Ark of the Lost Angels

Times Square on New Years’ Eve 1999-2000, New York, USA _{(Credit: Paul Mannix)}

The 1990s and 2000s held several factors which made the world feel cozier and less sterile than the world today.

All things are cyclical. There exists currently a degree of nostalgia for the 1990s and early 2000s which echoes the1970s nostalgia found in the 1990s, and the 1950s nostalgia found in the 1970s. Old styles come back around, like how the 2010s say a massive resurgence in music and style and culture from the 1980s. There are a multitude of reasons why the 1990s are the target of a wave of nostalgia. So it should come as no surprise that this nostalgia for the 1990s affects entire artistic movements like Vaporwave.

Think back to the dawn of the new millennium. Unless you had recently been born or were yet to be born, the memories of those years probably seem a lot cozier than current years. Personally, the memories of those years feel warmer. Perhaps it was because I was a child, but when digging deeper at the minutiae of everyday life in days gone by, I found there were some interesting factors that contributed to this phenomenon.

The Colour and the Shape

The most common difference between now and then that people probably don’t think about is the evolution of lighting sources. Before the rise of LEDs, most lights had incandescent or sodium vapor bulbs. Now, there are a lot of reasons why switching to LEDs was a good move: energy efficiency, safety, a longer lifespan, and ease of manufacturing driving down costs. However, it came at a cost.

The light emitted by incandescent and sodium vapor bulbs is a warmer, more golden glow compared to the harsh whites of the modern LEDs. Yellow light is healthier on the eyes. LEDs are harsher and put more strain on the eyes. On a physical level, that exhausts the eyes more, especially driving down a highway late at night, for example. On a more sentimental level, harsh whites feel colder and more clinical. Late nights at the office or in a laundromat feel different without that proclivity towards yellow light and the distinctive buzzing of those old bulbs. It was easier to focus on reading that book or magazine by the golden glow, hence the subconscious warmth.  

The clearest difference between LEDs and sodium vapor lights comes with a little history lesson. Astronaut Chris Hadfield took this photograph of the city of Berlin from the International Space Station in 2013. Notice the different types of lights, with the boundary being right down the middle. Berlin, much like Germany, was divided between West and Easy during the Cold War. West Berlin was capitalism’s showcase to the communist world, deep in East German territory With the divided Germany being the frontlines of the great cultural conflict between capitalism and communism for the latter half of the 20^th century, the divided Berlin represented the Cold War better than anything else. The Communist Bloc was poorer than the Western World, so despite both Berlins being the showcase for their respective ideologies, everybody still had to play within their resources. The sodium vapor lamps were easier to produce for their time, so East Berlin maintained using the old systems while West Berlin modernized. The division where the Wall stood can still be said from above today. There’s something sentimental, comforting, and attractive about the golden veins splaying out on the east side of the now-reunited city compared to western Berlin’s harsher white.

Neon has also been affected by the rise of LEDs. While there are some benefits to LEDs such as less danger of hazardous materials in case of a break or a leak and greater energy efficiency, the LEDs have yet to match real neon in terms of effect. Real neon is longer lasting, with more vibrant and eye-catching color. The distinctive nature of true neon, and its common use especially in older establishments now dates the memories to when those local businesses were in operation and not replaced by chains or torn down entirely.

Light sources weren’t the only way light was affected. Smoking, while not exactly a source of sentimental warmth, did affect the ways light would play in various spaces. Perhaps the presence of cigarette smoke everywhere wasn’t necessarily cozier, seeing as lung cancer isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, but it did affect the way the world was seen. Concerts didn’t need fog machines for their light and laser displays. Old sports photography had a distinctive blue glow in the background due to the cigarette smoke hanging in the air. Coupled with the grain of film and other limitations, these factors would give photographs and television broadcasts a level of separation from hyperrealism, almost an enforced stylistic language created by the limits of technology.

The places were more colorful and had more visual flair. Much of the visual style of the 1990s in locations emphasized bright, kitschy colors and shapes. Even fast food restaurants such as McDonalds were welcoming and comfortable. Today, most places are extremely minimalist. Gone are the creative arrangements of colors and shapes in favor of lots of glass, clean lines, and lack of ornamentation. Shopping malls used to be collections of stores which all had distinct visual designs to the stores. Clothing stores curated their aesthetics to fit the kind of clientele they were hoping to attract, and all of them felt visually distinctive from each other. Not only did it help create a feeling of brand identity in the minds of consumers, but it also helped places not run together in someone’s mind. Pictures of these old, defunct businesses show that spirit, and even people who have never heard of them get a sense of what each business was attempting to convey.

The philosophy being the design of stores in the past was to invite people in to stay for a while, peruse, and willingly part with their hard earned cash. By stepping into specific stores, the customer knew what they were looking for. Every company was trying to carve their niche and be distinctive. Today, the sense of alienation and sameness encountered within every store obsessed with minimalist design is inherently off putting to people. Stores made up of white walls, basic racks, and boring brown floors don’t evoke as much of a response, especially as all of the stores down both sides of the mall look the same.

