Episode 26: Dr. Clay Routledge and Nostalgia: Why the Past Matters

Welcome to GenX Classic Sports, the podcast where we relive the unforgettable games, players, and sports moments that defined our generation. I’m your host, Shon Enis, and today we’re diving into something a little different—but totally central to why we love these memories so much: nostalgia. 

Our guest is Dr. Clay Routledge, a leading psychologist and expert on the science behind nostalgia. We’ll talk about why those old-school games, teams, and athletes still matter, how sports connect us to our past, and why Gen X fans keep coming back to these moments. Let’s get into it.

To find Clay's book and other works on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Clay-Routledge/author/B010W6SLP2?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1751140917&sr=8-1&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Clay's web site: https://www.clayroutledge.com/

(We are PROUD of our partnership with a great company: Aunt Susie’s Granola. https://auntsusiesgranola.com/ . If you love granola, then you’re going to love Aunt Susie’s Granola.  The owner has offered our listeners a great deal: from now until July 31st, listeners of our little podcast can use the code GENXCLASSICSPORTS for a 20% discount, one per customer thru July 31st.)

Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more nostalgia-packed content covering GenX retro sports, and the athletes who defined a generation. 

Production Credits:

Intro and outro music: Mason Enis

Narrator: Haylee Wolf

Copyright @ PineStreetProductions 2025. Any illegal reproduction of this content will result in immediate legal action.

Transcript

welcome sports fans to Gen X Classic  Sports where we bring the nostalgia of our   sportsfilled youth into the present day grab  your favorite retro jersey crack open a cold  
one and let's stroll down memory lane together welcome back everyone to the show i appreciate  
you for joining us um this is going to be episode  26 and today we're going to be talking about  
nostalgia the only reason I have this podcast  is because I'm so interested in nostalgia and  
you know we're focusing on sports nostalgia but  there may be projects in the future where we're   focusing on other things and as soon as I decided  to do this podcast uh over a year ago one of the  
first people that I knew I wanted to talk to was  Dr clay Rutled i heard about Dr rutledge uh years  
ago before the pandemic or around the pandemic  i suppose I heard him on another podcast and  
recently I bought his book that we'll be talking  about and um I just uh thought what he had to say  
was so interesting and I want to you know share  with you guys who he is he's the vice president of  
research and the director of human flourishing lab  at the ArchBridge Institute and he's a co-editor  
of Perfectus a magazine that deals with human  progress and flourishing he's a leading expert  
in existential psychology and he focused  his work on helping people reach their full  
potential build meaningful lives and spent two  decades in academia as a professor of psychology  
management distinguished professor of business and  uh he's taught undergraduate MBA and PhD courses  
in social and personality psychology cultural  psychology research methods and team leadership  
he's written a 100 plus academic papers he's  co-edited a list of books he's authored three  
books of his own discussing uh his you know  his academic pursuits in 2022 Clay joined  
the ArchBridge Institute as vice president of  research and he's the director of their human  
flourishing lab he is an expert on nostalgia  he he's actually one of the first people to  
um actually research what nostalgia is and what  it means to all of us and since nostalgia is the  
thread that runs through all of our podcasts we  couldn't be more happy to have Dr clay Rutled  
as our guest today so please if you like  what we do like and subscribe and I hope  
you'll listen to this wonderful explanation  from Dr clay Rutled about nostalgia and what  
it does for our lives thank you very much good sound good it looks like all right   everybody welcome back to everyone to the  Gen X Classic Sports Podcast i'm Sean Enis  
i'm your host and today we have with us Dr clay  Rutled and your credentials I've already read  
uh in the introduction but I will say that  the two important ones are that you're kind   of an expert on nostalgia and number two  you're a Gen Xer so that really qualified  
you for our show purposes okay Clay and um  so welcome welcome to Gen X Classic Sports 
i'm excited to be here thanks  so much for inviting me  yeah um I learned about you during COVID um I was  working in an office setting at that point and  
they encouraged us to listen to music or podcasts  if we wanted to and I found you on a podcast um  
and and I thought to myself someone actually  studied nostalgia like that was very with I mean I  
don't have the academic background that you do but  it was something that I kind of thought was not  
something very very many researchers and academics  really cared about nothing I had seen had referred  
to it as being a a formal study with research and  so forth so um can you tell me a little bit about  
how you got interested in nostalgia as a topic as  a researcher and psychologist and so forth yeah  
for sure and you know you your assessment was  correct there wasn't a lot of academic research  
on nostalgia when I first started studying it  you know over well over 20 years ago now so my  
background is in psychology and I was working on  my PhD at the University of Missouri at the time  
and what I was actually really interested in was  like the human ability to think about the future  
that was like what I was most interested in and  both the positive and the negative so the positive  
like that's how we plan right that's how we build  the society that's how we plan our futures is is  
we're able to sort of project ourselves forward in time um and you know and then I started to  
