Why do people get more nostalgic as they age? Utsudo finds she increasingly can’t understand today’s pop songs or fashion trends, yet loves the anime of her childhood and Ragnarok Online, the online game she played as a student, more and more. She believes the mind largely settles in your twenties; afterward you see more of the world, but your tastes rarely change, and when you’re tired you want to return to familiar, comforting things. Nostalgia isn’t bad—those fond memories keep us company as we grow.

Translated from Utsudo’s original Chinese column.

Pop songs I just don’t get

This is something I’ve felt recently.

In the car, I heard the radio play the latest hit song, but the rhythm sounded to me like slightly nicer noise, and I wanted to change the station right away. Apparently it’s a hugely popular Korean song that’s topped the charts for weeks, so I patiently kept listening, but I still didn’t like it.

And those unbelievably short crop tops that show the belly, and jeans with big holes torn in them—I don’t get those either. Realizing my sense of style can’t keep up with the times anymore is probably a sign I’m getting older QQ

Loving childhood things more and more

While I can’t understand today’s trends, I’ve found myself loving “childhood” things more and more—the anime I loved as a kid, the hit songs of my teens, the single-player or online games I forgot to eat and sleep for, and the restaurants I loved in college.

It’s strange: in this convenient era, there are so many fun things all around us, some you can even enjoy without spending a cent, yet I just can’t resist the charm of nostalgia and want to relive the past every so often. While I’m enjoying them, I don’t especially yearn for the old days—maybe I just like immersing myself in the good things of the past.

RO: a shared memory of our generation

Take Ragnarok Online (RO), the online game I loved as a student. It’s a shared memory for people of my generation who loved online games. It even deeply influenced my early novels, and it’s the first—and last—work I ever wrote fan fiction for.

RO is the online game I played the longest. I even wrote 《RO冒險日誌》, an adapted story about playing it with my friends. Strangely, RO is still running, but its systems keep getting more complex and its community has changed a lot. Yet now and then I want to go back, soak in the scenery and music of the capital city Prontera, and stroll the bustling shopping street—even doing nothing at all makes me happy.

How should I put it—it gives me a sense of comfort.

The friends I used to play with are all gone now, but every fond memory we built is buried deep in my heart. Even as the details fade, the happiness is etched deep into my bones—I couldn’t forget it if I tried.

Humans are nostalgic creatures

That’s why people say humans are nostalgic creatures: the things you experience in childhood stay with you as you grow.

Actually, I believe one thing: by the time your mental age reaches your twenties, it’s basically set. As you get older, at most your horizons widen, but you’ve pretty much seen it all, new things stimulate you less and less, and work eats up a third of your time. Everyone is tired, and we no longer have the energy to chase new things.

That’s when you tend to seek out what was once familiar—things that make you feel safe and comfortable, like familiar music, TV series, manga and novels. So you find yourself rewatching an old favorite anime for the Nth time, looping the same album, or ignoring today’s AAA blockbusters to go back to Lineage II with graphics that look painful by modern standards, or buying piles of old consoles and figures you couldn’t afford as a kid.

Many young people may not understand this, but I believe once you’re a bit older, you’ll probably get it. No one escapes the magic of time—you’ll become nostalgic eventually.

Unless you’re one of those rare people who never looks back and keeps striving upward. But you get tired sometimes, don’t you? Once your mind relaxes, that’s about when the nostalgia virus moves in…

FAQ

Further reading

• Previous: Hey! I Heard You’re a Writer on Ghost Island #245: My Novel Consultation Experience, Now Open to All
• Start from the beginning: Hey! I Heard You’re a Writer on Ghost Island #01: Utsudo’s Debut — A Road to the Dream Covered in Frost
• Utsudo’s books

About the author

Utsudo is a Taiwanese light novelist and novelist VTuber with more than ten years in the industry and 40 commercially published print books. Her novel 《遺失的情書》 received a 2022 Ministry of Culture youth creative award. The 《嘿！聽說妳在鬼島當作家》 series records her experiences as a novelist in Taiwan.