Riani Kenyon is a caffeinated Zillennial who is hopelessly addicted to The Sims 4 and binge-watches her latest anime obsession when she’s not busy bopping to early 2000’s K-pop. Beyond being a nerd, she has worked on initiatives for the UN Academic Impact and the UK Model WHO, and also explored politics while interning at the House of Commons.


People are mining the past for stable comfort 

Ultra Cosy 

Nostalgia has become all but an essential coping mechanism for many, with people mining the past for a sense of comfort and inspiration during turbulent times. Whether 

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

, many seem to have adopted nostalgic pastimes and vices. With 58% of Americans saying that life is currently worse than it was 50 years ago, people are reminiscing about simpler times by engaging with culture from bygone eras – even if they weren’t there to experience them. 

Pew Research Center

Many Gen Zers are engaging with this form of nostalgia – or ‘

’ – with 37% feeling nostalgic for the 90s, despite the majority being born after the turn of the millennium. 

 aesthetics, inspired by Windows Aero (the UI theme of Windows Vista) and Adrian Frutiger, whose name is synonymous with computer interfaces and fonts from 2005. It’s embodied by cool blues and greens, bubbles, and water droplets, while the 

 is littered with Windows start-up chimes, Nintendo Wii soundbites, and Android bings. The trend has racked up over 

 views on TikTok and is just one example of the way people are seeking out nostalgia in their everyday lives. It appeals to the desire of 67% of Americans who say they want to return to a pre-social media era, which is also inspiring them to turn to retro ‘

Harris Poll

“I’m especially interested in existential motivation, which is one of the things that make humans unique compared to other organisms,” says Clay Routledge, a leading expert in existential psychology and nostalgia and the director of the Human Flourishing Lab at Archbridge Institute. “We have these big brains and the ability to think about our place in the universe and ask questions about our purpose.” His work focuses on the human need for meaning, how it motivates philosophical questions about existence, and the influences it has on behaviour. He’s intrigued by the psychology of nostalgia due to human’s ability to mentally time travel between the past, present, and future, allowing people to be goal-oriented. Whether it’s which university someone wants to attend after high school, training for a marathon, or making sacrifices in the present, our ability to think about the future is key to the trajectory of our lives. At the same time, we use similar thought processes to look to the past and comfort ourselves through previous achievements or meaningful memories, which can give us confidence and inspiration. Canvas8 spoke to Clay Routledge to find out more about the power of nostalgia and how it influences human behaviour.

Nostalgia supports agency and resilience [...] having individuals spend a few minutes reflecting on a nostalgic memory increased their confidence that they could solve a personal problem and made them feel more motivated to solve it.

“ Why do you think looking back sparks a boost in confidence in individuals?

When we’re pulling from our memories, in some self-defining way, we’re dealing with challenges in the present to feel confident that we can succeed. We need to feel like we can make a positive change in our lives, and we get a lot of that confidence from looking at how we’ve been successful in the past. It doesn’t need to be a significant achievement; pleasant memories of a successful holiday can even work as guidance. We turn back to past experiences and situations we have overcome to motivate ourselves.

To build a better future, people need to envision a better one, and they need to feel motivated to make that optimistic vision a reality

.” How do you think brands can help people feel a better future is within reach?

When I think of brands that are really good at this, there are different levels. Level one is simply the positive association people have when they engage with a brand. But the next level is using the idea of existential psychology, where brands help us connect to that deeper desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to have relationships with people and feel like we’re making significant contributions. Many brands are woven into the fabric of our lives by tapping into this. Nostalgia comes into play here when there’s a collective memory about these brands. Seeing the brand’s commercial or the packaging makes people feel a certain way or establishes a connection with someone else. When the world feels chaotic and full of distractions, those connections are a powerful reminder that individuals have a common thread which links them to others, so brands can play an important role in fostering that feeling.

How do brands do nostalgia badly? Are there times when they have completely flopped?

What brands misunderstand sometimes is that nostalgia is not just a fuzzy feeling while watching their favourite films. Nostalgic memories are special memories. If a brand wants to use nostalgia to enhance people’s loyalty and desire to purchase certain products, it must take responsibility for those special memories. If brands deviate from a certain intellectual property and it somehow violates the core component of the nostalgia people have for it, that’s when you anger diehard fans. At the same time, if you replicate it exactly, you’ll be considered as cashing in on nostalgia since there is no new content. So, on both sides, there’s a risk. The trick is finding the middle ground where you’re paying homage to the original but changing it with the times so that it matches modern values. No one likes feeling old, and original fans have grown up, so they want the franchise to grow with them. Brands can help foster this growth by hitting that sweet spot.

 declared loneliness a ‘global public health concern’, and 

 has been diagnosed with a loneliness epidemic. However, your report says that 

 that their nostalgic memories are best characterised as “social memories involving family, romantic partners, or close friends.” How can nostalgia bring people together in times of social isolation?

Often, when people think of something like a video, on the surface, they may think it's a disconnected activity, and there are negative stereotypes attached to it because they're playing a video game by themselves, not talking to anyone. But there's a lot of nostalgia around video games, especially ones with retro aesthetics with the 8-bit graphics because parents, older siblings, or cousins shared these games with new generations. There's an intergenerational passing down of nostalgia, which connects people across generations.

