Kyle adds even more

Lynda,

I had something a bit larger than Rod Stewart and rose-colored glasses
in mind when I called attention to the possibility that retro-fetishes
were melancholic. Think of it more in terms of identities forged out
of cultural moods (or the other way around) and then when those moods
shift unexpectedly, you could even say violently, these moods return
in our subjectivities is uneven ways such as a jingle in the Ford
Truck commercials or wherever they are showing up.

That these instances of retro-fetish produce emotional effects such as
pleasure, anger, or anxiety should indicate clearly enough that they
are viable aspects of our subjectivities: we come to define ourselves
or are invited to define ourselves in terms of a decade so that we can
locate ourselves on a cultural spectrum and restore order. Our emails
are clear enough indications of that: if you are from the 80's then
you articulate revile at the appropriation, and thereby locate
yourself in a certain space. If you are born in the 80's you write
about the appropriation of gangsta rap as I did way back in our first
year together, and most recently in a review forthcoming in Computers
and Composition.

All of this is to say that yes, I agree that using trauma to read 80's
retro fetish is a bit reckless given the topics that trauma usually
deals with. However, how else could you explain the return, almost
melancholic presence of past era's in our media? I propose that we
either have to do it in terms of psychoanalysis (which I admittedly
know little about) or in terms of new media theory, which as I said
before, is interested in explaining new media in terms of its
relationship to prior media.

All of this needs to be on the Blog.
KJ