This is a topic I was thinking about a short time ago. Quite often, you hear of people who are perceived as being 'stuck in the past', as they subconsciously identify with a certain era and the current state of society and/or popular culture isn't satisfactory for them for various reasons. However, if someone has never had a strong sense of attachment with the popular culture they have experienced during their lifetime (like myself in relation to the '00s and especially the '10s), would you say that those feelings and perception of still being 'stuck in the past' can be replicated?

I know that having fond memories of a certain time can be associated with being 'stuck in the past' as well, but someone who is 40 years old, for example, isn't going to continue to view the world the same way they did when they were in their teenage years. So they can't be 'stuck in the past' in that sense. That's why i'm skeptical that someone essentially can't be perceived as being 'stuck in the past', if it's only based on personal memories and not on the popular culture of a certain period of time.

For example, my Dad is "stuck in the '90s" in a sense, but that would be because he liked and identified with the pop culture during the decade. I remember one time he admitted to me that if someone asked him where he was working in 2009, he wouldn't have a clue, because the 2000s and 2010s years seem like one big "blended" year and they're not distinctive. Whereas, he can recall where he was working and what he was doing prior to the year 2000. He fell out of touch with popular culture in 2000/2001 as well, so I think it only reaffirms that being 'stuck in the past' relies solely on liking/identifying with the popular culture you experienced during a certain time.

To be honest, I don't think I will ever feel that way about the 2000s or 2010s, because the popular culture of both decades has never really appealed to me. Who knows, I may identify strongly with the 2020s, but that remains to be seen.

I know that this is a very random topic, but I think it's quite interesting and I had to jot down my thoughts somewhere. :P

Here's what I think. Having fond memories of a certain era or time does not mean you are stuck in the past. I believe it's called nostalgia, which I do feel once in a great while or whenever I see something or hear a song that reminds me of another time in my life. Being stuck in the past is when you live your life as it was lived in past decades. If I wore clothing from the 80s today and sported 80s hair(or tried to), then that is pretty much being stuck in the past. This is why I dislike it when people bring back fads from previous decades. It's ok to feel nostalgic once in a while, however bringing back the fads forces us to live in the past which isn't good at all. I love the Victorian era, but it doesn't mean I'm going to bring back the styles or the popular fads of those days and ruin the present.

This reminds me of something I heard/seen this morning. It was a back to school commercial. The commercial was very nice, there were kids wearing trendy, stylish clothes. The only thing that bothered me about it was the music. They played Whitesnake "Here I go again". I kept asking myself why couldn't they just play something current to go with the times. Whitesnake is so 80s and very dated. There were kids in the commercial, so a current song would have been better. I don't if I'm the only one here who feels this way?

I guess nostalgia is a better word for it. I don't dress anymore like I did in the 2000s but I mainly listen to the sounds from that time with some 90s. Nostalgia is like my drug.

I don't see my self feeling the same for anymore eras than I already did for the 2000s because those were associated with my stress free days.

Technologically speaking, I think you could easily say I'm stuck in the mid-2000s. I spend much of my free time browsing and posting on Internet forums instead of using social media, which I only seldom use; I really mostly just use my portable devices for listening to music, texting, and making phone calls; I still enjoy collecting DVD's, my music collection is a mixture of iTunes albums and CD's from either a store or Amazon; I watch some online videos but don't tend to binge-watch streamed shows as much; and my favorite video games to play are still The Sims 2 and Dance Dance Revolution.

In other respects, my soul belongs more to various points in the late 20th Century. My taste in music mostly spans years from 1983 to 2001 (though I also like the 60s, 70s, and early 80s), while my favorite fashion is from either the mid-1960s or the Y2K era. Personality-wise, I'd probably describe myself as very late 90s, casually appreciative of digital technology, bubbily optimistic, and overall pretty socially progressive (the girl power craze resonates particularly strongly with me personally), but still not nearly as much a social media-addict or just...whatever adolescents are today.