You are most nostalgic for not your own childhood experiences but for what a previous generation either struggled for and won, or struggled and lost. Hence peak Westerns was approximately two generations (50 years) past the loss of horse culture.

But it differs by modality; timing may be more compressed for music.

Also, the advent of streaming has and will continue to alter the usual nostalgia equations -> Ie, for things that aren’t ever lost, how can you be nostalgic for them?

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Beowulf is Old English nostalgia for the “tales of the old days” in Scandanavia

Shakespeare also recycled old histories.

The fetishization of Beowulf by teachers in top high schools and colleges in the 50s was a USA thing as the UK rebuilt in ruins; only niche medievalists had heard of it or studied it in the UK.

Meanwhile, kids growing up in struggling 50s UK found their inspiration in: the music of loss and woe recorded by US African American Blues artists, later introducing American youth to Blues through British Invasion Rock acts

One of those acts came to Chicago in the early 60s and asked a music industry official, “do you think I could meet [blues artist]?“ who was his hero.

“Sure, in fact he’ll be here tonight.“

“He’s performing here tonight?!“

“No, he comes here to clean; he’s our janitor.”

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Today’s doting over pets and the grotesque behavior around marriage ceremonies (over the top weddings) and birthing (gender reveals; trophy adoptions by celebrities) is a cargo-cutting and fetishization regarding the decline of marriage as an institution and fertility/ numbers of children