Does Anyone Here Remember The 80s

[imperialus]

I'm pretty much in the same boat as Kermi, born in 81.

Things I do remember that were cool... Start with the video games since this is the Escapist.

Final Fantasy 1
Mario 3
Civilization 1
Playing D&D with my older cousin
My best friends dad had a freaking phone in his CAR!
My mom didn't like me playing with GI-Joe
Transformers were fine in her books though.
As were the Ninja Turtles.
We got in a lot of trouble when we ripped up my neighbors front yard into trenches for an epic GI-Joe vs Transformers battle.
I had a lot of Legos.
I had a toy gun that looked real.
We played "war" by running around the neighborhood and shouting bang!
We could disappear for hours at a time with no way for our parents to contact us and no police were called.
I had a friend who had a calculator in his watch.

Oh, and This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNGOc3n7fMY&feature=fvst

Things I remember that were not so cool.
Russia was scary.
We lived close to the edge of town, so I thought this meant we might survive if a nuclear bomb went off.
My dad worked in the oil industry... Long story short, the early 80's were not a happy time to be in the oil patch, particularly in Western Canada. Google National Energy Policy if you really care.
We were all going to get skin cancer from the hole in the ozone layer.

 

[imperialus]

I remember watching the Challenger explode live on TV (from principle's office).

I remember that too... I was in Grade 1 and the whole school was in the gym to watch the launch. I still reflexively tear up a bit when I see footage of that.

 

[DarthScorpio11]

Born in 1972...so I remember the 80s very well. There was a lot of neon, but it was a pretty dark time. I was absolutely certain that I'd die in a nuclear war, for example. The good thing about being from San Francisco is that I'd die immediately and not have to live through radiation poisoning and nuclear winter like the films The Day After and Threads.

AIDS his the scene and no one knew what was up. Everybody was freaking out.

There was a hole in the o-zone layer, acid rain, and it looked like if we weren't going to destroy the world with nukes, then we'd destroy it environmentally.

There was anxiety about growing mega-corporations and big brother.

De-industrialization meant that blue collar families and farmers were in a really, really bad way.

The war on drugs and Reagan's legislation made it bad for labor, homeless, minorities, etc...all the while Dynasty and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was on TV.

A lot of the music, on the surface, seemed to be peppy and happy...but if you listen deeper you notice that a lot of it was pretty bleak. One of the best examples? Prince's 1999..."Two-thousand-zero-zreo party over, oops!, out of time. So tonight we're gonna party like it's 1999"
But there are a thousand examples of just that sort of thing.

That said. I'm not bothered by the clothes or the hair...becomes that was just the style. I'm sure people will look back at what people are wearing now and laugh just as much. And anyway, I miss a hot person with tall 80s hair and shoulder pads.

meh, seems like heaven back then man. you guys may have had worries about bombs back then, but when i was a teenager (recently) in the 00s, we actually were at war with real guns, and violence. The economy was at it's all time low in decades, and everyone was in constant fear of a terrorist attack. When i was only 11, 9/11 happened. Horrific for anyone, but especially for a 11 year old. I'd take the happy music, and cheesy 80s stuff anyday. Seems like heaven

 

[NeoShinGundam]

but seriously for all the colour blind fashion desingers and rubicks cubes we all remember from then it did have a darkside, it was the last decade of the cold war. no one growing up now can really understand what it was like knowing at any moment someone somewhere would press a red button and world war 3 started.

so yes i still remember the 80's, the last decade of the cold war, and the decade the berlin wall came down. still to this day 21 years later there has not been a single moment of global hope as that

Totally, dude. As someone born in 1985 I have no "true" memories of that decade. Me and all my classmates all learned about the Cold War in history class as something that was already over. My only real knowledge of that time period is reruns of Transformers, G.I. Joe and Thundercats.

 

[DarthScorpio11]

Born in `79, grew up west of Sydney throughout the 80s. It was mullets, flannies (flannelette shirts), acid wash jeans, and white sneakers with flouro-yellow strips everywhere.

On TV after school, I remember watching "It's A Knockout!", "Secret Valley", "Mysterious Cities of Gold", and "Monkey Magic".

My first video game system was the Dick Smith Wizzard, with a great game called Mouse Puzzle (a very cool sliding block puzzle - I'm surprised it's not on iPhone yet!); my first computer was an Apple ][c with Karateka and Temple of Apshai.

I grew up reading the Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone's "Fighting Fantasy" books.

I remember when rugby was still called the Winfield Cup; I remember getting Star Wars ice blocks that were coloured according to whichever jedi lightsabre you wanted.

LOL I remember those big clunky white plastic headphones we had in NSW public schools - you and the other kids would all plug them into a central jack to listen to ... something. I honestly don't remember what we listened to on them. Probably some kind of social conditioning.

Random Memories:

Paper straws ... Shrinky Dinkies (!!) ... Spokey-Dokes (^o^) ... Red Rooster's Space Shuttle styrofoam burger holders (omg they rocked) ... hell, styrofoam containers for all fast food joints (remember the squeak-squeak noise they made?) ... Rub-A-Dub-Doggie ... GI Joe (Lt Falcon FTW) ... Pound Puppies ... Machine Men (!) ... and Monster-In-My-Pocket ...