think about that also of course can create  a lot of anxiety then the future's unknown   it's uncertain and so that can that can be  stressful and worrying and then I started to  
think about well that same ability that allows  us to think about the future also allows us to   travel backwards in time and in fact we do  so often in response to thinking about the  
future we think about the future we get kind  of worried or anxious about the uncertainty   of it and then we look to comfort ourselves  by the past it's reassuring to look backwards  
and say "Well I've gone through tough stuff  before i've made it through the other side 
i've I've succeeded in various ways i've learned  life lessons." And so then I really started   to started to become very interested in that  relationship between nostalgia and our more future  
oriented thinking and you know at the time I was  working on my PhD my adviser and I my PhD adviser  
and I started were like well there's got to be a  ton of research on nostalgia right surely there's   a bunch of psychologists who have studied this and  we were surprised to learn that there wasn't a lot  
there were some for sure a lot of it was actually  in consumer psychology and it really wasn't about  
understanding like the the psychological mechanics  of nostalgia it was more about like understanding  
consumer preferences so it turns out not  surprisingly people like things from their   youth products styles music culture um that was  well documented but why the answer to why wasn't  
and that's what we that's what we became really  fascinated with and then you know 20 almost you   know I guess almost 25 years later I'm I'm still  doing it so I guess I'm still fascinated by it 
yeah you know surprisingly so the listen listeners  need to know um I mentioned it in the intro that   I'll record later but one one of your books is  called Past Forward: How Nostalgia Can Help You  
Live a More Meaningful Life when I heard you  on this podcast but basing on the dates in my  
head I'll bet you were either in the middle  of writing this or had just written it and   was in the revision stage i'm not really sure um but it was definitely before the copyright  
date on the book so this was heavy on your mind  clearly and so this is kind of what I use to prep  
for our discussion here and um you know one of  the things that jumped out to me uh very early  
on in the book well one you've already touched on  was that relationship that humans have with time 
um sort of how we in our minds go backwards and  forwards in time and sort of how that's unique  
to us um and you know really you mentioned in  the book very early on that there is actually  
a history of a negative connotation uh with  nostalgia and I got a real kick out of you  
explaining the the root of the word where  it actually came from with the the Swiss   uh was it the Swiss army could you just  briefly say where the word itself came  
from and and and how that was a ne how that  was a negative thing for a long long time 
yeah so I mean if you look back in ancient  literature you can definitely see expressions   of the sentiment of what we would call nostalgia  sort of a like a a longing a sentimental longing  
for the past but it wasn't until 1688  that the that the term was actually coined 
um to mean this you know really it was meant to be  like a disease diagnosis and spec and so there was  
this there was this you're right there was this  Swiss physician who at the time actually was a  
medical student becoming a physician and he was  doing a medical thesis and basically he'd coined  
this term nostalgia to characterize these symptoms  that he was noticing in Swiss mercenaries who had  
come down from the Alpine homes to fight wars in  Europe and they were singing their old traditional  
songs from the homeland and they were sad and  they were suffering and they were having heart   problems and insomnia and disordered eating and  all these things while talking about the you know  
the homeland and so he said oh here's what's going  on this thinking about the homeland sharing old  
stories singing their songs is making them sick  so nostalgia is a disease and you know it you you  
said you had a laugh because it it is hilarious  way because you know at the time there wasn't you   know we certainly didn't have like brain imaging  technology or anything that would allow the kind  
of sophisticated analysis we have now and yet  that didn't prevent him or his contemporaries  
from having very specific hypotheses about what  was going on inside the brains of these people  
including demonic possessions and evil spirits and  like the clanging of cowbells had caused some kind  
of damage to the eard drum which had pushing this  blood through the heart of sentiment like there  
was all these wild hypotheses the punchline being  at that time and for you know and for many decades  
after um the common view in the medical community  was that nostalgia was a disease of the brain 
and it was bad news and and that it held you back  that it held you back right like it was it was  a it was a it was a source of great suffering in  
fact that's you know they were like banning these  soldiers from singing their songs because they're   like "We don't want you to be encouraging these  symptoms." And you know later people figured out  
oh like this isn't just a SW at the time this  they thought this was like this had something   to do with the Swiss and then you started to see  nostalgia diagnosed in french and other Europeans  
even in the American Civil War there were quite  a few um diagnoses of Union soldiers fighting  
down in the South um who were diagnosed by  Union physicians with nostalgia i think it   was World War I even was the latest  was kind of like the last diagnosis  
um but eventually the physicians realized that this is not what's going on here this isn't a  
disease but what's interesting is then like the  psychologists kind of came about in the mid-   20th century and and they still saw it as bad  as as holding you back but they thought of it  
