Naive is Evian spelt backwards: Microsoft's new advert and the nostalgia complex

Microsoft's new ad aimed at Generation Y romanticizes our Tamagotchi's, our Nike Trainers and our bowl cuts - the stalwarts of our youth.

Nostalgia has been a top trend in advertising since the recession broke in 2007 with Asda reporting an increase in sales of the like of Bisto Gravy and Birds Custard Powder. It's no surprise that during an economic downturn consumers turn to trusted heritage brands - keep calm and carry on as Anthony Burrill would say. 

However it's usually represented by a yearning for 50's home comforts or the innocence of 60's psychedelia - not a hankering for wallet chains and (gulp) dial up Internet. 

The term nostalgia was first coined in the 1600's and referred to Swiss mercenaries who were homesick for their motherland. Nostalgia is often more associated with right wing modes of thought then left (referred to in Fredric Jameson’s book Marxism and Form) however Yugo-Nostalgia is a specific form of nostalgia experienced by those inhabitants of ex Yugoslav nations harking back to Communist times. 

I digress - are members of Gen Y homesick for their youth? Are we longing for a simpler time when things were slower, less stressful, economies healthier... hang on a minute the early nineties was rife with recession, things were just as stressful. The nineties is not a by-word for naivety - it was a time of war, a time of disease and saw economic crisis after economic crisis.

What we really miss is being young. Will this make the adults of the millennium download the new Internet Explorer? Well I certainly won't be but I will be watching Reality Bites later.