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The Problem with Future Nostalgia
The Internet has improved in many ways, but its also lost some of its magic.
“Vaporwave really rekindled my love for music, to the point where I enjoy it as much as I did when I was a teenager. Before it, I spent a lot of 2013 listening to spacey drum & bass mixes while watching Hong Kong and Tokyo night driving videos on YouTube and drinking beer, just because the combination of it all created such a weird feeling I have never experienced before. Then I found vaporwave, and it was like it was already doing all that for me, without having to sync the music up to the videos or drink the alcohol.”
— HK
I probably mourn the Internet of the 90s at least once a week. I grew up with the Internet, and to my child-self rabbit-holing through the messy spiderweb links of Angelfire websites and GameFaqs message boards. I longed for the days when my Dad would take us to his work — he was a software engineer who worked at Paradigm owned by the now-defunct THQ — and I’d scroll through a board called UnsolvedMysteries and read stories about ouija boards, ghosts, and demonic possession submitted by users and commented on by people hunting for clues and solutions. Which now that I think about, was probably one of the origins of creepypasta. I’d hunt the Internet for mods for my Creatures games, feed my Neopets, and go to sleep…