more as almost like a depression like a failure to  thrive and to be nostalgic was to want to return  
to the womb because you're not like entering  into adulthood fully or something like that  
so it was very much for you know for for  the you know its first couple hundred years  
um considered um and longer even um considered  either a disease of the brain or some kind of  
psychological dysfunction yeah that was that  was that was funny to read and you know but  
it does make me consider the fact that there are  people today who will who don't think positively  
so much about nostalgia they think you're you're  living you heard the term living in the past they  
think you're not moving on with your life that's  still out there that sentiment absolutely yeah  no it's a very common caricature of nostalgia  is that even if you know so you'll have people  
will even say "Well it's not bad for you  but it's holding you back." Like it's a  it's getting in your way like it's a barrier um  and so yeah that you know that's a fairly common  
view interestingly it's it's more of a common  view by social commentators um than it is by act  
the actual public because we surveyed the public and most Americans actually see nostalgia as a  
fairly healthy thing that helps them move forward  with their life um but that's not how it's often  
characterized in the media yeah and you mentioned  earlier and I I I'll probably skip around and  
drive you crazy but you mentioned earlier the the  the knowledge of how this impacts marketing and  
that was kind of where my notes led next because  I think when we think of nostalgia and marketing  
we we see the obvious things with with music and  movies and so forth you know for what I do here  
uh yeah I'm very interested in pop culture  but you know there's a whole nostalgic side  
of sports that uh that's certainly what  I'm trying to uh capitalize on because  
I thought on uh this on podcast in general uh the Gen Xers weren't really served so well  
with looking back into some of the things in the  specifically in the athletics that we grew up with  
there are tons of podcasts about movies and  music and I didn't really feel like entering  
that space but there's a lot of uh marketing  around the fact that people look longingly  
backwards into uh a lot of the sports stuff  um so uh I definitely see how marketing uh  
and takes advantage of nostalgia we all do but I  just kind of have noticed over the course of the  
podcast talking to different people we look back  fondly on Sirrus cataloges for merchandise like  
you're a Gen Xer you know that you couldn't find  just anything out and about in stores the Sears  
catalog or McGomery Ward have all had all kinds  of things you couldn't just walk in necessarily  right and buy and so we've we've  
kind of laughed at the fact that all of us what  merch existed in the 70s and 80s we got it out  
of the the Sears catalog there's definitely  you know a nostalgic pull today to things  
like that when they're selling their uh their  sports fans merchandise and so forth for sure 
yeah absolutely and I think that's a great  insight on your part that there is a lot of  
nostalgia like content out there about movies and  music but um you know less conversations public  
conversations about sports even though like  you said that's such a it's such a prominent   feature of of culture and of like people's lives yeah i mean I've noticed there's even 80s this  
is really crazy there's 80s themed um cruises  i don't know if you know that but there are  
cruises built around 80s music and 80s themes  so you know you dress 80s and then you know  
Poison or whoever plays on the cruise and  you know that's really interesting and then   there's comic cons i've been to a went to  a big Comic-Con in Dallas it's a it's fan  
expo is what they call i took my kids out there  to meet Stan Lee years ago and that's awesome 
tens of thousands of people at this thing so I  think I knew all along that those things were easy  
but I wanted to dig into why where the things are  that are happening for the sports fans that that  
long back to those days and I'll tell you what I  came up with one of the things that's well there's   card shows you know baseball cards and sports  cards are kind of making a comeback right now 
and so when you have a a card show um that's  your opportunity to really go meet what what I  
affectionately call old-timers you can go to those  and get autographs and they'll you know they'll   they'll sign your whatever posters glove bat you  name it so that's one attempt at kind of cashing  
in and and making you think about that but also  I don't even know if you're aware of this uh but  
there's a whole um kind of an industry within  the industry now on what they call throwbacks  
uh throwback uniforms throwback jerseys um they  make them the the Major League Baseball and  
the NFL they make their teams play in jerseys  from prior eras or uniforms from previous eras 
the Packers have a helmet that's just like I think  brown and then they have this old gold and blue  
thing and it the of course the whole point is  yes we're we're keying into your nostalgia but  
you know they're also selling that stuff after the  game so so you know marketing is such a part of or  
nostalgia is such a part of marketing and you know  that's what I found in the sports uh world anyway 
yeah no that that makes sense you know if I could  say one thing about the marketing thing because   I often come across this sentiment um or you I'm  directly asked about it that that takes sort of a  
cynical view of that like oh you know the it's this nostalgia marketing is not you know it's  
it's uncreative and it's mainly it's kind of  like just like cashing in on like people's  
like memories and you know I I think that's  not not a totally accurate view one you know  
oftent times there are very creative flourishes  involved in how marketing takes elements of the  
past and makes them relevant or accessible for  today for and you know that's just one you know  
one point um but second you know people love this  stuff like it's you know people act like oh we're  
