The Tyranny of Core Memories

My most overused phrase of the summer has been turning me inside out. Here I try to rationalise myself out of the core memories cult.

I’m sure you’ve watched Pixar’s Inside Out (2015) and possibly even the recently released Inside Out 2 (2024). If you’ve got kids, you might have watched them 62 times. If not, for the purposes of this piece, the two movies chart the internal emotions of an 11-year-old girl named Riley. In the first movie, we watch her interior weathervane get rocked by a family relocation from Minnesota to San Francisco. Five characters, named after the emotions Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust are set the seemingly impossible task of protecting Riley’s ‘personality islands’ - the most fundamental strands of her sense of self - during her transition from one school to another. In order to do this, ‘core memories’ - significant moments which shape our identity and power the personality islands must be managed by the team of emotions. We learn that a mixture of feelings, both happy, sad, terrifying and hilarious are needed to process the world and help children mature to become the unique individuals they were born to be.

For me personally, this has been the summer of overusing the term ‘core memories’. Amongst my friends, all with kids of the same age, we employ the phrase endlessly. Whenever we do something wholesome or poignant, we wink and say, ‘core memory’. Whenever something dodgy happens we WhatsApp each other worrying, ‘you don’t think this will be a core memory, do you?’ Core memories, once culturally perceived as having the potential to unlock childhood traumas, have now become a yardstick. They are the unit by which we try to pack in as many positive moments as possible, all in an attempt to give our children’s personality islands the most nourishing and healthy power. By curating childhood history with these carefully conceived experience tableaux we’re collectively hoping they won’t turn… bad. That palpable fear that we all feel, has been given a new pseudo-psychological framework via a Disney movie. At this point, I’m booking holidays, weekend activities and considering going on a Peppa Pig open top bus all for the sake of core memories. Core memories have turned me inside out.