Anti-Nostalgia

[Zapper]

So I assume we all know what nostalgia is and a lot of us probably love MLP so much because there is a nostalgia factor to it.

But have some of you experienced a form of "anti-nostalgia"? Is there something from your past - a movie, toy, activity, fandom, etc. - you used to enjoy but upon revisiting it you just don't get what you ever liked about it? Or do you feel stupid/silly/other negative feelings when confronted with it?

I can't think of something right now because most things I unironically enjoyed turned into ironic enjoyment. Such as crazy 80s cartoons, cheesy action movies and such. I realized that stuff was silly and now I am having fun with that silliness. Same goes for certain things I did as a teenager that I am no longer interested in but I can look back and smile (or laugh about myself).

Does anti-nostalgia even exist? We seem to be very influenced by nostalgia in the toy colletor world
What do you think?

[Leave a Whisper]

Sure. There were several shows that weren't fun to revisit.

Pound Puppies
Eek the Cat
Goof Troop
Ren and Stimpy
Rugrats
Full House
Hey Dude
Step by Step

Some games that just made me go eh:
Mouse Trap
Operation (I forgot how much I hated that noise)
Guess Who?

Toywise, I'm not hardcore into stuffed toys anymore and I had a boattload as a kid.

I was dinosaur crazy, but I don't think I could track down my old ones and the new ones are mostly awesome looking, but I dislike the price and the bloody pieces that have little handles on them.

[BlackCurtains]

There are some video games I'm mad about wasting my time on as a kid since they are so awful. I could have been doing something far better than trying to play them. Mostly NES titles. Super Pitfall and Clash at Demonhead for example. Ugh.

[Ponyfan]

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is Smurfs.  I used to love them but now I can’t even sit through an episode.


Ponyfan

[Ragamuffin]

Over the summer when I got back into Care Bears, I started off watching the movies. They held up really well and I still like them as an adult.

So the cartoon should be okay, right? I used to like the cartoon, and the movies were good. The cartoon ended up being... eh? Very, very boring. Beastly can be funny at times and there are some good episodes, like the ones where they meet the pandas, but overall it's pretty boring. Maybe I'm watching the wrong episodes?

That said, I think MLP had the better show, but Care Bears had the better movies. I guess with MLP, there was always something completely new in every episode, and the stories tended to be high-stakes. With Care Bears, it was always the same thing with No Heart and Beastly, sometimes Shrieky. They end up feeling kinda samey.

I haven't watched the MLP movie in a while, but I have no nostalgia towards it; I didn't watch it for the first time until I was 18. But I remember it having a whole lot of nothing, and the songs weren't that great (especially compared to the Care Bears movies, which always have great music!). I DID grow up watching The End of Flutter Valley though, which wasn't so fun to rewatch as an adult. Not as boring as the Care Bears cartoon, but I think it might have a lot of similar issues to the MLP movie. Very long with not a lot going on, and "eh" songs. Nostalgic but not very good when you compare it to episodes like Tambelon and The Magic Coins, or even Mish Mash Melee.

[nessa16]

Yes, actually.  Some movies and cartoons especially.  A few off the top of my head that I have revisited recently with this effect include Gummi Bears, Darkwing Duck, Batman: The Animated Series, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, and The Page Master movie.  @ Ragamuffin, I feel the same way about the MLP G1 cartoons, other than MLPTales.  They are more boring than anything.  I have the Care Bear series but have not had a chance to watch them yet.  I have not really been able to sit through episodes of the G1 cartoon as an adult.  I do still like the MLP Movie and Care Bears movies, especially the first one.  Those I know I watched as a kid, and still love them.

[Nemesis]

For some reason, most sitcoms generate this “anti-nostalgia” feeling in me.

Almost all cartoons, movies,  games, and toys I liked as a kid make me SUPER nostalgic... Sitcoms I grew up with (except for Seinfeld, which I have always enjoyed) just make me feel nauseous. Maybe because I didn’t really want to watch them as a kid, but it was just what my parents had on? Mostly ones that are focused around families, like Full House, Step by Step, Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Raymond, etc., and also the real “oldies” (50s/60s/70s) that my parents watched reruns of.

In total fairness, I also hate new sitcoms. But ones I remember from childhood (other than Seinfeld) dredge up a special kind of “ick” feeling.

[Ragamuffin]

Yes, actually.  Some movies and cartoons especially.  A few off the top of my head that I have revisited recently with this effect include Gummi Bears, Darkwing Duck, Batman: The Animated Series, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, and The Page Master movie.  @ Ragamuffin, I feel the same way about the MLP G1 cartoons, other than MLPTales.  They are more boring than anything.  I have the Care Bear series but have not had a chance to watch them yet.  I have not really been able to sit through episodes of the G1 cartoon as an adult.  I do still like the MLP Movie and Care Bears movies, especially the first one.  Those I know I watched as a kid, and still love them.

I like the G1 cartoons a decent bit, actually. I watched every episode as an adult and they held my attention more than FiM's later seasons. I wouldn't call them masterpieces but they're nice. I can't name a whole lot of bad ones, just boring ones, like The End of Flutter Valley, and the Ghost of Paradise Estate. The Care Bears cartoon feels like the same thing over and over.
With MLP n Friends, some parts may not have been exciting, but I stuck around to watch the whole thing. With Care Bears (and late FiM), I would click off the video and have it be background noise a couple times because there wasn't anything going on.