being somehow manipulated by nostalgia marketing  it's like no that there's a market demand for it  
like people people love it and they like  sharing it i mean when you were talking   about going to the convention when I was in this is kind of random when I was in high  
school I actually went to a Star Trek convention  i won tickets for Remember when you used to call  
in to radio shows absolutely yes and I got these  tickets and to to go to this I think I got like  
four tickets and um it was in Tulsa Oklahoma and  it was too far i wasn't old enough for my parents  
to let me go so my mom my my awesome mom Yeah 
took me my brother and a friend to this Star Trek  convention and it was incredible and one of the  
things that I thought was really neat about it  that I thought about a I think at the time I   didn't actually fully appreciate as much as I do  now looking back on it is the intergenerational  
component you had like the old school fans  right who grew up watching the original  
series and then you had people like me the Gen  Xers who you know were into the movies right 
but also was watching the Next Generation you  know that was kind of like the show that was  
and Deep Space Night I think were sort of the big  shows at the time and you saw this dialogue right  
between the the people that were new coming  to it and then the old fans excited to show   them the old stuff and the younger people being  excited to learn about that and feel connected  
to that and you know I'm curious your thoughts  on how you know if there's a parallel to sports   but I feel like that so much of nostalgia and  pop culture is that it's like passing on the  
torch of an idea or an experience or a franchise  or something and then being like "Okay now it's  
your turn to make it your own." But you need to be  connect you need to be connected with its history 
yeah you're exactly right there there is a sports  component to that and and that kind of dubtales  
uh to to really where I was going with  the notes which is you mentioned a lot   in this book about nostalgia strengthening  and building relationships and I and then  
I've heard you say on a podcast that you  got your son into action movies when he  
was what a teen i've done the same thing  with my kid i mean I I He grew up on Rambo 
and you know Arnold and and  the good stuff the classics  and now though our common ground is more like John  Wick or or whatever you move into together so I  
exposed him to what uh you know I had grown up  on and then we found some common ground together  
so there's no doubt there's this component of this  where you strengthen and build relationships and   and a perfect example of that is um sports  teams are handed down almost in the family  
i mean they really you know a lot of sons  grow up with the pressure to root for who   dad roots for whether it's the college  or the pro or whatever that that's you  
know and my son kind of struck out on his own  early on and he was kind of rooting more for   individuals because of the way they're marketed but then he started noticing who I rooted for and  
how passionate I was and my friends and whoever  and so he slowly just kind of joined in you know 
and it is that way and proof of that and I  made a special note to to to research this  
so I could give you these numbers  because you need to hear this okay  the green the Green Bay Packers okay the football  Green Bay Packers they're unique in that they are  
municipallyowned and what my understanding of  that is is there's there's they're shareholders  
but there's no individual owner so they are  communityowned football team they're the   only one like that and their waiting list for  season ticket holders has 147,000 people on it 
wow and that's a 50-year weight roughly and   the the their tickets are routinely passed down  in people's wills as part of their trusts and and  
settling estates they literally leave their season  tickets to family which is why this list doesn't  
shorten because they can't get these tickets  out of individual families that are now three   and four generations into it so absolutely  there are parallels between the Star Trek  
uh fans and Star Wars and whatever it may be with  sports it's it's same thing with colleges but the  
pro college doesn't matter that even individual  athletes you know I'm a Michael Jordan guy my  
son grew up with LeBron James so we can argue  about that for the rest of our lives probably 
so yes there's definitely a component of that  but I loved your section about how this builds 
and and sort of makes relationships  flourish because of this common   ground that of nostalgia over these things yeah yeah yeah no and it's and it has this it's  
across time right like so it's like we're talking  about the generations it transcends generations  
it's a cross space often so the sports thing  might have more localized components but you  
have a lot of things that are shared communities  of interest that you can give you a way to to like  
be in contact or in conversation with people that  might otherwise be a lot different from you which  
I think is sort of an underappreciated value of  nostalgia it it's it's finding something that  
makes us like see that you know we have something  in common even if we disagree about lots of other  
things and we're have totally different life  experiences and so I just think that's a that's  
a really neat component about um component of  it that's often you know like I said it's it's  
often not thought of because you know going back  to the sort of stereotypes about nostalgia people  
tend to think of nostal or like nostalgia is  often portrayed as being like a dogmatic you  
know it's like oh like you're stuck in the past  um when in reality a lot of times it's like no  
it's a very expansive um thing because it connect  it gives you it gives you a way to connect with  
other people it's it's almost a you know it's  it's almost like an icebreaker like it gives   you something to to share to talk about and  then that opens the door for you to discover  
