The X-Files Has Made Me Nostalgic for a Time I Never Experienced

In a time before crypto, Twitter, and AI slop, we had communities, real experiences, and beautiful TV…

Driving in a Buick Century through a rural town in middle America, pulling a Motorola brick cellphone from their suit jackets; Mulder and Scully have pulled me into their world, and I think I want to be there, even with the supernatural baggage.

I have had a vague cultural awareness of The X-Files since childhood. It was a show before my time, but one with enough staying power in the cultural zeitgeist, and my mum’s taste in television, that I knew of its popularity. I can’t pinpoint why, but I felt an urge to finally watch it this year, maybe as a show to fill the Doctor Who-shaped void in my nerd heart as of late. Needless to say it’s been a ride.

It took only three episodes for my brain to rewire, and I just got it. The stories are interesting, a series ‘mythology’ is developing, the cinematography is gorgeous, all tied together with incredible casting. Oops, I might have a new obsession for the first time in years. At the time of writing this, I have just started season 4, and I’m all in. I know that later seasons (and movies) are controversial and probably don’t hold a candle to the golden age of the show that I am currently experiencing for the first time, but I don’t care. I’m a whovian - do you really think I could ever possibly complain about The X-Files with the current state of humiliation that Doctor Who is in? I will make fair observations as I go, but I think I can handle just about any disappointment imaginable. Except Scully and Mulder never getting together. Come on, that’s gonna happen right? This much tension can’t last forever. Seeing them briefly hold hands makes me feel like a Victorian man seeing a woman’s ankle.

One aspect of the show keeps returning to my mind when I discuss what feels so good about it, and that’s simply the environment it was created in, and portrays. A time that was not necessarily less complicated for those living in it, but a time less sloppy, less needlessly busy. A bygone era is put to screen, with big mobile phones that you need to pull an antenna out of in order to use, chunky keyboards wired into bulbous PCs, giant spinning tape recorders, and rectangular cars. The transition from analog to digital is so stylishly shown, really giving an appreciation and a sense of cool to technologies we would consider comically outdated today. I don’t know about you, reader, but as long as everyone else was in the same boat (forgive my fear of missing out), I’d happily go back to having a phone that is just a simple telephone! I say this as a child raised in the iPhone era, well adapted to a frankly concerning amount of screen time. I want to twiddle the dials on a car radio, craft a mixtape for my Walkman, and not have any excuse for my phone call anxiety.

The vision of sleek FBI communications tech - a brick with an antenna

Technology went from functional in the 90s, to fun in the 2000s, and is now - somehow - neither. In the X-Files, each object does one thing, and does it well, without needless interconnectivity and unknowable algorithms. Technology means tools, not a whole new facet of life. There is a clarity to this era of tech that I appreciate, as well as a sense that every use of a machine is deliberate. There is friction in everything Mulder and Scully use. You have to go somewhere to use a computer, you have to make some level of effort to use a phone. Many technologies are still in the stages of being less practical than traditional alternatives, and so act as a useful last resort rather than the default. For example, it is much easier for our FBI agents to exchange documents in-person, or use a fax machine, than copy and send over early email. Nothing is instant, many things are physical, and because of that, everything feels a bit more real. Chances for Mulder and Scully to effectively flirt on the job would surely be drastically reduced if they were just texting each other, as opposed to their constant phone calls and arriving at each other’s homes unannounced.

The X-Files not only shows technological differences to current times, but also cultural. Contrasts between the UK and US aside, the communities being shown are so much stronger, and actually connected. People talked to each other instead of having AirPods in and the world behind computer screens. People knew their neighbours, and real communities were built. We will ignore the many cases of cult behaviour these communities engage in across the series… at least they were tight-knit? It now seems that real community is hard to find. Connection is constant, but rarely feels supportive or tangible.

The early nineties silhouette is very much on show through Scully’s wardrobe and hair in the early seasons. Also note a prime example of Mulder’s patterned ties.

We can’t ignore the fashion and styling. You can definitely tell it’s the nineties, but quite honestly, it’s not nearly as dated as I thought it would be. Perhaps that is the current cultural nostalgia for the 80s and the new millennium talking, but the hair and makeup just looks great. It is dangerous for me and my long locks that Scully is making short hair so appealing to me, though I could never pull it off to the same level of chic. On the opposite side of chic is the interior design of the homes put to screen. Ugh. Some of the wallpaper is egregious - I’m not upset that this style has been left behind.

Perhaps the kind of clothing that an FBI agent wears can truly never go out of style, normally being some variety of suit, but these agents are truly dressed for magazine covers while hunting down aliens. Well, maybe aside from Mulder’s extensive collection of (incredibly dated) patterned ties, as endearing as I may find them. The suits, particularly Scully’s, definitely show their age in their fit and style, but that takes nothing away from them in my eyes. When they are paired with long coats, I am in my element. David Tennant’s costuming for the Tenth Doctor may have some part to play in my love for long coats flailing in the wind when the wearer is chasing monsters. I just can’t deny I get a smile on my face when Mulder’s coat flares up like a cape when he picks up the pace, particularly on the rare occasions where his coat has a red lining (I’m obliged to note that it’s very Twelfth Doctor).

