Where does your interest in retro things come from?

[Obake]

Personally, my interest in retro stuff is pretty much just my interests not changing from when I was younger. It's not really a nostalgia thing, though. I still have a lot of the same interests I did as a kid, but I now have the means to engage with them, whereas when I was a kid I couldn't really watch or read a lot of things, much less play a large variety of videogames, or use the internet freely. So, as an adult I started watching, reading, playing, and just generally doing stuff I wanted to as a kid, and I really, really enjoyed all of it. This started me on being interested in retro media in general, retro fashion, and old internet. It's kind of just escalated from there, with me embracing now-dated interests I couldn't have when I was younger and developing new interests in retro stuff because of that.

This is pretty much my experience as well. It started with games, I loved games as a kid and when I got older I went back and played a lot of those old games in emulators and that led to collecting them. Old music, well my parents used to listen to it in the car so it was just always there but in the case of city pop I heard an Anri song one day when it popped up in my YouTube feed and I liked it a lot so I went from there.

 

[NeoTokyo Tempo]

For me, I guess modern stuff kept getting faker and gayer. There isn't much value in indulging in modern pop culture. Retro stuff just has better aesthetics and better quality overall. Much of it is still pop culture though. It's probably better to get into folk culture. I guess Vaporwave is folk culture in a way. It's made and added to by independent artists without a care for mass appeal, or even money. Most albums are given away for free. I guess the main thing that makes it not folk culture is that it's not traditional.

I also like retro tech. There's something about the robust engineering and high manufacturing standards that make it cool. That, and physical media gives you a better attachment to the media you consoom.

 

[Obake]

For me, I guess modern stuff kept getting faker and gayer. There isn't much value in indulging in modern pop culture. Retro stuff just has better aesthetics and better quality overall. Much of it is still pop culture though. It's probably better to get into folk culture. I guess Vaporwave is folk culture in a way. It's made and added to by independent artists without a care for mass appeal, or even money. Most albums are given away for free. I guess the main thing that makes it not folk culture is that it's not traditional.

I also like retro tech. There's something about the robust engineering and high manufacturing standards that make it cool. That, and physical media gives you a better attachment to the media you consoom.

This comment hits home. Mass consumerism was of course still a big thing back then, but it just feels... different. At least then many of the products were high quality and were built the last; that's really not the case anymore. I have several electronics from the 80s which still work like new today, but today it's not at all unheard of for devices to break after just a few years - even the expensive ones. If it did break back then it could at least be repaired. I don't mind consumerism - I actually kind of like it - but I don't want to waste my money on literal junk. I'm perfectly content to keep playing my Famicom, PC Engine or Mega Drive which all work like new than to spend however much money on an Xbox that's just going to... explode (lol.) Admittedly I do have a Switch and I love it, but Nintendo is cut from a different cloth than Microsoft or Sony.
And in the case of media, I feel like the soul has been sucked out of it in an effort to appeal to masses - like how Hollywood self-censors their films so they can be released in China. In comparison, Japanese films are made with only the Japanese market in mind and they're still really good as a result.

 

[赤い男]

From my parents, they got a collection of old stuff, i used to listen 80's music from a cassette and a walkman when i was a kid, with the time that love for retro stuff grow in me, recently i started to collect stuff from the 80's, 90's and early 2000's, just like a PS1 for example, sometimes i don't feel like i was born in the right time to be honest, i mean, i'm only 19 years old and i'm a such a retro junkie.

 

[reynad5150]

I remember the 80's and 90's (the time frame I grew up in) to be quite romantic. Not just the technology, but society also.
Being a kid who grew up in the early days of personal computing and video games, it was golden age and has been a delight watching that form of entertainment flourish and grow.

 

[Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意]

Being an adult is hard and nostalgic things are really comforting to me. They bring me back to a feeling of being carefree and hopeful that is hard to come by nowadays.

This is very relatable.

 

[Obake]

I remember the 80's and 90's (the time frame I grew up in) to be quite romantic. Not just the technology, but society also.
Being a kid who grew up in the early days of personal computing and video games, it was golden age and has been a delight watching that form of entertainment flourish and grow.

When do you feel like things changed?

 

[Placeholder]

My love for old equipment in music came out of it feeling more convenient to me. Loading up a CD/MD from my shelf and just hitting play on dedicated hardware, is so much faster than booting a PC/DAP and going through an operating system.

 

[reynad5150]

When do you feel like things changed?

Immediately following September 11th, 2001
Subtle changes began to happen and it also was a trigger for people and behaviors that would otherwise be considered degenerate or despicable to come out of the shadows to taint the Americana I am so fond of.

