Nostalgebra
a vocab word that you voted for! Thanks!
Just the other day, I downloaded a game I remembered enjoying back in 1998 (though it came out in ‘97). It’s a puzzle-centered pirate adventure game called Curse of Monkey Island, and, though I had to play it with a walkthrough writeup by my side,1 I had a blast going through and collecting items, insult-dueling, and sighing in nostalgia as I appreciated the sharp wit of the ‘90s writing. Lately I’ve been discussing how mean and sometimes even nasty our humor was back in the ‘90s (a backlash to the enormous earnestness of the ‘80s, surely), but in this game’s case, I was exhilarated by the intelligence of the banter. And I wonder if in this age of mindless outrage farming married to AI slop, that’s why this good old ‘90s rapier wit2 is so refreshing to me.
But maybe I loved it so much just out of nostalgia? Hard to say. But then thinking about that, and about the first time I played it through, on my what-would-seem-ancient-now PC computer (that cost a couple thousand dollars we didn’t have), and which person was my partner at the time, and what I was doing for my arts, and what my job was, and my pets, and… and I was in my late 20s, and…? I find myself floored that nearly 30 years have gone by, and I’m in my 50s right now. Replaying the same game. What??
And you know how Facebook throws ‘memories’ at you? No? That’s okay—I wish I didn’t have to use FB either, but it’s still what live theatre endeavors use, almost solely, so I’m still there. Shrug. But anyway. Lately, those ‘memories’ that pop up kick me in the face. The other day, a ‘memories’ picture of me appeared that was labeled 2022. That picture was taken of me performing in a children’s theatre show when I was 16. That means the picture was actually taken in 1989. Let that sink in, as the conspiracy theory podcast bros say.
The formation of a slang term is akin to legit etymology, only it’s …well I was going to say it’s a bit more of a conscious coining than a natural evolution. Is that accurate? It feels accurate. Linguists, chime in. But anyway—this word is like that. It’s a word formulated by who knows whom in (probably online) discourse, to attempt to express the very feelings I relate above. Because we Gen Xers are going through it by the teeming many. And we still own the Internet. And so we’re talking about it. This word was coined from a combination of ‘nostalgia’ and ‘algebra,’ which I think is delightfully hilarious, and I’m all about it. The definition? It’s just what it says on that screenshot tin: the process of calculating how long ago something was, and being outraged at the answer.
The above photo is from one of those ‘memories’ from FB: it’s a picture of me and my friend Krista, singing through the music to Fiddler on the Roof, which was going to be the big Spring musical during the upcoming/following year at Boulder High school. This was during the Theatre Guild retreat, so we would have been juniors, or about to be juniors, in high school. This means this would’ve been taken in 1989, the musical performed in 1990. And I remember that outfit, and that moment, and that retreat, and… but as much as I remember that, the nostalgebra kicks in right as I nail the year: I was not yet 16 (this was summer, and so I would have turned 16 that next upcoming February). But I’m not pissed about this, as the above definition suggests I should be, from nostalgebra. I’m more… in awe. Amazed at how much time has passed since this picture.
And that’s my thing: the word nostalgia doesn’t necessarily mean getting ‘pissed’ or angry about anything; nostalgia refers to more of a wistful looking back, by definition. Right? And when I think about the above picture from the Theatre retreat, and so many other old pics I come across in all my recent scrollings and endeavors, I have to ask: Am I really outraged at how long ago some of this stuff was, or just surprised? I think it’s the latter. I know it’s the latter. I’m not mad, I’m in wonder.
And now I’ve gone through this word (and especially this photo), I can’t help Musing about how it feels to have so much past, well, in my past. Though perimenopause is kicking my ass,3 aging isn’t actually angering me. It’s surprising, for sure, and sometimes unbelievable, but it’s more awe-inspiring than off-pissing. And, as one of my friends from my first martial arts practice used to say (more than 20 years ago! how?!), ‘it’s only gonna get stupider from here.’
To be fair, I had the same in book form when I first played it when it was new, too. I famously suck at puzzle games.
In my case, literally: I was intensively studying theatrical rapier fighting from 1996-1999. So the late ‘90s were all about wit for me, and rapiers. Kinda cool.
Maybe I shouldn’t be rawdogging it, but that’s a whole ‘nother essay, methinks.