Something about a long coat flailing when the wearer runs… [Left: The Tenth Doctor in The End Of Time Part 1 / Right: Agent Mulder in Nisei]

Watching The X-Files at this point in time, when I am reminded every day of the dire state of the world, has solidified my belief that I would have likely been happier in an age that preceded me. I am of course thankful for the technology I am privileged enough to have; there is a certain irony in moaning about modern times through the medium of internet blogs. However, I see the brain-rotting, radicalising, life-altering effects of the current state of the internet, particularly on young people, and despair. How many hours of how many lives have been used scrolling to no meaningful end? How much violence, loneliness, ignorance, and hatred has been stoked by ‘social’ media?

There is emerging scientific data that regular use of AI, such as ChatGPT, can give you cognitive atrophy, essentially reversible dementia. When the masses cannot write a three-sentence email, cannot read a paragraph of a book, cannot remember what they did two days ago, and are basically illiterate, what are we to do? A duo like the Oxford-educated psychologist Mulder and medical doctor Scully would be a lot more difficult to find, or at least less skilled after cheating their way through assignments. Agent Mulder would probably think ChatGPT is the embodiment of a real demon he read about in an old book, or maybe just part of a conspiracy by the billionaire elites to disempower the populous, and I’d be inclined to believe him. The internet as a whole has gone from a technological wonder to a hellscape. What was once a library of all human knowledge, a space for community, and a miracle of communication, is now poisoned with bots, spam, and AI slop. Nothing - no photos, videos, reports, or recordings - can be taken as truth anymore. One of The X-Files’ mantras, “Trust No One”, may be more pertinent than ever before, in that respect. In the nineties it pointed to shadowy government conspiracies; now it feels like basic digital literacy. The concept of fact is as objective as ever, and I am intrigued how this aspect of modern life will be handled in Ryan Coogler’s upcoming X-Files reboot.

The world which allowed the X-Files to exist is no longer. Today, Mulder wouldn’t be following paper trails or driving across the country to see reported UFOs, he’d be drowning in Reddit threads and algorithmically recommended conspiracy theory reels. Scully would spend half her time debunking deepfakes instead of conducting autopsies. There is, to me, no sense of wonder in society anymore. In a world that is constantly documented by every device with a camera, there seems to be no grand mysteries. Even when there is a rare showing of greater human endeavour, such as the recent Artemis II mission around the moon, there seems to be no wider astonishment, no desire to look up at the universe with intrigue. To be a conspiracy theorist today is so far removed from Mulder’s sense of wonder and justice that it feels wrong to label him as one, even if he fits the original definition. Is there a single person today whose one and only driving force is the belief that the government is hiding knowledge of aliens? I just don’t think the world allows for this anymore, without much more toxic baggage in addition.

One more sad, beautiful reminder that The X-Files reflects a different time is the visuals of the show itself. The cinematography can be simply stunning. It’s been said too many times, but I will repeat it at the risk of sounding decades older than I am - television like this simply isn’t made anymore, I believe in large part due to the rise of digital cameras over film. The use of colour and light is exquisite; real thought and effort has so clearly been put in by the directors and crew in a way that, for whatever reason, isn’t seen as much today. The scourge of flat so-called ‘Netflix lighting’ in modern media becomes even more apparent when you go back to shows like this. It is art over content, unafraid of colour and contrast.

As much as I’d quite like to live in a world of simpler technology, film grain, and cars without touchscreens on the dashboard, I am stuck in this world we currently reside in. I can benefit from current science and technology, sure, but I also have to endure an economic crisis, the rise of fascism, the enshittification of everything, and being thirty years too late to pretend I have a chance with peak David Duchovny… or Gillian Anderson. At least I have a world I can escape to through my TV screen, where everything looks beautiful, and the internet isn’t a hell run by billionaires. The monsters are a nice distraction from the everyday horrors on my phone.

It’s far too easy to romanticise the past, wallowing in the struggles of today whilst forgetting the real and terrible struggles of times gone by, but I believe that, to a good extent, people lived better in the 90s. People lived. Please, have a phone call with a friend instead of texting, leave your phone in your pocket at the party, drop by a friend’s place, chat to a stranger, uncover a government conspiracy relating to alien-human hybrids… well, maybe not that last one - but live in a way that almost resembles the human condition! Our brains are made for living in a village, not isolating ourselves behind glowing blue squares. We can pretend that pixels on a screen are equivalent to sharing an impromptu coffee with a friend, but we are kidding ourselves. Normal human life was left in the nineties, and I never got a chance to experience it to the fullest. The X-Files has shown me that working, thinking, and socialising were not the same then as they are now, and may never be again.

Above and beyond these revelations, the show has given me one other conclusion. Perhaps the saddest thing we left in the nineties was early-seasons Mulder. Maybe it’s for the best that I was born in the new millennium - I don’t think I would have been normal about him.

Agent Mulder (David Duchovny) in Season 2 Episode 1 ‘Little Green Men’.