There is a saying that history repeats itself. This saying has recently been acknowledged with pop culture such as fashion trends, movies and TV series. This is called “nostalgia bait” which is known as taking old concepts of trends, characters, shows, and movies and then rebooting them. Nostalgia bait can be perceived as fun and refreshing, or just being lazy and reusing old ideas for a cash grab.
Nostalgia Bait Throughout the Years
Recently, production companies have been rebooting or putting a twist on original movies and TV shows such as “Mean Girls,” “Wonka,” or “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” Although this has been happening for many years with the “Avengers” and “Justice League” movies, series, and animated shows.
Originally, the “Avengers” and “Justice League” (which are originally owned by Marvel and DC) all started off as comics. Throughout the years when the big screen became more relevant than reading, Marvel decided to launch its first movie “Iron Man.” It was a huge success, grossing over $585 million.
The audience for “Iron Man” consists of a wide age range because of a new generation wanting to see a new superhero and an older generation wanting to look back on the comics they read in their childhood and seeing it being turned into a live action movie.
The Cash Grab Behind Nostalgia Bait
Sometimes when a movie or TV show is rebooted, it gets compared with the original and usually has a negative review. But sometimes it can be obvious it was made to make a quick buck.
A movie sequel that has been adapted many times that was considered a cash grab was “Home Alone.” The first two “Home Alone” movies that starred Macaulay Culkin were hits. But when producers wanted to make a third, he was perceived as too old and they decided to cast a whole new set of people. The movie was considered to be horrible and even Rotten Tomatoes said, “Stupid, poorly acted, and poorly written, “Home Alone 3” has got to be the worst installment in the series.”
Even with this reaction there have been three more movies made which have all been well known as awful movies. These movies are only made to see a reaction of those who want to pay money to watch an adaptation of a movie that will later on be known as a trash movie that could never compare to the original.
Another way cash grabs have been portrayed in society is with fashion. Many fashion trends come from the ‘90s and 2000s, such as Y2K and ‘90s grunge that have been on the rise lately.
Companies have decided to take this and try to make money from exclusive sales with clothes that look like past fashion trends. Some users on social media such as YouTuber ladyvisa4482 have expressed in her video “Low Rise Juicy Tracksuit Review & Comparison to an Original.” She expressed throughout the video that Juicy Couture is reselling their tracksuits that were from the 2000s, which is the latest craze due to the Y2K era coming back in the media. Lady Visa had both the new and 2000s tracksuits. She expressed that the new tracksuits are unlike the original. Such as being tacky and unfitting to the body by being more baggy and mid-waist then low-rise as advertised. Overall, the original tracksuits are seen as better than the new ones, which shows that this is just a cash grab by the company.
Is Nostalgia bait going to be the craze of all our trends?
As with any trend, it will die down and may come back in later years. Even though the thought of rebooting movies, shows and bringing back old trends is fun, it shows that our culture is just getting lazy and using washed-up ideas to keep people entertained. This doesn’t mean that nostalgia bait will take over all our media. Eventually the wanting of nostalgia will die down like most media does. But for now, this is what people want: to go back to their childhood favorites when life was simpler, and people didn’t have to worry about the stress of being an adult.
