I had found myself having a hard time with Nostalgia for a little while there…

This particular take on Nostalgia can apply to many facets of the world or society, but for the sake of congruence, I am strictly referring to the Vampyre Culture & Community for this post.

With that said, lately to me nostalgia without action feels a lot like emotional masturbation regarding something we wish we could still have but refuse to do anything to get back.

Nostalgia is a complicated thing.

I don’t know if it’s maybe my AuDHD brain that lacks friendship degradation mechanics and is too hard wired to reality in its most current form or what… but the idea and feeling of nostalgia is one that evokes a weird sort of anger in me. The way nostalgia is wielded on a mass scale confuses me.

Granted, on a personal level, almost everything in my life that I could be nostalgic for has some form of trauma attached to it. So my issues with nostalgia very well could be just a matter of personal shadow work. But, I see a widespread pattern when it comes to nostalgia in the VC that in my opinion should be examined.

So what exactly is Nostalgia?

On an objective note, nostalgia is a sentimental, often bittersweet longing or a wistful affection for a time since passed. It is typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. It is the romanticizing of the “good old days”, a combination of fondness and gentle sadness for the days of yesteryear.

Why is Nostalgia a problem??

Look, I don’t actually want to paint the feeling of nostalgia as a whole like it’s an issue. Nostalgia itself is not a problem. But in my personal opinion, nostalgia should be a motivator to make today’s things better, like they once were in times that you hold near and dear to your heart. However, too often we hold onto nostalgia and long for a better time, a time taken from us “beyond our control”, wallowing in the victimhood of never being able to see that time and space again. Yet, rarely do folks have any intention of being part of an effort to take things to a better place that can possibly emulate the things they loved about the time since passed.

So what are we supposed to do about it?

Yes, I know that we can be nostalgic for things we’re never getting back and to act like we could get them back would be asinine. We’re not getting Mother back. We’re not getting The Paradox back. We’re not getting a time before camera phones again. Places and people leave us forever and we can’t do anything about that. Things change in ways that can’t be reversed. But the feelings of community and safety bred inside the walls of the places we loved can be re-cultivated in new spaces. We can create and cultivate the communities we longed for once upon a time.

So many people are sitting around and waiting for things to get better, for things to be built and restarted again for them, not realizing that it is up to US to make it better. Instead we sit around and reminisce and place blame on whose fault it is that “it’s all ruined now”.

Sebastiaan turned out the VC, The Unity Project made us all a joke, too many tiktokers making us look bad, we miss the old days!

What will you do to change the narrative?
What will you do to show others a better way?
What will you do other than complain?

Have you put forth any effort towards educating folks? Do you have an expertise to share that will enlighten younger generations?

Perhaps teach a class, write a blog, contribute to one of the growing information caches available online. Are you able to organize a community meeting, either online or off? If you can’t be the lead in these projects, loudly support the ones who are doing it. Attend classes, attend meetings, read blogs, comment on the posts, do something to raise energy or reciprocate energy for your community.

Be part of the revolution that brings our communities back to better days. We all need the support.

Toxic Nostalgia

In the quote on the cover photo you can see it says “…it[Nostalgia] glides so easily into hatred and resentment for those who took our Eden from us”

Toxic nostalgia amongst alternative communities, especially Vampyre Communities, is a huge thing. It rears its ugly head in a couple ways:

  1. Inability to modernize thought processes
    There’s a lot of “old dogs can’t/won’t learn new tricks” energy afoot in the Vampyre Community. You see this especially with folks who were around in the original 1990s/early 2000s Gotham era of the Vampyre Community, but it isn’t limited to just that time/place. You find Vampyres who are married to rigid outdated ideals, values, and traditions of the past. They’ve been labelled “traditionalists” by a group called BRS. The Traditionalists hold onto traditions of old, oftentimes despite them becoming irrelevant or obsolete in the modern age of the VC. They refuse to learn new technologies, they refuse to acknowledge new/different VC organizations. They often think they’re at the top of their proverbial food chain, not realizing they’ve been lapped by folks half their age because they aren’t paying attention to the expansion of the community beyond their little bubble. Their lives are ruled by their nostalgic ties to the 90s, keeping their mindsets stuck in outdated frameworks.
  2. Rage blaming others for “ruining” the current community
    There are groups strewn throughout the real vampyre world that take their resentment and hatred for those they blame for ruining the community to problematic levels. They typically only take this toxic rage blame to blogs and other digital expressions, but over the years the expressions range from spicy to downright violent. People long for a time where things were more discrete, taken more seriously, or more aligned with their perception of “the right way” things should be. They rarely recognize the bias of their own perceptions, not realizing that the community never really was the way they think it was in their VC honeymoon stage. Rose colored glasses and all. Folks in this category are often threatened by diversity of the vampyric experience and lash out against what they feel is invalid in order to help them feel like they have control over the entire vampyric definition. Certain extreme attitudes in the vampyre world are fueled by this style of toxic nostalgia.

Why do I care?

If I’m being wholly transparent, it comes from my own resentment of working so hard for so long for a community everyone has an opinion about but not enough people have the desire to do anything for.

Nostalgia’s never going to go away, nor is the expression of it by people who long for a time when things weren’t so fucked. I recognize that and there’s nothing wrong with that at all.

I mostly just long for the day where people will spend comparable amounts of time and energy putting forth effort into the cultivation of today’s community too. I hope people begin to see the forest for the trees, as it is in 2026 rather than 1999-2005.