Today we’re weaponising nostalgia like a memory merchant dealing in pure, uncut feelings.
Sometimes we go back to the good ol’ days.
And we bust out the things that have been deeply rooted in our minds that take us back down memory lane.
Case in point.
Tonight I’m watching The Goonies again.
I haven’t watched it in forever but talk of it with a friend brought all of those memories back.
Nostalgia isn’t just a trip down memory lane. It’s emotional cocaine wrapped in the comfort blanket of your childhood.
It’s that dial-up internet sound that still makes your brain tingle. It’s the smell of Pop-Tarts on Saturday morning while watching cartoons.
It’s the feeling of being young and unbroken, before the world decided to put our dreams in a box and pop on a shelf a little higher than our reach.
And now we’re going to hijack those feelings…
WHY?
Because nostalgia hits harder than:
Your first breakup
That time you tried to fight a goose
My ninth cup of coffee
The realisation that you’re now older than the parents in Home Alone
When you tap into nostalgia, you’re not just writing, you’re performing temporal surgery on your readers’ hearts.
You’re reaching through time and space to grab them by their emotional giblets and whisper, “Remember when everything didn’t suck?”
And so we weaponise the past.
- EMOTIONAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Dig up those feelings like you’re Indiana Jones of the soul:
- The sound of a GameBoy starting up
- The taste of Dunkaroos
- The way your grandmother’s house smelled when she baked an apple pie
- That one summer when everything was perfect
- MEMORY MIXOLOGY
Blend the old with the new like some kind of time-traveling bartender:
- Modern problems, retro solutions
- Old school feelings, new school delivery
- Yesterday’s comfort, today’s chaos
- TACTICAL FEELING DEPLOYMENT
Drop those nostalgia bombs with surgical precision:
- Reference the shared past
- Twist the familiar
- Make them feel safe, then punch them in the feels
People don’t just want to remember.
They want to feel. They want to reconnect with that version of themselves that still believed in magic, that thought where adulthood would have more sword fights.
If we could build a time machine and feed it emotion for fuel, then we’d never have issues connecting with people via our words.
Stephen Walker
And if you wanna discover the little tricks to apply this to your writing, your marketing and your life come join us below
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
P.S. Yes, I wrote this while wearing my original Goonies t-shirt that’s 15+ years old…
P.P.S. The squirrels watching through my window seem nostalgic today. They’re probably remembering simpler times, before they started working for the government.
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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom