Full Article:
https://aeon.co/essays/a-history-of-kidults-from-hello-kitty-to-disney-weddingsMy first personal encounter with the idea that of adults playing in the childhood sense was back in the mid-2010s, when I listened to a podcast that featured Charlie Hoehn and his work with
the Recess Project. The idea was in a monotonous world full of anxiety and stress leading to mental health difficulties, even adults needed to slip back into childhood for awhile and play. I was intrigued by the idea, but unfortunately I never got around to reading his book "Play It Away: A Workaholic's Cure for Anxiety" (though maybe I'll get around to it now!).
But as the article discusses, it's since taken on a whole new life with adults increasingly ditching the trappings of adulthood when they can in favor of returning to childhood hobbies, ideas, styles, interests, even mindsets...something that's usually put down by older generations, from blaming Millennials for killing every industry ever devised to calling the entire phenomenon
The Great Regression. But it turns out this is nothing new...the article explores how the exact same thing was happening in Japan in the 1990s, as Japan's economy crashed and the dream of stable, secure, life-long employment at a decent wage evaporated. And now the same thing is going on worldwide.
Did the Great Regression really lead to an erosion of reality? Or is regressive behaviour a tacit acknowledgement that the future isn’t as rosy as it used to be? After years of economic, social and political chaos, the light at the end of the tunnel seems to have extinguished altogether. ‘We have no future because our present is too volatile,’ wrote William Gibson in the prescient novel Pattern Recognition (2003). ‘We have only risk management.’
So, according to the article (and I think it makes sense or else I wouldn't be posting this), there's method to the regression...we're coping with extraordinary stresses and pressures by returning to the comforts of childhood, and the article even mentions that it's a sign of resilience. But beyond that, it's a way to remake ourselves into something that works in modern society...play is how children explore, experiment, learn about themselves, and ultimately become who they are as adults. Could it be that the same holds true for adults who have no future to look forward to?