other things of interest yeah you're reading  my mind because I was going to move from the  
relationship side of it to this connection  to groups that you mentioned in the book  um and you actually used the example  of alumni and sports fans for colleges 
so you picked up on that and you're very accurate  about that for sure and my my kind of note to  
that is like there are you mentioned this earlier  about there may be more regional and local appeal  
that's true but there's also another level of  sports fandom where there are national appeals 
regardless of what pocket of the country you  you live in you might be a part of a tribe  
that's more national for example a great a great  example would be the New York Yankees there are  
grandfathers and uncles and fathers who lived in  the South and maybe everything in their in their  
family told them they needed to be Cardinals fans  but for whatever reason they saw Mickey Mantel or  
or Joe Deaggio and way up there in New York and  they're and now their grandkids are Yankees fans  
and they may live in down in the deep south  there's no explanation for that other than   that that you know that part of a group that's  it's nationwide there's Yankees fans in every  
pocket of this country because they're so national  boston Celtics are the same way los Angeles Lakers 
um that there uh the Green Bay Packers are another  good example there you find Packers fans anywhere  
you go pittsburgh Steelers so um I was going  to tell you that um based on where you live  
and where I live obviously the Razerbacks and the  SEC sports are really big down here but uh one of  
the things we've laughed about on this podcast  is one of our one of the guys that helps me with   this he grew up a Notre Dame fan and so I kind  of help him root for Notre Dame and so I I went  
to Notre Dame with him on a trip one time to watch  a game and it was such a fantastic experience but  
I have a Notre Dame cap on and it doesn't matter  where I that I wear doesn't matter where I go if  
somebody sees that Notre Dame cap they'll say "Are you lost?" Because you got a Notre Dame   cap on you know and and you instantly click with  someone and and they say "Well yeah I don't tell  
everybody but I'm a Notre Dame fan too." You know that's great i mean that's it's an it's  
interesting because you know one thing that  people often do when they're nostalgic is they  
it's a it's a form of like disclosure like  it's telling it's sharing something about  
yourself and even if somebody doesn't share that  specific nostalgia they get it because they also  
have their own story they might say "Well  that's not my team but I appreciate that."   And I liked your example of like if you have a  friend or someone that you you know is rooting  
for something then you might temporarily join  there you know like to be to be part of that 
yeah and um no I think that's a that's a great  that's a great point and there's so many ways   that we share um you know it's kind of like share  culture in and you know people talk about the US  
as like a melting pot for example and we even  things like in cuisine in cuisine we talk about  
like um like we talk about fusion food you know  somebody will say oh I brought this type of feud  
food to this region and I put this spin on it  and so you know I you know I don't know how  
applicable that is to sports but in general you  often have this mixing and matching of cultural   content that is weaving together different  people's nostalgic memories and you know they  
might say "Well when I was growing up this was  a big thing i was this made a big impact on me  and I want to share it i want to share." That's  why people will start a restaurant right they'll  
say "I want to I want to share this that's so  meaningful to me they're my memories not yours  
but I want to share them with you." And so the way  that nostalgia can be contagious and can be spread  
um to impact other people I think is is  is another like um great feature of it 
yeah within that discussion about belonging  to groups i don't know how how active you   are on social media but I've noticed  on like Facebook groups I've I've even  
gotten involved i'm a part of groups that  are nostal that are based on nostalgia   regarding toys like the Star Wars stuff and and there's Reddit threads that are dedicated to  
nostalgia and um there's so much out there now if  you're if you're really looking for it I suppose 
um that make you feel part of  a collective um and just about   any category so to speak you can think of um from from your nostalgic past really yeah  
absolutely and a lot of these things interface  right like somebody might be a like if you're a   sports fan then you know like I know you've talked  about movies in your podcast you know if you're  
a sports fan often times that intersects with  sports movies or sports are featured in a movie or  
there's a soundtrack that's you know that's music  that ties to sports um or video games you know so  
I you know it's funny because I wasn't a um you  know I wasn't really like a big like baseball fan  
but I always enjoyed playing like baseball g you  know video games and you know you play with people   that were more you know die hard fans so there's  all these different ways that they cross-pollinate  
into different mediums and and and that's another  interesting way of you know kind of sharing  
sharing your nostalgic memories is is through  those other that other type of content yeah I  
mean who we you know we didn't plan to do it but  one of our we one a couple of our episodes maybe  
three have been about uh classic sports movies  that's sort of my way into the movie thing and 
and um those have been some of the most fun ones  that we've done and there's so much material to   pull from that's the great part about it um you also moved from the collective sort  
of the collective nostalgia in the  book you you talk about historical   nostalgia now this is where as a parent it really spoke to me because I've heard  
