Déjà Vu & Digital Nostalgia

I’ve been online a lot the last year — really, my whole life.

Memories of online activities feel uniquely isolating, yet as soon as I share a memory with someone, they tend to open up about their strangely similar experience.

This leads me to think our online memories are not that unique, that we’re all experiencing the internet alone, but together.

I remember setting up Facebook for the first time and lying about my age. I remember posting my first Instagram photo: a squirrel at camp in West Virginia.

I remember studying for AP Statistics and making flashcards on Quizlet. I remember making designs on Photoshop and getting my first paycheck for online work.

I remember exactly where I was when I was accepted into the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business — stoned at a music festival.

I remember looking for dogs on PetFinder and finding my dog Ron. I showed him to friends and family, and it didn’t feel real until I had him in my arms.

That’s how online memories and interactions feel a lot of the time — like you have to prove they really existed. Screenshot or it didn’t happen.

I hang out on Twitter 2-3 hours per day. Thus, I have a lot of good Twitter memories: crafting tweets, going viral, messaging with friends.

I look back on tweets and messages from last year and can remember exactly where I was and what I was thinking when writing them. They make me laugh and transport me back to another moment in time.

I can look back at a piece of my writing and remember where and who I was when I wrote it. When I think of memories skiing, I’m not rushed with excitement. When I think of sitting in a coffee shop writing, I can’t stop myself from smiling.

I remember sitting at a now-defunct coffee shop creating my Substack. My Substack stands, yet the coffee shop is closed.

I remember getting my first Substack subscriber that was a stranger. Ugh what a feeling to look back on.

I’ve seen people tweet agonizing how they’ll be replaying making Excel sheets on their deathbeds. I prefer something along this guy’s take.

When I’m on my deathbed, I’ll be thinking about my memories with loved ones, but I’ll sure as hell be getting nostalgic for writing tweets and playing Pokemon as a kid.

Digital Nostalgia

While researching for this article, I found out an artist named Marcus Dewdney recreated the map from Pokemon Gold, allowing you to explore Johto on your laptop as you would have done on a Gameboy.

I immediately got hit with a sense of déjà vu — I’ve been here before. This wasn’t the first time I’ve felt déjà vu online though. It often feels like I’ve seen a website before, like I’ve seen tweets before, and like I’ve written out newsletters before.

Maybe this is because I spend so much time online, but The New Yorker’s Kyle Chayka suggested that this is due to the “repetitive templates, inhuman scale, and turbocharged content feeds” offered by modern websites.

This year, pixel art jumped back into the world. First, it was CryptoPunks. Now, it’s Jack Dorsey’s pixelated Web 5 announcement. It’s a smorgasbord of digital nostalgia.

“The revival of pixel art may be a quest for the kind of variety and texture that massive social-media networks have gradually banished, a harkening back to a messier, more human moment in our digital lives,” Chayka writes.

I remember when Launch House founder Jacob Peters took me on a tour of digital co-working space Gather Town for the first time. I had the immediate sense that I was in a Pokemon game just with the ability to talk friends and work.

Does anybody feel nostalgic when they use Zoom or Slack? No, you feel nothing.

We spend our days scrolling through the same identical feeds. When a website can trigger nostalgia, it’s a beautiful feeling. It’s fleeting, but sticks with you.

I wrote a piece a few weeks ago 90s brands like LimeWire and RadioShack coming back to life. I think it’s because people feel nostalgic — we miss old brands.

Already, vintage Apple sweatpants sell for $370. I even have a 1990s Apple Mac computer that sits in my kitchen. I took out the screen and use it to store my keys and wallet, but shit, it reminds me of childhood. It was worth the $120 on eBay.

“Nostalgia is a hell of a drug,” Greg Isenberg told me. Yes, it is. Digital nostalgia is a wonderful, addicting feeling full of smiles and old memories.