An Important Lesson About Youth Culture from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival

Every summer on the National Mall in DC the Smithsonian hosts their ​Folklife Festival​. Typically, the weekend-long event brings craftspeople from around the world to share their art and culture with the public. This year, the theme was a bit different as the festival chose to spotlight and ​celebrate Youth and the Future of Culture​. As a result, along with the usual focus on traditional crafts like stone masonry and woodworking, there were also exhibits on emerging media, street art, skateboarding, lowrider culture, DJing and sidewalk astronomy.

Walking around the festival this past weekend, for me the most hopeful message was how young people were taking traditions and stories from so many different cultures and finding ways to ​keep them alive through storytelling​ but also through creating their own ways to express themselves. We don't always see moments like this where multiple generations come together to share knowledge and traditions. In fact ​a piece released earlier this week from the American Press Institute​ noted that "Americans today tend to exist in generational silos."

The suggestion from the piece that stuck with me for how to bridge that gap, and was brought to life at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, was the idea from ​Human Flourishing Lab founder Clay Routledge​ of using nostalgia as a way to help all people connect with history and past generations:

"While individuals of all ages tend to feel nostalgic about their own past (personal nostalgia), younger generations are surprisingly highly nostalgic for eras that predate their lifetimes (historical nostalgia) ... They also report being drawn to media, styles, hobbies and traditions originating from these historical periods and express strong beliefs that new technologies should incorporate ideas and design elements from these eras. And they find historical nostalgia useful for managing the stress of modern life and anxiety about the future.

Their engagement with the historical past isn’t merely passive consumption but instead reflects an active and creative endeavor to develop their own sense of self, cultivate cultural literacy, seek out shared stories and intergenerational bonds, and explore innovative ways to improve life in the present and build a better future."