cabinets, a few themes, a few pieces, that's enough for me. Maybe something new will come out. Maybe not. But time moves very fast, and these are just tiny aspects of our daily lives.
In the end, what I've realized is that tying nostalgia to products is detrimental. True nostalgia comes from certain points and experiences. That's what I look back to. Those products happened to be tangiably related to those times and are part of our nostalgia. But personally I don't remember that time I read that comic and how special it was or whatever. I remember that time with those guys in that house where we did X thing because of Y and then Z, or that trip in that place where that happened and so on and so forth. It's just that at that time I also read X comic or watched Y movie, and it's become part of that memory. True nostalgia comes from lived-in experiences, not the consumption of media. At least that's what I've come to believe.
The best Super-Hero Film ever!
t. British Rasputin
