I Long For 2019
A reflection on the year of "what once was"
In about a month from when I am writing this article, 2016 will have started a decade ago. It’s a sentence that easily comes out of my mouth, but one that hits like a sudden draft from a door swung open during a snowstorm of despair.
The internet hasn’t helped either. I often find nostalgic tweets or Instagram posts about that year, which will often include an echo chamber in the comments section of how it was “the best year ever”, followed by numerous “take me back” statements.
I get it. Those years were odd yet special like any other, and now more nostalgic than ever as we’ve polished the special moments in our minds.
However, if there is a year from the late 2010s to be unbearably nostalgic over, one that feels less like a memory and more like a place I accidentally moved out of; I think it has to be 2019. Not for the $1 McChicken’s nor the 24/7 stores (though I’d gladly welcome these back), but because 2019 felt like the last chapter of something I didn’t realize was ending.
A Cultural Summary
Part of what makes me miss 2019 is how it felt like culture had finally figured itself out. The cultural difference between 2012 and 2016 feels a decade apart; a completely different world in the span of a high-schooler’s education. That being said, 2019 felt like a warm highlight reel of the late 2010s while setting up trends for the upcoming decade.
Trap and streetwear had hit their peak, but no one seemed tired yet. Drake, Travis Scott and Migos were household names, and 17 year old boys would disown their own family just to own a Supreme box hoodie. Rap blended with pop music through releases like “Sunflower” and “Old Town Road”; the latter of which I’m glad we collectively moved on from.
Tyler, the Creator was spinning around in pastel suits and a blonde wig, rewriting what being cool could look like. In fact,“Earfquake”soundtracked my last weeks of high school. Playboi Carti had turned hype itself into performance art; with his fans/hostages waiting for Whole Lotta Red to drop, refreshing Instagram and Reddit like disciples.
Kanye rewrote his anticipated album Yandhi since “Jesus Christ did the laundry”; while Frank Ocean hosted parties in NYC we didn’t know we could get into. Then, he dropped “DHL” and “In My Room” like breadcrumbs from a lover with avoidant attachment.
Pop music felt cinematic as ever. Ariana Grande was turning heartbreak into earworms with Thank U, Next. Clairo and Billie Eilish’s bedroom pop launched them into the mainstream. Fans in the indie scene anticipated new tunes from Tame Impala, Mac DeMarco and Steve Lacy while embracing freshmen like The Marías and Men I Trust. The indie scene at the time felt like the soundtrack to a graduating class that didn’t know if it was evolving or dissolving.
I think I’m going to stop writing for a moment and pour one out to “What Once Was” by Her’s (RIP).
And honestly, did you even exist in 2019 if you didn’t play Don Toliver’s “No Idea” while watching a pink winter sunrise at some point?
2019 was a more common time to sit in the dark with strangers (pause). It was the swan song of the cinema; the final chapter before streaming took over, for a few years at least.
Franchises were ending in time for the new decade. Game of Thrones fumbled perhaps one of the most anticipated finales ever, Big Bang Theory finally called it quits, and Marvel’s decade of hyping up a purple man climaxed with Avengers: Endgame. I still haven’t watched Game of Thrones (spare me), but I remember the twitter outrage and the collective disappointment that felt like seeing a Macy’s Parade float deflating pathetically.
What I do remember vividly is crying over Tony Stark’s sacrifice and trying not to make noise in a collectively shocked theatre. I hope I wasn’t the only one.
Disney+ launched that year, cementing the future of streaming, but movie theatres still had their moment. I remember the collective paranoia around Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, a movie which my parents urged me not to see in theaters (and I didn’t). Besides Phoenix’s future Oscar-winning performance in that film, it seemed like Oscar buzz followed every movie that came out: 1917, Uncut Gems, Ford v Ferrari, Marriage Story, Parasite and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, just to name a few.
I remember blindly walking into Knives Out and Little Women wanting to try something new, and coming out feeling like I’d lived inside something surreal. I have the VSCO screenshot to prove it:
2019 Santi Jonny
I think 2019 carries so much weight because the turn of the decade aligned almost perfectly with the changes in my own life.
I was a senior in high school, the last of our class to have a normal senior prom and graduation before the world closed its doors. It was the year I got confirmed as a Catholic the day after Prom (I like to joke that I could still receive communion despite those days being back-to-back). Most importantly, I entered college without a clue in the world of what I was going to study or pursue for a career, convincing myself that was totally fine.
In a span of months; my days went from eight-hour-stretches in the same fluorescent hallways, to being on a downtown college campus with a personalized class schedule. It felt like freedom, or at least the closest thing to it at 17.
I remember the joy that came with stopping by friends’ graduation parties, pretending the future was a clean runway laid out for us. It was the summer I first tried bubble tea with friends, discussing what college we were going to and how to stay in touch. I remember the adrenaline rush that flooded when the Gophers scored a touchdown at my first college football game. Small moments that now seem immense.
Like every year before it, 2019 had its rough patches, moments I didn’t have words for at the time. Moments like being the bottom of the restaurant hierarchy as a busser for only a month and a half, failing both a calculus and coding class, and the numerous times sitting alone at the campus Burger King; surviving with coupons as a commuter student in-between classes.
Nonetheless, these are now moments softened by the glow of hindsight. Those highs and lows didn’t stack or take turns, but were weaved into everyday life. I’m sure we will feel the same way about the 2020s, a decade we are currently halfway through. While these parallels occur, I think there is a large factor of why everything feels so different now: the outcomes of the pandemic.
The (Bitter)Sweet Escape
As we were riding the highs of 2019, 2020 seemed like the perfect year to keep the party going. Valentine’s Day was on a Friday, July 4th on a Saturday, and both Christmas and New Year’s Day lined up the same way. It was as if the calendar was promising a good time, which of course didn’t happen.
There’s a type of underlying collective trauma from the pandemic in the world now. Mask mandates and lockdowns are no more, but the world still makes no sense. Time feels like it’s exponentially passing by and society seems more on edge, numbed out by a “just get through it” type of survival mode.
The older I get, the more I realize that the pre-pandemic version of myself—messy, yet hopeful, was precious because he didn’t know what was coming. None of us did. But as tempting as it is to live in that naiveness, we don’t get to go back. And we shouldn’t.
What we can do is carry the good from then into who we’re becoming now. The hope, freedom and courage to believe the future might surprise us with something good. It’s far too easy these days to become cynical, and there’s nothing worse than becoming a dispirited person with decades left to live.
2019 was a wonderful year, and in certain ways I’d give anything to relive it. It is okay to miss it and sit with those memories, but not staying there. Putting the past on a pedestal makes it easy to miss the present—the small, unexpected, ordinary joys happening right now and the ones waiting in the years to come. Even if those moments do or don’t include $1 McChickens.
Best,
Santi
This is awesome!! I love this reflection - 2019 was a great year, I have a good feeling 2026 is going to be even better (-: