The commodification of time and memory: Online communities and the dynamics of commercially produced nostalgia

Abstract

This article addresses the lack of analysis of the specific ways in which the online environment configures the relationship between the processual dynamics of nostalgia which allow for both creative and conservative modes of identification and the commercial exploitation and commodification of the nostalgia produced and articulated in online communities. We introduce an empirical case study of one of the companies operating on Facebook as a nostalgia maker: DoYouRemember.com and consider analytical frameworks for future work on the (online) ‘nostalgia business’ and its economic and political dimensions.

Making time in digital societies: Considering the interplay of media, data, and temporalities—An introduction to the special issue

“…With DoYouRemember.com as a case study for a “nostalgia business,” they identify modes of creative and commercial exploitation within the community. Next to the commodification of nostalgic moments, Niemeyer and Keightley (2020) identify a commodification of time and their ways of overlapping with other temporal layers: The historical time of popular culture and the repetitive time of remediation, the synchronic time of communication on social media, the chronological and dialogic time of the FB timeline, the autobiographical time of the users are synthesized in acts of longing for an idealized past.…”

Creating opportunities for temporary disconnection: How tourism professionals provide alternatives to being permanently online

“…Nostalgia, as Niemeyer and Keightley recently summarized, is "a recollection of times and places that are no more, no longer accessible or perhaps never were. It can also refer to a desire for a return to a past time that we never experienced or the regret for a past that never was, but that could have been, or for a future that never will be" (Niemeyer andKeightley, 2020: 1641). In this regard, nostalgia for them is located at the intersection between remembrance and forgetting, idealization and creativity (Niemeyer and Keightley, 2020).…”

“…It can also refer to a desire for a return to a past time that we never experienced or the regret for a past that never was, but that could have been, or for a future that never will be" (Niemeyer andKeightley, 2020: 1641). In this regard, nostalgia for them is located at the intersection between remembrance and forgetting, idealization and creativity (Niemeyer and Keightley, 2020). Boym argued that "Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one's own fantasy" (2001, xiii).…”

‘A Couple of These Videos Is All You Really Needed to Get Pumped to Skate’: Subcultural Media, Nostalgia and Re-Viewing 1990s Skate Media on YouTube

“…Indeed, as Natale (2016) has argued, all media is in a state of change and users create novel engagements and expressions as they mix media formats and adopt novel viewing practices. Lastly, given the apparent trend for the commercialization of nostalgic content on social media (Niemeyer & Keightley, 2020), further research might examine the use of heritage media by skateboarding companies wishing to preserve subcultural capital and project an authenticity based on the longevity of their involvement in the skate economy and culture.…”

“…In recent years there has been a growing cultural reverence for, and glamourization of, the formative years of skateboarding, with 'a lot of skateboarders, mostly the older set, have been revisiting history, drunk with nostalgia' (Hamm, 2004, p. 11). At a time when there is a burgeoning cultural fascination with nostalgic visions of the past (Holdswoth, 2001;Niemeyer, 2014), films such as Lords of Dogtown (Hardwicke, 2005), All This Mayhem (Martin, 2014), and Mid90s (Hill, 2018) give skateboarding a cinematic treatment that invokes an era in which skateboarding was emerging as an immersive subculture that gave its youthful participants a source of meaning and collective identity.…”