Thomas Marinelli ’26

by Thomas Marinelli ’26 on September 18, 2025

Nostalgia Done Right

Coming back to Providence College after this summer, I was reminded of the summer of 2020. Perhaps not as fresh to many people anymore—maybe even purposefully forgotten, due to the COVID-19 pandemic—but nonetheless, it’s a time that has stuck with us for reasons we probably did not see at the time. I remember it very well. I was 15, still a high school student, though some of you might have still been in middle school. No matter our age, I bet many of us watched Avatar: The Last Airbender repeatedly that summer and felt like a kid again.

The first summer of the COVID-19 lockdown probably felt like a chance to finally relax for most of us who are now in college. It’s not something many of us remember as clearly now, as it goes with most summers, as we age, each loses the glow it once had. Avatar was one of these shows that had an original audience, but when it was brought back, it was just as bright and great as it was before. Its streaming numbers hit all-time highs in 2020 for obvious reasons: people were at home, bored, looking for escapes, and trying to watch something that would make a dull day not so bad, maybe even a little more like life before the COVID-19 pandemic flipped all of our lives upside down. Many of us kids and teenagers fell into this same routine, looking for something to pass the time. But with Avatar, I think most of us wished that excitement would never leave. 

Netflix did it right. They loaded up their service with as many shows as they could, not just for adults or kids, but for teens as well. Teens had grown up with shows like Avatar. I remember coming home from school as an eight-year-old and watching it with my sisters like an afterschool ritual—something I think many others experienced in one form or another. It was familiar, but also forgotten. Seeing it again on Netflix as a top-10 show for 61 days (one of the longest-running top-10 shows of the year), we watched it just as if we were watching it for the first time, but with that inner child inside us that watched the original version all those years ago.

Avatar was a children’s show, but anyone could relate to it. It was nostalgic, yet funny. It was deep and emotional, with each character developing uniquely over the three seasons, but in very human ways despite their cartoon nature. Aang was goofy, kiddish, and lovable, but he always carried a heavy weight on his shoulders and knew he had to do anything possible to protect the people he cared for most. Uncle Iroh (my favorite) loved his nephew Zuko throughout the entire show. Despite watching him make mistake after mistake, he always believed Zuko was good at heart and returned to his side, no matter how many times Zuko pushed him away. Zuko himself embodies the most change: capturing Aang was the only way for him to go home after being banished. Zuko never had a choice; everything in his life felt like failure if he wasn’t serving that objective. He only began to change after asking himself what he truly wanted. Avatar is a show that deals with loss and revenge, but also with newfound color, love, and peace. It was never just a story about a kid defeating a villain—it was about balance and finding peace in a world deprived of it.

Avatar meets every facet of what makes TV work. It was an ideal comfort show that carried a sense of excitement at the same time. Let’s not forget that it originally ran on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008, alongside shows like SpongeBob SquarePants, Drake and Josh, and The Fairly OddParents. They are all great shows, but none reached the same depth as Avatar, which likely worked in its favor. Avatar was able to create a cult following, a spinoff show (The Legend of Korra), a movie, and later even another live-action series. But like any show or movie, its hype dies down, people move on to the next thing, and the summer ends. The Legend of Korra was popular and ran for several years, but it was never going to be the same for kids who watched the original show and then rewatched it again in 2020. The live-action series had promise, but felt more like a cash grab to profit off the hype and never really landed with anyone who had already lost interest in the show after the summer of 2020. Avatar as we knew it effectively went back into the dark as the nostalgia faded and that summer turned into another school year—another year anticipating the next summer, and another year finding it wasn’t the same.

The summer of Avatar: The Last Airbender, like so many summers, did nostalgia right, but it was never meant to last. Its day in the sun was bright for the time we had it, but now, years later, it’s hard to remember just how much we enjoyed it. For the time we had, though, it was nice to remember what it was like being a kid again before too much time had passed. If we take anything away from Avatar, it should be to remember that all things must pass—nostalgia, happiness, sadness, anxiety, summers—but that doesn’t mean they weren’t important, even if you wished they would never end.