IT AINT OVER TILL ITS OVER. AND BABY ITS OVER.

Just because we said we loved something does not mean we need or even want to “bring it back” or “remake it.” Sometimes what makes the movie/show/band/outfit/era/song so good is that it is in the past and we can never get it back. The same way you may look back fondly on memories with a certain ex does not mean you should “bring it back.” Nostalgia is not always Instruction. Look at all the remakes or sequels that have come out recently that we thought we wanted. A dismal. Trying to resurrect something can actually destroy the thing we're nostalgic for. The remake inevitably becomes self-aware. It knows what we loved about the original and starts performing those qualities back to us.

A skill that this generation has not quite mastered yet is mere appreciation for something; we no longer seem to be able to admire from a distance. Admiring without acquiring. No, instead, we go up to the stranger whose outfit you liked and immediately must ask and know where everything is from. Then, when they don’t tell you, or maybe they give you some vague response (rightfully so), you slap them with the “gatekeeping” label. There is almost an assumption now that if something beautiful has entered your field of vision, you're entitled to instructions for recreating it. Sometimes the coolest girl you've ever seen should disappear around the corner, and you should spend the next ten years wondering where she got her coat. Mystery used to be part of taste.

Obviously there's obnoxious gatekeeping. But we've turned gatekeeping into such a universally negative word that we've stopped asking whether friction, scarcity, and discovery are sometimes precisely what make culture interesting. Finding the band yourself was part of loving the band. Finding the vintage dress after searching twelve stores was part of loving the dress. Someone telling you exactly where to buy everything necessary to become them eliminates the discovery, thus eliminating the “self,” and eventually everyone arrives at the same answer in the same clothes. Words By: Nina Lardi