Nostalgia is eating us alive. Instead of building a new world, we’re regurgitating a past that never existed

‘Movie theatres are propped up by two monolith tent poles: DC’s umpteenth Superman and Marvel’s Fantastic Four reboot.’ Composite: Warner Bros Entertainment/Walt Disney Studios via AP

There has been much talk about our hunger for a “return to optimism”. Our world has been too real for too long, and we all just want a bit of shelter from the storm.

We look back in patronising nostalgia at Obama’s Hope poster in the same way we insist music hasn’t been real music since about 1986 (or since 1966, or since the Great American Songbook, or since Mozart, depending who you talk to).