What Happens When Nostalgia Runs Out?

There’s been a lot of Bam Margera lately. The elder statesman of CKY, chosen son of Westchester, Pennsylvania, Jackass outcast, former Element Skateboards pro, and recovering addict, has refreshed his image after a series of public fuck-ups and has somehow made his way back into pop culture’s mainstream. His skateboarding is impressive for a man of his age and life experience, but mediocre in comparison to any local park’s hometown hero.

In typical Bam fashion, the camera isn’t always on a skateboard, though, with Bam quickly adopting a streamfluencer persona of sorts, popping up on any and every social media channel and with a new live-streaming deal with Kick. Like so much of our cultural landscape, Bam is selling nostalgia.

In between live streams and hard posting nonsense to IG three times a day, Bam reunited with zombie skate shoe brand Fallen for a three-pack of purple and black skate shoe colorways. The limited-run shoes sold out on Fallen’s DTC webstore immediately, barely touching brick-and-mortar skate shops. Like most Bam Margera products sold over his illustrious career, though, don’t expect the Fallen colorways to see many kickflips.

The favorite skater of posers and used-to-skate barflies everywhere, Bam’s appeal was always more shopping cart antics than skateboarding. Bam is a prime example of our current nostalgia churn, soothing aging millennials with more of the same that can never actually revive the authentic, new, and fresh energy that appealed decades ago. And like Bam’s mall goth cupsoles with a purple Heartagram logo at the heel, the obsession with nostalgia tends to misremember the past and put undeserved attention on the kind of corny gear that we already rejected 20 years ago.

Out With The Old

Bam’s prominent push for attention slots right in with Hollywood’s obsession with sequels and remakes, music’s love for rinse-and-repeat beats and half-covers, and, of course, the sneaker industry’s mix of retro, anniversary, and branded releases that continue to reshape the world of sneakers into yet another licensing play and “remember when” fever dream.

This year alone, the 30th anniversaries of Space Jam and Pokémon have hit the sneaker industry like catnip, the 20th anniversary of Cars has been a headline event, and we got another Jackass movie along with Bam’s revival. And that’s all alongside the kind of traditional sneaker retro pushes like Nike’s 30th anniversary moves from the Air Max 95 last year that took over most of the brand’s lifestyle offering, Jordan’s constant retro calendar, and the general tendency of brands across the sneaker industry to rely on past hits as a crutch for the present.

Like so many facets of consumer culture, the suits at the top are convinced that the most worthy releases are the ones that they can bank before they even hit the product line. An anniversary is a far easier sell to today’s consumer than a new product, and an easier sell is always going to win out. It’s a theme that’s found its way into almost every one of these columns, but that’s for good reason. The longer brands take the path of least resistance, the more they risk wearing out their welcome altogether.

It's one thing if a style is back in favor, because that’s how fashion works, but when the focus is on rehashing past stories to tug on the heartstrings of buyers, well, a string can only be pulled so many times before it snaps. If brands keep flooding the space with nostalgic drops, there won’t be much to be nostalgic about. Between the Converse collection for Pokémon’s 25th anniversary and the new adidas pack for the franchise’s 30th anniversary, Pikachu had PEs from Puma, Vans, Clarks, and more Crocs than you care to count. The Banned Air Jordan 1 colorway has been rehashed so many times that the story itself stopped selling shoes, with the latest low-top version still sitting in sale sections for under $100 in full-size runs.

In With the New

The cultural corner of sneakers is taking up more of the market than ever before, but in a hunt to turn every pair into a collectible, the scarcity that makes something worthy of a collection is lost in the shuffle. And for new generations raised on our nostalgic scraps and the rotting leftovers of Gen X (ET, Jaws, etc, etc), what happens when they come of age without the same emotional ties sparked by childhood wonder and the discovery of something new and their own?

At Fallen, trotting out a one-time drop for aging Bam Margera to sell Heartagram colorways for aging video gamers who haven’t stepped on a skateboard in two decades doesn’t exactly scream health for the brand or the skate shoe industry. The major shoe brands aren’t quite at that level of nostalgic slop yet, but when Pikachu has more PEs than Jalen Williams, well, that’s a pretty clear sign of the direction things are moving, and that doesn’t seem great.

Zach Harris

Zach Harris is a writer based in Philadelphia. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Vice, Complex, High Times, and more. He is obsessed with skateboarding and bowling. He is still looking for his first 300. For tips, reviews, and anything in size 10.5 - zach.h@soleretriever.com