Possibly you're close to tears missing your childhood. Ohhhh!


Nostalgia is a funny thing, so funny that corporations are making millions of euros a year because you "love The Lion King, it was your favorite movie as a child, and now you really want to see the new movie that came out, even though it's exactly the same as the original.


The monetary profit from nostalgia is the reason why vinyl records, Polaroids, bell bottom jeans are coming back. Hence comes "the power of nostalgia."


To really understand why nostalgia is so profitable, let's try to answer two questions "what is nostalgia" and "how does nostalgia influence us", that is, what is the process behind nostalgia that leads us to spend more money.


So, to start, let's explore "what is nostalgia". The word derives from the Greek "nostos" which means return home and "algos" which means pain. This suggests that nostalgia was originally associated with something negative and yes, it's true, the word nostalgia began to be used in the 17th century as a medical condition for soldiers in war who had melancholic feelings related to the desire to return home.


The meaning of nostalgia as a mental illness lasted until the end of the second world war, but from then on, the word acquired a new meaning.
Currently, most people share the same view of what nostalgia is, a feeling for the past, usually from a happy place or moment in our childhood, in other words, a feeling of idealized longing.


Studies have already been conducted to observe the parts of the brain that are stimulated by nostalgia, and the hippocampus which is associated with memories is one of them, however the neural mechanisms associated with this feeling are still not completely understood, but it is presumed that all these systems working together produce nostalgia.


Nevertheless, it is known that nostalgia arouses feelings of social connection, making us feel like we have a social network to which we belong. Therefore, this feeling brings some benefits to our mental health, as it improves our mood and self-confidence, creates a sense of social and emotional support and helps people deal with difficult changes in life.


But we all know what nostalgia is. And how about nostalgia for a time we didn't even live in? Do you feel nostalgia when you listen to an 80’s song? Well, maybe you don't, but just by reading the comments of those songs on youtube you can see several people saying that it is nostalgic, and it reminds them of their time walking the streets in the 80s.


This actually has a name, it's kind of weird, but it's called anemoia and basically works exactly the same way as nostalgia. Why?

Because nostalgia isn't real!


A professor at Duke University in the United States relied on studies showing that memory is a creative process, that is, when we recall memories, we are not seeing a recording of what happened, but rather a simulation of those past moments.
Thus, this professor argued that nostalgia can be based on simulations of our past, but considering the significant role of imagination in memory, it is not absurd to assume that we can feel nostalgia for completely imagined positive memories.


These imagined memories come from stories we are exposed to about moments in these nostalgic times, but it can also come from propaganda about the past, which even explains the growth of the populist movement in young people observed around the world.
 

But I'm not here to explore the power of nostalgia in relation to political ideals, but rather about our wallet.


 An experiment conducted for the "Journal of Consumer Research" consisted of asking participants to watch ads that focused on nostalgic experiences from the past, and another with advertising that sought to create new memories.
The willingness to pay for products was tested by giving participants a magazine with products for sale and seeing if they felt like buying any of the items they saw. They concluded that those who viewed advertising associated with nostalgia ended up being more willing to pay more.


With this, the authors of the study formulated the reason why this happens. If you've been paying attention so far, you already understand that nostalgia has positive effects on mental health, in this case, it is more important that it makes us feel more socially connected, because often it includes significant people from our past.


On the other hand, money tends to reduce our need for this feeling of social support and also promotes isolation, facts proven by another study. Thus, in the context of nostalgia, it is understood that there is an opposition between nostalgia and money.


When we feel nostalgia, we feel greater social connection, which in turn makes us more willing to give up our money easily, and this is called the nostalgia effect!


See? It’s quite easy isn’t it?! Now let's see some examples of how nostalgia makes rich people even richer! And nothing better than my initial example, Disney.


In recent years, Disney has seen that we tend to rewatch movies from our childhood and they saw the possibility of making money. So they started the era of adaptations, at the end of the last decade, where they adapted several of their iconic animated films, but only the most popular ones, which only proves that money is the reason why they do this.






 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
















When you compare the ratings of the original movies against their adaptations you can see that the originals are better rated than the remakes both for critics and for fans.

So it is safe to say that the animated versions are better than the adapted ones. But then, there's the profit from these movies.
 
 
 
 

 















Wow! Look at how much money these remakes made, this is shocking. But with this, it is understood that nostalgia, indeed, sells.


Well, there are many more examples of how nostalgia is used by corporations to make money, and this includes any advertising that evokes positive feelings about the past, one of the most famous brands for this is Coca-Cola.


Nostalgia is one of the biggest profit drivers in all industries, in fashion, in music, in video games, etc.


Nostalgia is a complex idea, perhaps it is a way to escape the current reality, but big companies see money and, usually, use nostalgia to make a profit and mess with our brains to be able to sell us something, to sell us a feeling, without even having to invent something new.

However, during the carnival holidays, I watched Ratatouille on Disney Plus and had an incredible experience, even though I had already seen the movie dozens of times, which made me wonder if companies selling us these feelings is even a bad thing if they are selling us something we all want to feel?