This article was originally published in The Conversation.
If you’re a Millennial or a member of Gen Z and immersed in our cultures’ current obsession with reboots, re-enactments, sequels and prequels, then you may be feeling a bit of nostalgia fatigue and asking yourself: “Haven’t we been here before?”
From the recent Mean Girls reboot to upcoming sequels for films like Megamind and Moana, contemporary popular entertainment seems to be rooted in the continuous (re)manufacture of memory. Indeed, the practice of leveraging our fond memories of the past for profit has a name: nostalgia-baiting.
The word nostalgia comes from the Greek nostos, meaning “homecoming”, and algos, meaning “pain.” Put another way, the word nostalgia refers to the specific form of pain felt when we attempt, but are unable to, return home. Nostalgia is homesickness.