Tales is a nice one. I can sit through that and watch it just fine. In the later episodes of Care Bears, the ones with Champ, Cheer, Bright Heart and Treat Heart, they go for a more slice-of-life-y style...? It's comparable to Tales, where they downsize the cast and modernize it. But Tales was more interesting, even though the premise is similar. I guess because Tales has a lot more locations that all look different and more characters, while late Care Bears is mostly clouds and Care-a-Lot, and you only get four characters (and maybe Hugs and Tugs). Granted Care Bears usually has a villain in each episode but it's only ever Beastly and/or Shrieky, rarely anyone new, and they pull the same stunts over and over, and they're defeated in the same way over and over...

[tailrustedtealeaf]

Hmm, good question. This might be because the main game feels a bit stripped now but I couldn't get back into Webkinz. There's also a smattering of DS games I can't play again, but I think that was just because I had so few games growing up.
Oh, and Five Nights at Freddy's. I went back to revisit it and was just...disappointed. It's boring. Only a few years, but still, I put a lot of time into that game!

[Zapper]

Over the summer when I got back into Care Bears, I started off watching the movies. They held up really well and I still like them as an adult.

So the cartoon should be okay, right? I used to like the cartoon, and the movies were good. The cartoon ended up being... eh? Very, very boring.

I feel the same way about the CB G1 show vs. the first two movies but I still feel super nostalgic about the themesong and CB in general so I don't count it.

I am super in love with the new show, Unlock the Magic. It is so stinkin cute and it casts the Bears as an explorer team. It's wholesome without talking down to small kids. I remember hating Cheer Bear in the original show but she is great in UtM. In fact, the new show might have brought back sooo much nostalgia it can easily wipe away the old show in my brain and replace it

Too bad it's hard to track down. It honestly deserves all the praise early FiM used to get.

Post Merge: February 05, 2020, 12:09:27 PM

Yes, actually.  Some movies and cartoons especially.  A few off the top of my head that I have revisited recently with this effect include Gummi Bears, Darkwing Duck, Batman: The Animated Series

All of these hold up so well for me Funny how that works. Especially Darkwing Duck is so hilarious to me, even more so as an adult. That show parodied so many superhero things and was rife with puns.

Post Merge: February 05, 2020, 12:12:37 PM

In total fairness, I also hate new sitcoms. But ones I remember from childhood (other than Seinfeld) dredge up a special kind of “ick” feeling.

That might be it
I guess they were something you didn't like to begin with and your parents putting them on just added to that.

[Galactica]

Oh yeah- 

Have any of you guys gone back and watched the original THundercats? Or Heman?  The dialogue is almost hysterically bad.  Of course, it was written for 3-5 year olds so I guess they get a pass.


I think the worst was when I forced my wife to watch "Goonies" which was a childhood favorite.  I never realized until I watched it as an adult, that they basically just run around screaming the ENTIRE MOVIE.  I mean, it has it's cute moments but definitely not the same magic that it once had...

[Mewtwofan1]

Operation (I forgot how much I hated that noise)

Same. The noise scared me as a kid, and so I started crying. We only played operation once as a family, and that was traumatic. The game still freaks me out on a deep level to this day.
As for anti nostalgia? I’d have to say Instagram. Mistakes were made, and it just wasn’t pleasant. It was when I was a rabid g4 mlp fan, and I was quite vocal about it. As much as I love my early fandom days, I do not miss this aspect of it at all. Glad I grew up, and became better.

[Leave a Whisper]

I still enjoy the original Thundercats. And that's an over-exaggeration of Goonies. They did a lot of adventuring, trap solving and thief dodging.

Post Merge: February 05, 2020, 02:26:52 PM

Operation (I forgot how much I hated that noise)

Same. The noise scared me as a kid, and so I started crying. We only played operation once as a family, and that was traumatic. The game still freaks me out on a deep level to this day.
As for anti nostalgia? I’d have to say Instagram. Mistakes were made, and it just wasn’t pleasant. It was when I was a rabid g4 mlp fan, and I was quite vocal about it. As much as I love my early fandom days, I do not miss this aspect of it at all. Glad I grew up, and became better.

Yeah, its just an obnoxious and painful sound. And some of those little parts slid into the side.

I also hated that one game where you hafta match up blocks before the timer stopped and they'd fly out. But I can't remember the name.

Looked it up, its called Perfection.

[Ponyfan]

I never liked this board game.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6MX2hxmfx_Q

Ponyfan

[Zapper]

Folks, this isn't a thread about stuff you hated as a child
Quite the opposite.

Have any of you guys gone back and watched the original THundercats? Or Heman?  The dialogue is almost hysterically bad.  Of course, it was written for 3-5 year olds so I guess they get a pass.

Bwahaha, these are the 80s cartoons I came to love ironically. I recently had a He-Man/Transformers/Bravestarr/She-Ra party with two friends (one of which had never seen G1 Transformers) and we laughed so much we cried. It was great. Especially the swearing! YOU BOOB! FOOL! And the animation budget. And Swifty's smoker voice! Ha, I could go on.

As a kid I really loved Thundercats. Now I'm like "how are there adults who take this seriously?"
I was active in the Transformers fandom, I saw how G1 is treated almost religiously when actually it was rather silly and borderline crazy. We watched that episode where a hotel heiress (she is named Astoria Carlton-Ritz, lmao!!!) falls in love with an ugly plane Transformer and he smacks her around and stuff A+ content!