By Nick Vassos

Growing up in a household practically stuck in 1985, I was exposed to many different things as a child: cassettes, game consoles, VHS tapes, old couches, and the list goes on. Not only do I love older things, I also have a passion for terrible movies and television shows. I have been a part of the “so bad it is good” group of people for a while now. I see the “quirks” of some old things in a different way than others might. Instead of using the word to define flaws that things might have, I see “quirks” as almost a truthfulness to the time period it came from, with this applying to the music and video game industries.

Let me explain.

Trends come and go, often quickly. This is especially relevant in the music and video game industries. In the current, tech-savvy world we live in, popular video games and music today are over saturated with bland and generic trends designed solely for a profit of some kind. Take video games, for example. Year after year, we are receiving bland military-esque shooter games designed to take hold of moms’ credit cards across the country. Frankly, it is a boring and repetitive trend, or at least I think so. The music industry is no better, seeing as I can barely name any artists currently on the Billboard Top 100. That is probably due to the fact that I am blinded by my rose-tinted nostalgia goggles, and also that every pop artist today sounds exactly the same.

I bring all of that up because I like older music and video games, which were created in a time where people actually cared, as opposed to a brand or a big executive “caring” for you. These days, nobody in these industries is allowed to make a mistake, or their careers suddenly become irrelevant and are thrown into the trash bin. Anybody can be successful with the help of Auto-Tune or a game development software. It is the older media that I love, because it gives the listener an insight into the artist and who they actually are. The further back I go in time, music seems more interesting and genuine to me. This is not saying that there is nothing artistic or good today. I would be completely wrong in saying that. A lot of my favourite music groups and games come from this decade. To put it simply, with the rise in technology, these industries have become more artificial and robotic. Ironically, this rise in technology has had the exact opposite on filmmakers. If anything, films seem artsier than ever.

What do I know? After all, I’m only 15.