Nostalgia and Rebuilding: Imagining Society After Disaster in Video Games

What is it about?

We used to think of nostalgia as a bad thing, but now many see it as a way to understand ourselves and grow. In countries that used to be communist, people have used nostalgia to help build new national identities. This has led to lots of nostalgic books, music, and movies—and now, video games. These new games take nostalgia a step further. They use it to imagine what societies might look like after the world has ended and been taken over by Big Tech corporations, almost as a playful way to rebuild. Three games made by a Serbian company, Demagog Studio, make us long for simpler times by bringing back the feeling of old-time radio. They create their own radio shows, make new "old" music, and tell nostalgic stories from all over. These fun radio programs also make clever comments about today's technology and important social, political, and environmental problems, all wrapped up in a visual style that reminds people of old Yugoslavia.

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Photo by Nikola Majksner on Unsplash

Photo by Nikola Majksner on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Nostalgia isn't just about looking back. These games use it to imagine different ways of organizing society in the future and to challenge powerful corporations. What you'll learn: These games use nostalgic themes and stories to try out new ideas for how society could be structured. They give us a fresh look at how media can shape and challenge what we think and how we act. By looking at how sound, story, and technology come together in these games, we can learn a lot about how media can be used to control us and set us free.

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