Instagram, Hipstamatic, the use of vinyl records, film cameras, re-makes of hit movies and vintage songs left and right: one of the most downloaded smartphone applications as of the moment is Instagram, an app which lets you apply different vintage looks for your photos, putting a certain nostalgia feel to them like those you would get from an old film camera and some rolls of film. The use of vinyl records has also been a trend lately as seen when the famous band Up Dharma Down released their latest album in limited edition vinyl. One may wonder whether the sudden re-emergence of these things which are now considered “old school”, things from the past which we try to imitate and re-experience, is just coming from the hipster craze everyone is raving about, or is it something else?
Hipster, a word which made considerable noise in 2010 and one often involving people who use old film cameras, use vintage accessories, cars, and anything else vintage, has made significant influence on the way we see old objects. Hipsters are the reason why film and old cameras are selling like hotcakes today. It was also these people who influenced app developers to make phone applications that imitate the old film look. I think that this boom in hipster culture is fueled not only by the people’s desire to express their artistic selves but also by the fact that we humans tend to hold on to things that takes us back to the old days.
We don’t always remember the feelings attributed to events that we have experienced in our lives, so we tend to use objects in order to relive those moments, be it in nostalgic photographs, cards, music, or movies. We use these things in order to relive great times, to remember our greatness and put ourselves in a momentary high. We use these things to get away from stress, away from the complicated life brought on by the sudden advances in technology that have made our once simple lives now a tangled mess of operating systems, mega pixels, and download speeds.
Through these trends we successfully go back to the old times when our lifestyles were simple and peaceful, even for just a little while. People, especially Filipinos have a nature of being sentimental. We tend to hold on to things which have sentimental value to us, things that help us remember a certain time in our lives, reliving greatness, remembering moments.
But are we overdoing it? Have we focused so much on reminiscing moments from the past that we are forgetting the present, unable to enjoy the now? We are too attached to the past, to the so called “great times” that we might have neglected the “now”. Some compare the sound quality of vinyl and MP3s, not realizing the convenience that the latter brings. Purists compare the image quality of film photography to digital, but neglect the advantages provided by a digital workflow.
Filipinos always compare our current government to Marcos’ reign, always saying that those were the golden days of the Philippines while criticizing our current government, forgetting the number of human rights violations, political repression and massive corruption in the country during his time.
We tend to linger in the past so much that this has limited our ability to move forward into the future. We do not realize that we have wasted our time and effort comparing, remembering, and still living in the past just too much.
