Why Are People Nostalgic for Early-Pandemic Life?

Writers Morgan Ome and Christian Paz analyze the emergence of nostalgia for early-pandemic lockdowns in this article. Drawing on social media content from platforms like TikTok and YouTube, alongside testimonies from young adults and expert analysis, they document how early pandemic trends and viral moments have been romanticized and memorialized. Twenty-two-year-old Sophie Feldman interprets this nostalgia as a longing for a period marked by collective solidarity amid global crisis. Ome and Paz introduce the concept of anticipatory nostalgia—the desire to commemorate the present before it passes. Psychiatric researcher David Newman characterizes this nostalgia as a reaction to anxiety about the transition to a post-pandemic world, while psychologist Andrew Abeyta describes it as a coping strategy for trauma and grief. However, the authors caution that such nostalgia may rest on an illusory idealization that risks inhibiting genuine healing. They further emphasize the privileged nature of this nostalgia, noting that many essential workers were excluded from this collective experience due to lack of leisure or safety. The article concludes by advocating for confronting the full spectrum of pandemic experiences—both positive and negative—to create healthier collective memories.

The article addresses how pandemic narratives are constructed, mediated by social media, and affect emotional processing and memory. It provides insight into affective dimensions of storytelling and the sociopolitical inequalities embedded in pandemic nostalgia.