Nostalgia | Silver Magazine

Mind

Bend, Don’t Break: How Twister and Our “Free-Range” Youth Made Us Unstoppable

Picture this: It is 1968. You are tangled in a chaotic human knot on a bright vinyl mat. Your right foot is on blue, your left hand is on red, and your chin is precariously balanced on your neighbour’s shoulder. Your core is on fire, you are holding a high-intensity plank, and you are laughing so hard your ribs ache. Long before “mobility training” and “yoga therapy” became multi-billion-dollar wellness trends, we had our own weekly flexibility regimen. It was called Twister. It was a masterclass in balance, agility, and spatial awareness disguised as a party game. But more than that, it was the perfect metaphor for how we grew up. We learned to bend, stretch, and hold impossible positions without breaking, both on and off the colourful mat. That physical and mental resilience wasn’t just built in the living room, though; it was forged the moment we stepped past

Eve Sanderson August 4, 2026

Nostalgia

Sweat, Spandex, and Shenanigans: A Look Back at the Fitness Fads That Made Us Go “WTF?”

Let’s face it: getting fit is a noble pursuit. But along the way, we’ve collectively embraced some truly bonkers ideas in the name of a killer physique. Gather ’round, millennials and Gen Z, and let’s giggle at the relics our parents (and maybe we) thought were the secret to eternal youth and six-packs. 1. The Vibrating Belt: Shaking the Fat Away The 1950s and 60s were simpler times. You wanted to lose weight? You stood on a machine with a giant, vibrating belt strapped across your—ahem—”problem area.” The premise? This violent jiggling action would literally shake the fat off your body. In retrospect: It looks less like a workout and more like a poorly executed industrial massage, or maybe a medieval torture device designed by a chiropractor. Did it work? Only if you count the impressive arm strength gained from trying to keep your dignity and your internal organs in

Staff November 1, 2025

Nostalgia

Why Do We Love Nostalgia?

Nostalgia plays an essential role in our mental health as we age A song from 1978 suddenly hits, and you remember your cousin’s car, which had an 8-track player. You laugh to yourself as you sing along. You remember the smell of your first apartment and the late-night parties, where you’d switch vinyl records. You feel a warmth as you recall these memories. That’s not just your brain being sentimental. It’s one of humanity’s most sophisticated survival strategies! As a cultural anthropologist, who mainly works at the intersection of technology and culture, nostalgia isn’t so much about living in the past as it is about using the past to live more fully in the present. When you’re reminiscing, whether by yourself or with friends and family, your mind is doing something quite clever: it’s mining your personal and collective history for wisdom, connection, and resilience that can serve you now.

Giles Crouch July 17, 2025

Nostalgia

From Walkman to Wireless

How personal music changed our lives The boombox was ready, a fresh new cassette tape loaded you’d bought that afternoon. You’d just got the boombox for your 14th birthday last week. Now you’d be able to record the top songs you loved on tonight’s top 40! You just hoped the DJ wouldn’t talk over the start of the song or the end! Today you can access millions of songs on your phone, portable MP3 player, laptop, tablet, and even stream from your car. Oh and you don’t own any of that music, you just rent it today. Although people still buy CDs and there’s a niche market of vinyl records and record players. There was something special about those days of recording songs off the radio. The excitement of going to the record store and buying a 45 to build your collection. How maybe you even decorated some of your

Giles Crouch December 2, 2024

Nostalgia

Oh, Those Old Fitness Gadgets!

Remember the days when getting in some exercise meant more than just setting your smartwatch, ensuring your phone was connected, choosing the right playlist, and finding earbuds that wouldn’t fall out? Back when we had the THIGHMASTER, and Suzanne Somers wore her bright leggings, telling us we too could have thighs of steel in just a few easy workouts from the comfort of our living rooms while we watched the afternoon soaps. And then, just a few months later, it would poke out from under the couch in the rec room, haunting us and collecting dust bunnies. Maybe it was the way the springs creaked and groaned, the feeling of being empowered by a future vision of ourselves—ripped and sleek on the dance club floors, putting John Travolta to shame! Thanks, StairMaster! Let’s not forget the Ab Roller—the wheel of wonder that whispered promises of washboard abs but simply delivered

Giles Crouch September 1, 2024

Nostalgia

The Technologies We Loved & Why

How nostalgia for old technology forms our social bonds Remember those evenings when you sat by your boom box, fingers ready to leap into action to press the play/record buttons on the tape deck as soon as the song started? You just had to get that latest hit song recorded! You’d hope with bated breath that the DJ wouldn’t talk into the start of the song. And hit stop before the ads came on. Perhaps you took a computer science course in junior high, and you learned Logos and made a ping pong game? You knew just what to do when the cassette tape got stuck in the player, either jammed up from a rewind or from just playing that tape over and over. Ah, those orange-coloured foam headphone covers. Our parents telling us to be careful walking into traffic. Today we have hundreds of millions of songs of all

Giles Crouch September 7, 2023