you mention it on podcast and I kind of saw  some evidence of that in the book how you can   be nostalgic for a time that you didn't even live  in can you talk about that for just a little bit 
yeah I'd love to because this is actually a big  area of emphasis right now in my work um at the  
human flourishing lab because we we actually  just published a national survey on historical  
nostalgia i'd been doing some work some advising  work with with different companies and you this  
was a question that kept coming up and you know  this is one of those interesting insights where   I didn't come at it come you know come to it on  my own as a researcher I kept doing this kind of  
consulting work and it kept coming up where they  would say you know we have all these you know we  
have all these customers for instance I worked  with a streaming service that said we have all   these young people watching old TV shows They're  watching Friends um but Friends came out at you  
know before them um or you know and gen it seemed  to be like Gen Z was watching all this old content  
and what's that about right right  and so we started looking into that more and  more and you know I've written about it some  
because it definitely seems it definitely seems  like a like a thing um um but we tried to put you  
know tried to do some more like empirical work  around it and then what we found you know which   was kind of surprising is younger generations are  very you know very historically nostalgic which  
we define as nostalgia for an era that predates  your own you know your own lifetime and you one  
of the discoveries we made is a lot of it has  to do with people feeling like just like our  
own memory we turn to our own nostalgic memories  when we're trying to solve a problem often um it   doesn't have to be like a devastating problem  or anything like that it could just be like 
we're kind of anxious about learning a new  technology and then our nostalgic memories   can remind us oh we've done new things before  like we've been bold before we you know we've  
had experiences before and and we were fine  and so we often do that with our own memories  
but with historical nostalgia it seems to allow  people the opportunity to tap into other more  
broadly shared experiences that predate them  so right now we have a lot of um young people  
who grew up as digital natives for for instance  they don't remember a world before the internet  
they don't remember a world before smartphones  and they're fascinated with analog technology  
it's something we're finding right they're one of  the main consumer drivers of vinyl record sales  
increases they're buying physical CDs again when  I was a college professor I remember talking about  
buying CDs you know um and students laughing out  loud in my class they're like "You buy a CD?" And  
I was like "Yeah I still buy and play audio CDs."  And um they were laughing but now like it it it's  
a thing and people are coming around to the idea  of maybe there's something about the tangible  
experience of listening to music in a way that's  more intentional that's um it's more you know you  
you get to handle something you get to look at  art you put it in and then it's set like you're   playing it um and there's something cool about  that and like to be clear what we're we're not  
finding that it's a zero something it's not the  case that they're saying "I don't want Spotify 
anymore." What they're saying is "I want both."  Right they're saying "I still want the modern  
conveniences of technology it's great to be able  to listen pretty much listen to anything you want   at any time but there's also something nice about  curating physical media for the special things we  
like that we think kind of help characterize who  we are i buy for instance 4K um Blu-ray discs  
like you know I have the streaming services like  everyone else Netflix and HBO Max and all that  
stuff um but the movies I really care about I like  having the physical media i like looking at it i  
like putting it in the player um there's just  something and that's not even like and I guess  
you could say it's technically is a little  bit superior to streaming it um yeah but um 
but I enjoy all that right it's not necessary  but I but I enjoy it and and we're just finding  
that a lot of young people are interested in that and it's further evidence to me that it's not this  
like regressive like way of being because what  they're saying they're not saying I want to reject  
modern technology what they're saying is there's  something about the past that we feel we've lost   touch with that we want to access and it's from  before our time and they're finding like clever  
creative ways to integrate it into their lives and  you know when I when I talk to people who are very   critical about nostalgia and who see it as kind  of backward-looking and uncreative you know it's  
it it's kind of easy to help like persuade them  if you give them an example of like think about  
an important artist in your life like this could  be a filmmaker a musician think about what they do  
and how often they pull from the past you know  they'll talk about the if they're a filmmaker  
they'll talk about the movies they grew up on  and they might be doing cutting edge movies um   but they are pulling from that to say I wanted to  give a nod to this or I wanted to do this because  
this is you know this is what got me into loving  movies to begin with musicians do it all the time   they integrate like old sounds and ideas they pay  tribute to the artist that inspired them so if  
you look in the creative spaces in which we think  people are actually doing pretty innovative stuff  
um you often find a very very strong nostalgic  impulse it's the same case in engineering um I  
was I'm talking to somebody at Mercedes Benz and  you know in their design team they're very focused  
on the idea that people want the new they want  fuel efficient safe vehicles they want to take  
advantage of all the progress that's been made to  make cars you know safer and more comfortable but  