Technology High on the Leading Edge of Life

Technology High on the Leading Edge of Life

The instant access to information of today brings the world closer together, although it is a double edged sword. Modern smartphones place more processing power than it took to send the astronauts of Apollo 11 to the Moon and bring them safely home into the pockets of a majority of human beings. Consumer PCs have the processing power it took expensive supercomputers to match a scant thirty years ago. The leap forward in processing power available to the average consumer is awe-inspiring.

The internet became more centralized and more vital to everyday life. The social aspect of the world moved online, and with it, networks were more spread out. No longer did everyone have to get together on a specific night to watch the game, the same hangout could be accomplished from the comfort of the living room and a group text chain or chatroom gave the same effect. Adding the internet and social media to everyone’s pockets only accelerated the process.

In many ways, people became more isolated even as they became closer together. That instant access to information constantly did start to take people out of the moment. The internet used to be a place one went to, not something they carried with them.

Of course, with The video of the 1990s and early 2000s is a far cry from the ultra-high definition able to be recorded by these metal pucks in everyone’s pockets. The video of the era was less refined, and it took longer to transfer. The slightly fuzzy, 4:3 aspect ratio with lower resolution reinforces the notion within one’s mind that the images they are seeing on the screen are not what’s really happening. Today, the instant access to HD video, and the immediacy of photography in one’s pocket and the rise of digital photos and videos meant that they became much greater parts of every day life as opposed to being reserved for special occasions as in the days of film.

Photography was also much more limited. Film still had yet to be supplanted by digital, and film brings a graininess along with other qualities that weren’t inherently replicated by digital images. The same concept extends to movies. 35mm film produces an effect that’s hard to describe, but the combination of the more limited color combinations, film grain, set framerate, and other factors give film a distinctive look. Many filmmakers still use film despite its expense to achieve the effect. Even imagery transmitted by satellite relied on infrastructure built for film, giving many of those early news reports similar effects as they had before. It wouldn’t be until the world switched to high definition that the line between reality and what was on the screen blurred. Often times, that meant bringing the news right into the living room, and eventually one’s pocket, thereby obliterating the line between someone’s home and office and favorite bar, and the rest of the world. Life feels a little less cozy and pleasant when everyone’s misfortune is ready for viewing.

Information All The Time

The early form of the 24-hour news cycle in America began in 1979 when Iranian student followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took several Americans hostage in the Iran Hostage Crisis which stretched into the early days of 1981. ABC’s Nightline began when the network wished to compete with The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, which aired on rival NBC. What would eventually became Nightline was focused on keeping Americans informed on the hostage crisis, but by the time the hostage crisis ended, Nightline and host Ted Koppel were so beloved that the program stayed on the air.

While the hostage crisis was ongoing, Ted Turner started the first 24-hour news channel in 1980. Cable News Network, known by its acronym CNN, led the way for round-the-clock news. However, the network didn’t become ubiquitous until a decade later, when its reporters covered the Gulf War from the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Israel hosted reporters talking about the war in its opening hours, but what made CNN stand out from the Big Three networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) was that it had reporters inside Baghdad reporting as the bombs fell at the beginning of Coalition operations. In fact, CNN’s reporting was so accurate that the Iraqis were using CNN’s reporting from Israel to adjust the targeting of their Scud missiles. CNN was informed of this and ceased providing as many details. However, this incident would be a terrifying glimpse into the ramifications of instantaneous reporting which is a part of daily life today.

CNN paved the way for the likes of Fox News, MSNBC, and other 24-hour news channels, which would eventually be supplanted, in part, by the internet. However, the crucial difference is that the internet was not available all the time. In fact, someone out and about was often less informed than someone sitting at home watching television all day. It’s why so many movies and television shows created before the rise of smart phones and social media where someone out and about will have a phone call with someone back home or at the office or wherever in which the latter person will tell the former, “Find a television.”

In this way, information was not as immediate, nor omnipresent as it is today. Family events weren’t broken up by people seeing live footage of bombs falling on Ukrainian cities taken on cellphones and posted to Twitter. The constant immediacy of information and the need to stay current taken to its absurd extreme by a society which has been sold instant gratification as a total positive do make everything happening feel much more overbearing as it happens. While the advances in telecommunications, photography and videography, and access to knowledge are important in building a better society by pointing out injustices, the pressure of everything being immediate can cause problems.

Get Off My Lawn Full of Dangerous Chemicals

This is by no means a fist shaking at the sky, “back in my day” type of article. Many of the advances which have shaped the modern age have come about for good reason. Perhaps some haven’t. However, the differences between then and now can’t be ignored. Contrary to what Jay Gatsby would have you believe, you can’t repeat the past. Nor should you.

Perhaps this is more of a call to action to learn some lessons from the past and find little ways to make a world which feels so cold and clinical to get a little more warmth back into it. Nostalgia for the recent past is not a new phenomenon, nor is it an entirely bad one. With a little care, and a little critical thinking, valuable lessons from the past will be easily discernible. The sticky wicket is applying those lessons to a world which is focused on continuing to rocket forward with great speed, and obsolete what it knows to be true at any given moment in favor of tomorrow’s next great breakthrough.