Exploring Birth Year as a Self-Identity Marker and Target for Nostalgia in YouTube Comments on Video Content from 1950 – 2019

Automated text analysis of YouTube comments on videos featuring content indexed by year for each year between 1965 – 1981 (Study 1), each year between 1980 – 2005 (Study 2), and 56 of the 70 years between 1950 – 2019 (Study 3), identified key words associated with users’ disclosing their age in the year of the video (e.g., “I was _11 years old_ in 1974”). Reported ages ranged from -59 to 45, but 42.1% of the age-related comments referred to the birth year (e.g., “I was _born_ in 1963”). Birth also appeared more frequently than other major life events (e.g., birth of a sibling, high school graduation, marriage, birth of a child, etc.). One’s birth year is the opening chapter of their life story and an important aspect of self-identity, for which people have no autobiographical memories. Social media like YouTube may fill this psychological void by allowing users to view the world as it was in their birth year and publicly acknowledge the connection with their life story.