I’ve always loved watching romantic comedies, especially the ones where two lost loves find each other after many years apart and they rekindle their romance exactly where they left off and then get to live happily ever after.  And it doesn’t even have to be about a romance.  Some of the most moving stories you’ll hear or read about are about people– be it parents and their children, siblings or long-lost friends,  who encounter one another after years, even decades of not seeing each other.  Some of the most memorable songs and poems have been written about this.  Many a book has been written and a lot of movies have been made about this topic.

But what’s happening now with the advent of social media is that nostalgia is no longer an option.  You think of your best friend in junior kindergarten and all you need to do is type up her name and up she comes.  She’s literally a click away.  You can find exes, long lost friends, nemesis and even celebrities with the click of a button.  You can even find out what they had for breakfast just five minutes ago.

So what happens to nostalgia?  What will songwriters and authors write about, if the feeling itself is no longer relevant?  What will happen to the memory you had of your first crush, that 12-year-old boy whose face you don’t even remember now, but that you were madly in love with all those many years ago?  And at age 12 you were absolutely certain it was love.  For those who had bad breakups, there’s no possibility of even thinking that you’ll never see them again.  For those who were cheated on, the exes are flaunting their new romances right there on the screen for the world to see.  That girl you hated in high school, or maybe the one that hated you?  She’s right there, staring right at you from a computer screen.

So what would’ve happened to albums like Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette’s famous ode to all things break-up, or movies like Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion, where they get to shine and be fabulous as adults after being pretty much losers and weirdos in high school?  None of that would be possible with things like Facebook showing what everyone is up to every minute of the day.

I do wonder what will happen to the creative process now that nostalgia is being replaced by all this minutia and overwhelming details of everyone’s lives.  There’s not much left to mystery and imagination, just an overabundance of information.  I just hope authors, playwrights and songwriters turn their computers off and continue creating based on memory and imagination, otherwise the Rom Coms of the future are going to royally suck.