What Makes Something A "Classic"? EDIT: TO YOU

[Reynard]

EDIT FOR CLARITY: I mean to ask you, personally, what makes something a classic TO YOU. I am not asking you what you think makes something a classic to society or audiences at large.

Note that this is a question about your own personal preferences and views, not about academic or critical definitions.

Most entertainment -- from novels to video games and movies to albums, and, yes, tabletop RPGs -- is ephemeral. it exists and entertains for the moment it is created and is soon forgotten, both by the individual and the audience at large. And this is not a dig -- ephemeral entertainment drives the creation of new entertainment, fresh stories by fresh voices and so on.

But, sometimes things stick. They remain entertaining and relevant well past their creation. Not only do individuals re-visit them, but new audiences and generations discover them and adore them.

So what is the difference? What makes one thing a flash in the pan, and another a classic? I don't think it is strictly a question of "quality" -- there are many really enjoyable but ultimately forgettable pieces of entertainment, and not every classic is so because it is a brilliant or groundbreaking example of its form. So what is it?

For you, what makes a classic a classic?

 

[Mannahnin]

I guess there has to be some combination of good writing and timeless subject matter. That the work contains insights, whether frightening or profound or humorous, which are sufficiently universal to the human experience that successive generations still recognize and are moved by them. As well as the same generation viewing it again years and decades later after more life experience and changes in perspective.

 

[Dioltach]

Do I go back to it again and again? Do I still enjoy it all those times, for reasons other than nostalgia and/or comfort reading/watching/playing?

Books like LotR, Jeeves & Wooster and Earthsea, movies like The Good, the Bad & the Ugly, Casablanca and the LotR trilogy, games like Planescape: Torment, Survive: Escape from Atlantis and Celestia.

 

[The Firebird]

I really like @Mannahnin 's answer. Will add to it, that things which are not thematically deep can be classics if they break new ground as an art form. OD&D, for example, or Pac-Man.

 

[MGibster]

A work becomes a classic because of lasting significance. It might remain in the public eye because the themes continue to resonate with an audience, maybe it’s just so well produced it continues to attract fans, or maybe it continues to influence other works. Sometimes a work simply becomes ingrained in our culture. Dante’s Inferno still continues to influence how a lot of people envision Hell.

 

[Parmandur]

I would agree with what has been said above by everyone: to put an arbitrary number on it, I will go to the ancient and traditional bw chmark of 40 years: if a great variety of people continue to engage with a work after 40 years, that is firmly outside of the original cultural context and moment, so it has gained some "classic" status.

 

[payn]

Reminds me a lot of the recent what is a hit thread?. I think a “classic” is often a hit that defined or redefined its category. Something that feels timeless in that as it will never become dated or irrelevant.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

It's played on oldies channels or Turner Classic Movies.

 

[jian]

I think a classic is something you recognise and appreciate as part of you, part of what you know and feel, even when you experience it for the first time. This is a bit rarer when you're younger - you've experienced less stuff and so you can't recognise as many things as when you're older - but it's still possible. And of course something you experience and love early becomes a classic to you as you incorporate it into yourself.

For instance, when I first saw Star Wars (on TV in 1982, I think, when I was 7) I recognised it from the toys and lunchboxes my friends had at school but not much else, and enjoyed it for itself, and it became a classic to me over the years as part of me.

When I saw The Box of Delights (a BBC TV series from 1984, based on the children's book by John Masefield) for the first time in 1995 - my in-laws-to-be had the VHS and had loved and rewatched it for a decade - I recognised some things about it, mainly the children's book and 80s BBC trappings, and the unexpected appearance of Robert "Aragorn" Stephens, but it didn't really speak to me and it still doesn't. It's not a classic as far as I'm concerned, but is one to my wife and her family.

When I saw This is Spinal Tap for the first time this year, I instantly recognised so much of it from both references I'd seen (The Simpsons being an obvious one) and from the feel of it, from the gentle mockery of 1980s England and America, of classic rock bands and the trajectory of famous artists, that it was obviously a classic.

 

[aco175]

It is like some songs that you have not heard in a while. They take you back to certain points in time and you recall the event surrounding the song. Although thinking about some of the songs, I guess some could be bad, but classic. I hear Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae I remember the summer of 2012 that had to drive almost two hours to get to work and it was on twice on my ride in and back home.