The Business of Nostalgia: 1970s edition

YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.

-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1906)

Like many of my fellow Baby Boomers, much of my youth was in the 1970s. It was the decade when I found a woman I truly loved and married her (see above). It was the decade where I worked for idealistic political candidates, including Dick Clark (not the Bandstand guy) in his successful 1972 U.S. senatorial campaign in Iowa and Congressman Morris K. Udall, who lost to Jimmy Carter in his 1976 presidential run. And, as an advocate for intercity passenger rail, I was a leader in the effort to maintain and expand Amtrak service.

Looking back from 2025, it seems a magical time. It was, for me and millions of others, "The Period of Possibility." And it's become Big Business, thanks to social media. I recently joined a Facebook group called "We Pretend It's Still the 1970s," a platform owned by Do You Remember? (DYR), which describes itself as "home to the largest online community of nostalgia enthusiasts and is the go-to website for fans of the ’50s ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s." In other words, the postwar Baby Boomers and Generation X, along with the older so-called "Silent Generation." Yet from the photo of the DYR staff, it appears that Silents, Boomers and Xers are absent. I'm not sure whether any of the staffers are old enough to be Millennials. But maybe it doesn't matter, because we nostalgic oldsters provide virtually all of the content of DYR's platforms, albeit without monetary compensation.

We have the distinction of being both the market and the product. That's true of all social media users, of course, but it seems peculiarly unfair that the profits are flowing to trendy-looking twentysomethings from Manhattan. Perhaps some of DYR's investors are Boomers, along with some of its "team members that work remotely," but every indication suggests a much younger demographic than its target audience.

The "We Pretend It's Still the 1970s" group, under "About," includes the following: "Travel back in time, and let's pretend it's still the 1970s and we're there!

"Please do not post or comment in 'past-tense'. No 'I remember' posts! Everything you say, must be in 'present tense', written as if you're writing it from your childhood bedroom, your school desk, or anyplace you hung out at back then!

"Rules: Be Nice. Don't Troll. Nothing Current (including and especially Politics). Report bad behavior."

Many of the posts are from couples like Kathleen and me, who married young, were told their marriages wouldn't last, and are still in loving relationships after 45 to 55 years. I admit to enjoying their stories and their satisfaction at proving the naysayers wrong. I've seen only one post from someone who was divorced in the 1970s, though there could be more. But generally speaking, the Facebook group presents the decade as an idyllic time, which, in many ways, it was, especially for those of my generation.

But, of course, it wasn't all young love, great music, and cool cars. The decade began with Richard Nixon as president, and the Vietnam War not just raging, but expanded into Cambodia. That war continued for the first three years of the decade, while protests counter-protests, and police and National Guard actions turned violent. Then there was Watergate, the Yom Kippur War and the subsequent Arab oil embargo that brought about the recession of 1975-76. Elation over Nixon's resignation and Jimmy Carter's election soured in the face of double-digit inflation, the Iranian hostage crisis, and another oil embargo and recession at the end of the decade. It also marked the beginning of the end of the American Dream. I've read more than once that 1973, the year Kathleen and I married, was the first year when Americans' real wages began shrinking. Internationally, there was mass murder in Cambodia, Chile, and Afghanistan. And that list of negatives just scratched the surface.

While some of the posts mention boyfriends or husbands returning from Vietnam, they're shown in a positive light. I doubt whether the administrators would allow posts featuring antiwar protests or Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to read and like the posts of those young couples who defied the odds, and even those who are brave enough to write about their divorces. I don't plan to add my own story to them, at least not in the "We Pretend It's Still the 1970s" Facebook group, though I suspect the wedding photo of Kathleen and me from 1973 would be a hit on the site.