The power of nostalgia and a first kiss
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nostalgia. That sentimental feeling of the past. Memory is a powerful thing and we tend to look back on our firsts fondly. Your first phone, your first best friend, your first kiss… But it turns out you can also feel nostalgic for things you weren’t around for.
In the last few years, for Gen Z, there’s been a huge rise in things like y2k fashion, old school technology like flip phones and digital cameras, and even Kate Bush has made it back into the charts.
So why do we care so much about old things?
Speaking of the past, let’s go way back and find out about the ancient origins of kissing! Scientists at Oxford University in the UK now think that kissing evolved more than 21 million years ago, and it wasn’t humans that started it.
Victoria Gill, our Science Correspondent, tells us all about the research and what we know about if animals can be romantic like humans can.
What in the World helping you make sense of what's happening in the world.
For more episodes, just search 'What in the World' wherever you get your BBC Podcasts.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hello and welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:11.6 | I'm Hannah Gelbart and I'm the host of What in the World, your daily podcast for the stories that get people talking. |
| 0:17.0 | You can listen by searching for BBC What in the World, wherever you found this podcast. |
| 0:22.6 | Today, we're talking about the past. Memory is a pretty powerful thing and we tend to look back |
| 0:28.7 | on our firsts with fondness. Our first phone, our first best friend, our first kiss, more on my first |
| 0:35.7 | kiss later. But it turns out you can also feel nostalgic for |
| 0:39.0 | things that you weren't around for. So what is nostalgia? Nostalgia. That sentimental feeling of the |
| 0:47.4 | past. I get it from looking through old photos or getting out my old iPod or CD player or even |
| 0:53.3 | just sitting down and watching |
| 0:54.5 | the same rerun of a TV show that I used to love. But here's something interesting. Gen Z |
| 0:59.8 | seems to be especially nostalgic for things that they never experienced. There's been an |
| 1:04.9 | explosion of interest in Y2K fashion that look from the early noughties, a love for old tech like digital cameras and |
| 1:12.0 | flip phones, and the constant romanticisation of old TV shows. Yep, you know what I'm talking about, |
| 1:17.6 | friends, the Gilmore girls, sex in the city, the fresh prince of Bel Air. Some people are |
| 1:22.3 | even saying that they feel they were born in the wrong generation. They wish they had school |
| 1:26.7 | memories from the 90s and |
| 1:28.2 | naughtys. So how can you experience nostalgia for something you didn't know? And is it all part of a |
| 1:34.2 | bigger marketing plan? So nostalgia really is just part of being human and it shows up differently |
| 1:40.9 | in different cultures around the world. And in Portuguese, there's a special word for it, Sao Dagi. |
| 1:46.3 | This is actually my brother's favourite word because he lives in Brazil, |
| 1:49.4 | so I asked him to tell us what it means. |
... |
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