So, what does this have to do with the loneliness issue? Well, it turns out that most of our nostalgic memories are about other people and collective experiences. During our interviews, we noticed people very quickly talk about who they were with when they played a certain game, whether it was going over to a friend's house after school or at a college dorm room. So, it seems very individualistic, but it very quickly becomes social. Most of the fulfilling and enjoyable moments in our lives almost always involve others. That's where nostalgia becomes powerful because it serves as a key reminder that we do things we love with the people we care about. Brands have an opportunity to build these connections by fostering moments across generations to create dynamic social networks.

 from the 80s, injecting hope into technological advancements. How else do you think nostalgia can inspire hope in people?

Interest in solarpunk and other retro-futurist ideas offers a hopeful and aspirational counter to the dark and even apocalyptic visions of the future we are constantly bombarded with. When the present culture is dominated by negativity, people can nostalgically mine the past for ideas and attitudes that can help provide creative inspiration and guidance for solving problems today and building a better tomorrow. We often see surveys that show a majority of Americans say life was better in the past, but those surveys are very superficial. I don’t think people are saying they actually want to return to a time when they had fewer medical options, for example. Instead, they’re saying that there’s an attitude in the past that they’re longing for, where we spent more time with family and friends and we weren’t distracted by our phones. Even Gen Zers say they are nostalgic for a time before smartphones, not because they want to give up technology because they’re very positive about learning how to use AI, but because they understand that smartphones are distracting, stressful, and anxiety-provoking. They don’t want to throw away that technology; they want to use it better, and they’re mining the past for inspiration about how people imagined the future would be.

Your report explained that: “Nostalgic reflection is especially useful when people are facing distressing mental states such as sadness, loneliness, anxiety, low self-esteem, and meaninglessness.” How can nostalgia boost mental health, which has been on a 

One of the challenges with mental health problems, like depression and anxiety, is that it’s very hard to see outside of that. When someone is in a very depressive state, nostalgia helps take them out of that moment and helps them realise that life is much bigger than the present. They have a past full of all these amazing experiences that have made their life meaningful. So when we’re nostalgic, we pull from that bank of cherished memories that remind us that life is punctuated with negative and stressful things, but there are also other wonderful experiences. And by looking at these fulfilling experiences from the past, people find that spark of motivation to move forward and build a better future.

Your research explored how nostalgia is a source of comfort during uncertain or difficult times. How can brands act as 

The world feels like it’s changing rapidly. For instance, all these predictions about how quickly AI may change our lives. I think one of the challenges is not just the change, it’s the uncertainty. But one of the things that brands can do is offer a sense of stability and show there are things that are predictable or stable. A big part of being human is self-continuity, where we want change as an opportunity to grow because people don’t want to stay the same person. So, people do want positive change in their lives, and they want to move forward because, without it, they may feel stuck or bored. But they also want to feel a sense of continuity, that there’s some throughline from the past to the present – which is where brands can step in. They can offer a source of familiarity that pushes that balance back during times of uncertainty.

What are the biggest tension points within understanding how nostalgia can be an engine of progress?

One challenge people have when understanding nostalgia is that they simply see people stuck in the past, which means they’re probably missing out on all the opportunities in the present, and they’re not focused on building a better tomorrow. But that’s actually not the case. I think nostalgia can be manipulated and weaponised in a way that goes against progress and problem-solving. If you find yourself thinking that everything about the past was better, then that’s a red flag. Nostalgia is not about selling people a myth but rather about the lessons, experiences, and wisdom from the past that can be useful for our decisions in the present and for pursuing goals in the future.

What are the most common mistakes that brands make when they think about nostalgia? Which brands are adopting this well?

I think brands are failing to understand the existential component of nostalgia. By tapping into that, a brand will excite us and energise our nostalgic spirit. By understanding what nostalgia is really about and its connection to social relationships, they'll realise it's not really about the brand; it's a resource to deepen connections. Nintendo has mastered the art of nostalgia because it's kept the video games that got people excited in the 80s, like the Mario games, but they've adapted to modern times with upgraded gadgets. This allows them to harness the excitement that it's something different while maintaining the continuity that connects the past and present. That way, it sparks excitement but feels familiar – that's the sweet spot for nostalgia.

What does the future of nostalgia look like?

Well, whether we want to or not, we're always moving forward and getting a little bit older. We're travelling this path through time and constantly navigating this relationship with the past and the future, connecting the way things were when we were younger to who we are today. As we get older and our bodies start to betray us – our vision declines, and we get aches and pains – but we still want to be connected to that youthful spirit and sense of adventure. So, the future of nostalgia is that comforting and constant loop in time. It's how we connect with people and pass down traditions and ideas; the next generations will make them new. As they say, 'history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes'.

 of Americans say that life is currently worse than it was 50 years ago

 of Gen Zers feel nostalgic for the 90s, despite having very limited or no memory of the era

 of Americans say they want to return to a pre-social media era

People turn to past experiences and situations they have overcome to motivate themselves in the present and achieve future goals

Brands that effectively tap into collective memory can provide powerful reminders that there’s a common thread connecting everyone

Nostalgia can assist in overcoming adversity by helping people reconnect with the things they love and people they care about – something that can create dynamic social networks

Dr. Clay Routledge is a leading expert in existential psychology who researches and writes about nostalgia, meaning, supernatural and paranormal beliefs, mental health, and public attitudes about social and technological trends. He's the vice president of research and director of the Human Flourishing Lab at Archbridge Institute. Dr. Routledge has co-authored more than 100 scholarly papers, authored, contributed to, and co-edited several books, and authored dozens of articles for outlets such as 

United States

Media and Entertainment

Behavioural Sciences

Nostalgia is often considered reactionary escapism during difficult times, allowing people to forget about the current state of play. However, psychologist Clay Routledge believes it's a powerful tool that can bolster mental fortitude and emotional connections. Canvas8 spoke to him to find out more.