Students reflect on nostalgic power of cartoons

Cartoons and shows are one of the most nostalgic things for people, deeply connected to their childhoods and upbringing. 

Nostalgia makes people sentimental about a certain part of their history and childhood cartoons are a common example of this. In a survey of students, 22 responded, and 81.8 percent said that they experience nostalgia often, and 100 percent admit that there is at least one cartoon that is nostalgic to them.

There are many psychological reasons for the existence of nostalgia, junior Alexia Down said that “sometimes humans forget things from a while ago that don’t come back often enough for us to remember constantly. Because of this, some memories are metaphorically locked into the back of our minds. When something related to that memory is brought up, we suddenly remember it.”

Sophomore Calvin Hansen said that nostalgia is “a form of escapism to what could be called a more preferable time. If you’re above like 15, you got friends, family, school, maybe even a job to deal with, but when you’re younger than that and in the years you’ll look back fondly on that doesn’t matter.”

Many students agree that nostalgia occurs in humans because we wish to remember happy memories from the past. Thinking about simpler times helps distract us from hardships of growing up. As senior Claudia Gaff said, “As we age, life grows exponentially more difficult, and it’s only human to reminisce about when that wasn’t the case, when we were all carefree.”

While there may not be any evident evolutionary reason or purpose for nostalgia, sophomore Sarah Bhatia said it “gives us a reminder of what we’ve been through and something that meant a lot to us. We associate it with good memories and some people wish to go back to that time. Just a happy memory that unites us with ourselves.”

Nostalgia is something that can be shared in a community as well, not just individually. Some examples of extremely nostalgic cartoons for Cedar Falls students are Blue’s Clues, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Rugrats and Powerpuff Girls

 

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