>>36728
If you've never personally experienced the thing in question and all you have to go off of are others' reported experiences, then your view is likely to be more picture-esque and idealized than it actually was, since people tend to talk more about the positives than the ugly side of things.

I do feel nostalgic though when people talk about usenet even though I was sadly too late to experience that.

>>36729
Don't people idealize things in from their own childhood?

I think it's less nostalgia and more grieving. Nostalgia has some aspect of positivity to it and recapturing the object of nostalgia is fairly simple. Grieving is mostly sad, regretful and mournful. If you can't experience it for yourself, thinking about it is mourning it I think.

>>36728
The closest term I know of to that feeling is saudade, though nostalgia doesn't require personal experience to be felt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade

>>36728
One of my main methods of escapism was being nostalgic for particular periods I wasn't alive in.

But of course. Case and point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp1LIDdKctk

>>36736
Saudade is one of my favorite words/emotions. It complements nicely with the "mono no aware."