Act of Cultural Vandalism - The Regular Pattern of Nostalgia

Recently, I have been thinking about something about our current culture. We (in the 2010s) are in the mist of a cultural-mining of the 1990s. This has come in many forms, especially in the form of childhood nostalgia. Kids who grew up in the 1990s are now hovering about the age of 30, so its no surprise that many of the things kids of the 90s liked, like Pokemon and Sailor Moon, are experiencing revamps or revivals in recent years. But this cultural mining has also led to the creation of new culture that will become the defining features of our collective culture of the 2010s, mostly in the form of Seapunk and Vaporwave. (How many of you guys have heard of these genres until now?)

All of this has made me think about how we regularly mine the culture of the past. We Westerners have been doing this for centuries. I think this can go back to when the first farming communities began to think back to the days they were hunter-gatherers, before that pesky farming forced them to stay in one place and break their backs harvesting the crop.

But I have noticed a pattern in our attitudes towards the past and its cultural artefacts. And looking at our culture in the past 50 years this pattern has been quite regular. Here's the pattern I have noticed....

1. A meme (which can be any brand new thing, from a gadget to a work of art) enters our culture. If enough people like it and adopt it it'll thrive. If not, it'll become a fringe meme that only a few fans like. But some of the fringe memes do eventually break out and become "mainstream."
2. After a while (a few months to a decade) a meme's popularity begins to fall as it becomes "old hat" or "that naff thing we use to like."
3. After the "naff thing" phase the old meme enters a bit of a renaissance as it enters the "childhood nostalgia" phase. This period can start as early as 10 years after meme's birth, but it usually begins when a meme is 20-30 years old. 
4. After the "nostalgia" phase ends a meme enters the "curiosity from the past" phase. This is when a new generation discovers the meme and explore it, usually to answer the question "Why was this a thing back then?" This period of a meme's life can happen between 20-50 years after meme's birth.
5. After the "curiosity" phase comes the most interesting phase in a meme's life. Depending on various things about the meme (it beauty, popularity in the past, association with noted people and so on), a meme can experience a number of forms of cultural appreciation. And this is possible because its during this phase direct examples of it become rarer. This is when things, like furniture and ornaments, start to become "antique." This is the ultimate test for a meme's long-term survival. If a meme proves to be a vital part of its culture of its day it'll last forever. If it proves to be more forward-thinking than it was thought to be back then it'll have some immortality. But if a meme proves to be just a trivial example of its time it may "die" - unless it gets rediscovered by chance and experiences a revival. If a meme proves to be very backward (even if it was very popular in its day) it'll just become a footnote only bought out in history lessons as something to laugh at or as something to scare people into behaving good. In short this is when nostalgia becomes "history" in the big sense of the word.

So that's the pattern I have worked out. But I guess you want examples of this pattern in action.

• The 1960s style revival - Thanks to TV dramas like Mad Men, the styles of the 1960s have experienced a revival in the past decade. What is interesting is that back in the 1960s (in the UK at least), there was an revival of late-Victorian and Edwardian culture. This was when Art Nouveau was rediscovered and was finally recognised as a pioneering modern design style, proving the pattern I have discovered.
• American Graffiti - When this movie was released in 1973 it had been a decade since the year it was set (1962). This film is credited for the creation of America's fascination for the 1950s and early-60s, leading to creation of Happy Days and the film adaption of Grease. It was also here when American cars from the 1950s started to become desirable collector's items.
• 1970s punks who wore Nazi stuff - These teens wore them because they wanted to shock their parents. At the time, World War II was something that happened over 30-35 years ago, so it wasn't something taught as "history" in history class at school let (unlike today). It was something their parents talked about and saw on TV as entertainment. They were not taught the reality of it. Until they were finally taught the facts (leading them to give up wearing them), the swastika was a curious artefact of a time before they were born, not a symbol of racially-motivated mass murder. This generational-divide is exampled by a famous 1978 episode of The Tomorrow People.
• The Wonder Years - When The Wonder Years first aired in 1988, it was set exactly 20 years ago, beginning with the year 1968. By 1990 it had entered the 1970s, beginning TV's fascination with the decade, paving the way for....
• That '70s Show - This show lasted eight seasons, compared to its "indirect" spin-off That '80s Show, which only lasted one season in 2002. Why was this? I think one reason it failed was because it was too early for a sitcom set in the 1980s. And I got proof - in the form of a family in Philly called The Goldbergs. 
• Curious about past tech - Right now technology from the 1970s and 80s have become curiosities. A prime example of this curiosity can be seen on the Techmoan YouTube channel.

That's all the examples I can think of right now.

Additional - There is some science behind our return to the 1990s (and nostalgia in general).