 

[Deleted member 2652]

90's kid here. My interest in retro media may have to do with the fact my parents were huge David Copperfield fans. They would tape his specials every time they'd come on and since then had amassed a treasure trove of his stuff. All of it dating back to the 70's. Watching them as a kid it felt anachronistic back then and still does now. The flamboyant hair, the crazy clothes, the Peter Gabriel songs - It's left an indelible impression on me since

 

[vaporwavemaster1]

90's kid here. My interest in retro media may have to do with the fact my parents were huge David Copperfield fans. They would tape his specials every time they'd come on and since then had amassed a treasure trove of his stuff. All of it dating back to the 70's. Watching them as a kid it felt anachronistic back then and still does now. The flamboyant hair, the crazy clothes, the Peter Gabriel songs - It's left an indelible impression on me since

彼がマジシャンをテーマにした自分のレストランを始めようとしていたことをニュースで見たのを覚えていますが、それ以来何も聞いていないので、それは実現しなかったと思います。私は同意します、その男は風変わりです、そしてあなたは彼の古いショーをすべて持っていることは幸運です。たぶんそれらを曲にリミックスしてみてください、それは面白いかもしれません

 

[Deleted member 2652]

彼がマジシャンをテーマにした自分のレストランを始めようとしていたことをニュースで見たのを覚えていますが、それ以来何も聞いていないので、それは実現しなかったと思います。私は同意します、その男は風変わりです、そしてあなたは彼の古いショーをすべて持っていることは幸運です。たぶんそれらを曲にリミックスしてみてください、それは面白いかもしれません

Copperfieldwave sounds like a great idea. I just need to digitize my tapes. Doesn't sound too hard but I should do it soon since you never know when they'll stop working.

 

[win2k]

I never outgrew retro stuff. I grew up with that, and modern and shiny stuff isn't for me. I'm made by AoE II, SNES, UT99, old computers. I still listen to my old CDs and sometimes my old cassettes. It's just the sensation of being outside of reality, to go back when things were a bit simpler... At least for me.

 

[ok soda whore]

Mine comes from being alive during the time period when these existed. The mid to late 80s = my childhood. early internet = preteen to teenage years.

 

[FreshSk8r]

Growing up rather poor we could only afford secondhand things, thus my attachment to laten 80's and early 90's things. Another reason is because retro things tend to be easier to use than most of the newest things of today which tend to be geared towards complexity and frivolous features.

Pretty much same here, I never had the hot new stuff as a kid, and I guess I just got used to that.
As a result of childhood exposure to retro stuff, it also evolved into a safe haven for me; a sort of idealistic escapism from a terrible reality.
Aside from retro things being fun in general, acquiring these things also sometimes require a bit of digging, at least to find them for a reasonable price, which almost turns it into a treasure hunt! Though that also has its downsides...

On the topic of buying. I like to actually own my stuff. When you buy retro, it's yours, whether it be music, video games, or everything in between. Everything nowadays is becoming a subscription model of the most twisted caliber, and people readily accept it. I believe in being able to buy, play, beat, and unlock everything in a game (even offline, which is often not possible in modern gaming) in one purchase, not three 60Gb downloads, months apart. Not to mention the excess "features," infesting everything from computer software to cars. It's cool to see what is possible, but so much of it is so not necessary.

Ultimately, I have very little hope for where things are headed, and I want to preserve the past as much as I can.

Is it really you smiling if you have to stay subscribed to smile?

 

[Sable]

Being old enough to see the shift that was 2013-

 

[Mint Jam]

it reminds me when I was a kid using the internet for the first time, and discovering all the cool things online.

 

[Deleted member 3578]

I'm in my mid-30's, thus of the last generation slice to grow up without the internet as a common fact of my life. Also, grew up lower middle class enough to be behind a lotta tech advances in entertainment. I got my SNES after the N64 was out. My mom had to put it on layaway.

So I've always been into older stuff. 3D gaming almost always controlled like shit during the 5 generation, and got fucking grim dark cringey af in gen 6. So I settled hard into retro gaming through old consoles and emulation.

And I've always liked old movies, men, and music. So I was pretty set into keeping a flame for old shit, even after I outgrew being a contrarian ding dong.

Also, I'm a sega fan. The gaming space would be SO MUCH BETTER if Sega weren't so good at failing. Nintendo would have to be a lot more consumer friendly if they actually had another game company to deal with. Sony n Microsoft are tech companies first. Games are just a profit motive.

 

[timelinker14]

私は忘れられた、過小評価された、そして見過ごされていることに魅了されているので、レトロなものに夢中です。誰も気づかなかった信じられないほど奇妙なものを見つけたとき、私はいつも幸せです。過去のメディアを再文脈化することで、歴史に自分の足跡を残していると感じています

View attachment 3195

This right here. Seeing the beauty in things long forgotten and/or seen as trash because it's "old" is deeply enjoyable to me.

 

[wot]

Part of it's nostalgia, most of it's making up for what I missed out on growing up. I was just poor back then. Rarely got new games, didn't get consistent internet access until my late teens, and I had a complete toaster that barely ran HL1. Couldn't upgrade from that until 2010.