people it turns out people are starting to be  like "Oh those the analog kn you know the old   knobs were nice." Like there's something tactile  about being able to feel something that you can't  
necessarily do with a touchcreen there's certain  design aesthetics that people look back on like  
"Oh that was really cool that was a really cool  era for the like the aesthetic of the car." Like   can we integrate some of that look into it  while still having the modern things and so  
you see it once you start looking for it you see  nostalgia everywhere and historical nostalgia you   see everywhere um it's just integrated into like  modernity in a way that's like can we can we pull  
the things from the past that we like and not give  up the advances that we think are improvements and  
I think that kind of creative integration is  really makes nostalgia including historical  
nostalgia a very like future oriented endeavor right there you know there's some sports  
equivalents there for sure one of which is the  way they design stadiums like every baseball  
fan wants their stadium to look like it  was from the early 1900s because that was  
just a standard classic look and you see them  spend $2 billion on modern stadiums where they  
they really did their best to make it look old  school now it's got all the modern conveniences 
but they look from the outside now like maybe it  could have been built in the 30s or something you  
know that's one way I see it there seems to be a  lot of pull for that from the fans and then the  
other way is just kind of a personal deal where  just speaking of the historical uh nostalgia like  
just like my son it's one thing to argue with him  about athletes that were better or teams that were  
better and so forth but uh he can actually go on  YouTube and look at it so technology is kind of  
uh providing the opportunity to kind of live  back there in your mind a little bit more  
because it's right there at your fingertips so you know you can go watch Babe Ruth hit a baseball  
on YouTube and I find that fascinating right and um so my son can always find someone or  
some team or some game and go back and pretty much  find it and you know when he was younger we were  
talking about the NBA slam dunk title and I told  him I said you know a guy that was like five foot  
seven won that when I was uh in the 90s and or in  the 80s and he said anyway the guy's name was Spud  
Webb and I don't think he believed me you know  he was sixth or seventh grade and I told him that   it's out there you can go watch a 5 foot6 guy  win the NBA slam dunk title it's there you know  
so it's things like that where um you know  he really wants to go see what dad grew up  
with why does dad have these strong opinions  about these teams and athletes let me go see  
for myself now our generation I feel like we had  to kind of take our old man's word for it right 
yeah right unless you wanted to go   to the library and look something up we didn't  have access like they do so I find that really  
really cool actually no I agree and I think  that's one you know I'm often asked like is  
is nostalgia is this kind of nostalgia increasing  and it's hard to answer but but I think one thing  
that speaks to that is like you said it's just  more accessible like it it's easier to access  
the past than ever and you know like I said I did  some work with a a streaming service and one you  
know that was one of the things it's like well  it's just a lot easier to watch these old shows  
um when I was you know when I was a teenager young  adult I would have had to have like tried to find  
a copy of it on VHS or DVD um and you know that  was just much harder much harder to do um and so  
um so yeah I think that's that's a big part of it well and for sports stuff it would have been   close to impossible you might would have lucked  into some movies or or um albums and stuff that  
you thought were gone but you'd almost have  no chance with a a sports kind of thing so  yeah yeah no that's actually Can  I ask you a question real quick 
absolutely to to that point given  that sports is such a live media 
right and you know that's obviously like a big issue   with the you know the like kind of like cable and  streaming service sort of business is people like  
to watch sports live right um compared to like a  movie um how do you think that influences or does  
that influence like the nostalgic experience  that you know a lot of its power is like who  
not knowing who won the game um yeah I I kind  of I think I see what you're saying there yeah  
there's there's there's definitely something  there there's some connection there um for sure  
you know it's really interesting as you age or at  least the people I know as we age we kind of pull  
away a little bit from going to things in person  and kind of say "Well I'd rather watch it from   my recliner or you know whatever the case may be." Um but the live aspect of u sports has always been  
a big Yeah that's a big draw so to speak it's  funny because wrestling is just the opposite  
wrestling is predetermined  outcomes and people still  Wrestling is something you want to watch in person  as opposed to television don't I ju just take my  
word for it we we've done three podcasts on  wrestling and wrestling is so different in   person compared to on TV knowing that the guy  the good guy is probably going to win doesn't  
matter you just want to see it live win or lose the real deal where it's not predetermined it's  
kind of that Yeah I think that is the whole  point is that you you just don't know any  
given day anybody can beat anybody that's  kind of what guides sports fans into their  
um their crazy fandom is that  everyone has a chance theoretically so yeah there there's a lot that  could be you know just you could  
you could dive pretty deep into that for sure yeah so yeah the you know the one sport I was  
you know I I'm not a big sports person but the one  sport I was into a lot um growing up was boxing 
