the unnamable

Two business professors, Robert Schindler at Rutgers and Morris Holbrook at Columbia, have spent years conducting studies in which they ask hundreds of subjects between the ages of 20 and 80 to compare current and past cultural offerings… The professors also asked a diverse group of subjects to rate celebrities, movies and cars from across different eras and came up with a “peak,” the age associated with one’s fondest cultural experiences. Higher NPMs correlate to a lower peak–that is, more nostalgic people tend to favor a younger age. “But what’s important,” Mr. Holbrook says, “is that everyone has a peak.” In other words, we all have a particular period when we think that the culture was at its most enjoyable–and it’s almost never the present…
–Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be