and it's a very nostal and the reason  is it was the thing my dad was into 
yep my dad um when he was younger boxed and growing up  
I don't remember watching a lot of sporting events  we we would occasionally go to like a um a Kansas  
City game or we'd go we went a couple times to see  the Cardinals in St louis i grew up in Missouri  
and so we would on occasion go to something like  that but we just it wasn't a big aspect of our   lives but whenever there was a pay-per-view fight  involving Mike Tyson um Evander Holyfield George  
Foreman Lennox Lewis that generation of boxers you  know the 80 in the 80s um I just it stands out as  
a nostalgic memory to me that my dad would first  of all spring for that because we didn't have a   lot of money and he was pretty cheap um but he'd  spring for that and other guys would come over  
and you know I just remember being a kid and like  being like really stoked about that like that was  
a good experience and then you know it's funny  because that sort of turned into an interest in  
um you know ultimately I started following more  like UFC like a more like mixed martial arts 
but it was definitely grounded in the you  know that I think that early history with 
watching his boxing matches with my dad and  that that feeling that connection to him  yeah my dad they're probably similar age mine's  not with us anymore but he would tell me that  
um he remembered on Friday or Saturday  nights before television all the men in   the neighborhood would gather and listen to the  boxing matches from like Madison Square Garden on  
the radio and when um Tyson became popular for  people our age I mean he was just it you know 
my dad would say "Boy you should have  seen Muhammad Ali when he was younger."  And then he and then he would say "I wished  you could have seen Rocky Marciano." because  
at the time I had no there would be no  way for me to see Rocky Marciano box   and I don't I haven't looked he may be on Netflix I mean uh YouTube but my dad would  
say stuff like that and I'm thinking  oh wow yeah they grew up going to   the movies and seeing their highlights right before a movie on a real you know so uh we've  
come a long way but yeah I think there's yeah the  the boxing thing my dad was the same way boy if  
you if you like Tyson I wish you'd seen an Ali  when he was younger and we did the same thing i  
remember my uncle paying a fortune to watch Tyson  knock Spinx out in like 91 seconds or whatever it  
was right i remember sitting there watching that yeah yeah me too yeah yeah my and Yeah my dad's  
my dad's not alive um anymore either but that  when I you know so I kind of you know have   these nostalgic like reflections on that kind  of stuff and I just Yeah that that definitely  
stands so I can see how that like that's that  that connection between parents and children  
um around sports is you know is so powerful  because it often is you know and as we already  
talked about nostalgia is very relational  and oftent times our nostalgic memories   involve other people and things we're doing  that we're interested in like we're directed  
towards something we're interested in but  we're sharing that interest with someone   whether it's sports music movies video games um  there's almost always other people involved in  
in the things that make us nostalgic yeah and and I love that the thread   through pretty much this whole book for you  was was really all this kind of points back  
to relationships with loved ones and friends  and so and and that's that's kind of what   I like about it i mean you even point out that  negativity sort of takes you to nostalgia because 
you can you might have a rough time of whatever  it is and nostalgia kind of fuels your fire to  
uh you know do better or change things  or whatever it may be you even mentioned   nostalgia to be personal about it you even  mentioned nostalgia fueling creativity and  
that's why we're talking right now i mean during COVID I you know when you're sort of  
a pseudo writer and you don't know what you want  to write about it's tough and and blogging was   something that I tried and didn't enjoy that  much but I saw the whole world moving from  
reading I hate to say this as a former educator  but I saw the world moving more from reading as  
far as you know absorbing things into listening  and watching and so I thought well that's not  
my deal you know I'm not making movies or docu  documentaries but that's kind of what led me to  
podcasting um that that sort of gave me the juice  thinking about all of this and realizing that  
uh Gen X was a little underserved in an area  I thought so I think nostalgia for sure is  
related uh to creative uh juices and getting them  flowing i mean there's no doubt about that to me 
yeah yeah absolutely i mean in a lot of ways it's  how we connect with youthful energy and that you  
know that kind of sense of like courage or like  you know experiment like we can try something  
new and we can do something it kind of pushes  us in a new direction um to tap into that you  
know to kind of tap into that energy even even if it's slightly rebellious   right I mean there's nostalgia in that even  correct I mean you know when you're when you  
think back to being maybe a teenager and going  against the flow or whatever there's certainly   a nostalgic uh slant to some of that absolutely yeah 
um I'm going to stop the recording Clay  but then Can you hang for just a second  yeah yeah all right so uh we're going to stop  
the recording here and Clay I really uh I really  appreciate you coming on with us and I told you  
I wouldn't bug you too much about sports and I I  think this was this was fantastic man i appreciate  
it i'm gonna stop the recording right here okay okay well thank thank you so much for having me  all right thank you for joining us on Gen X  Classic Sports where nostalgia meets the thrill  
of the game tune in next time for more insightful  discussions and memorable moments brought to you  
by Pine Street Productions until then stay  passionate about sports and keep the memories