There. Sufficiently nostalgified, guise?

hmmm...i was born in 89, and don't really remember much about fashion in the 90s, other than obvious stuff from music videos. I pretty much wore whatever my parents brought for me, and i don't recall paying attention to others clothes then.

 

[imperialus]

meh, seems like heaven back then man. you guys may have had worries about bombs back then, but when i was a teenager (recently) in the 00s, we actually were at war with real guns, and violence. The economy was at it's all time low in decades, and everyone was in constant fear of a terrorist attack. When i was only 11, 9/11 happened. Horrific for anyone, but especially for a 11 year old. I'd take the happy music, and cheesy 80s stuff anyday. Seems like heaven

The difference was the intimacy of it... Gulf War II and Afghanistan are a long way off, and lets face it, unless you know someone serving there they are not an in your face threat. the 80's were a time where people genuinely thought that World War III was a distinct possibility... I remember nuclear attack drills... When you're 6 or 7 years old, that's some scary shit.

After the USSR's collapse a lot of people have looked at it as being inevitable, but the thing was that the west did not know how bad things were for the communist party in Russia. They were still the invincible Russian monster...

 

[Axel1105]

Yeah, i remember the 80's very well.


which is weird because I'm only 20

 

[DarthScorpio11]

meh, seems like heaven back then man. you guys may have had worries about bombs back then, but when i was a teenager (recently) in the 00s, we actually were at war with real guns, and violence. The economy was at it's all time low in decades, and everyone was in constant fear of a terrorist attack. When i was only 11, 9/11 happened. Horrific for anyone, but especially for a 11 year old. I'd take the happy music, and cheesy 80s stuff anyday. Seems like heaven

The difference was the intimacy of it... Gulf War II and Afghanistan are a long way off, and lets face it, unless you know someone serving there they are not an in your face threat. the 80's were a time where people genuinely thought that World War III was a distinct possibility... I remember nuclear attack drills... When you're 6 or 7 years old, that's some scary shit.

After the USSR's collapse a lot of people have looked at it as being inevitable, but the thing was that the west did not know how bad things were for the communist party in Russia. They were still the invincible Russian monster...

how was america not in any threat in the last decade? the people who died in the WTC were just everyday Americans who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one knew if this was going to happen again, or where it was going to happen. Who is that not intimate?

 

[Sean Steele]

88 here and not really no.

 

[DarthScorpio11]

i was born in 1971

"cool laid back, and cheesy, yet fun time." is not a phrase i would ascribe to the 80s.

i agree with much of what trooper6 said with, as i'm from the UK, the addition of mass unemployment, industrial action, social deprivation, real crushing poverty and riots, and, in all honesty, no hope at all for the future. none.

when i was at high school everyone believed they were going to die in a nuclear war and that it wasn't even an if it was just a matter of time.
i'm not just saying that. that's what everyone actually wholeheartedly believed.

when the wall came down in 89 (signifying, in a very real way, an end to that overhanging threat) i stood and watched with tears of joy cascading down my face. it is one of the most memorable moments of my life.

the best society could offer just about everyone when coming out of school was an automatic place on an indefinite YTS (youth training scheme) "earning" £25 a week doing literally nothing (sick joke "jobs" like sweeping up an empty garage) which they kept you you on as long as possible so you didn't claim and show up on unemployment benefit. then there was the poll tax...

no "fun time" it was not DarthScorpio11.

now please all be upstanding for the national anthem...

what about the pictures from "i love the 80s" of people walking down the street smiling in wacky clothes with the boomboxes, and dancing to micheal jackson, and the movies like E.T, and whatnot. I always hear people say stuff like, "man, those were the days..."

 

[tehroc]

Was born on the tail end of Gen X. I remember watching MTV's debut in 1981.

 

[DarthScorpio11]

Was born on the tail end of Gen X. I remember watching MTV's debut in 1981.

generation X ended in 1979 bro...

 

[scar_47]

Born 1-1-89 so although I lived that last year I was far to young to remember.

 

[tehroc]

Was born on the tail end of Gen X. I remember watching MTV's debut in 1981.

generation X ended in 1979 bro...

Yeah I was born in 1976, on the tail end.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

There was a reason computer games took off in the 80's It's becuase the rest of the world was so horrible....

I wouldn't trade being born in 1982, I got to play it all when it was new and the graphics were actually impressive.

 

[Kingme18]

I was not born in the 80's, but IMO the music in the 80's was better than the music now... much much better.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I was born in 1983 so I do remember some of the 80s. However the 90s is far more vivid in my mind. Despite what everyone might say, I loved the 90s.

 

[Rawne1980]

I grew up in the 80's and have some fond memories.

Yeah we had the recession but me, my brother and sister used to have some fun trying to scrimp money together for sweets.

I only have 2 bad memories of the 80's and thats my mullet and my anorak with mittens sewn into the end of the sleeves.

I hated that coat.

Fondest memory is my Atari 2600 ..... and on my 6th birthday I got a plastic shotgun with a cork on a bit of string you put in the barrel to shoot out. Gave my dad a black eye with it. Then smashed it trying to kill a spider.

Also had my nose broke for the first time in 1988 during a Jeet Kune Do exhibition. Managed to (barely) win the fight but couldn't see or smell anything properly for about a week afterwards.

Ahh the memories.

BRING BACK THE 80'S ..... except mullets and coats with mittens sewn into them.

 

[frans909]

I'm 21, and was born 11.12.89. So i was a new born around the time the 80s was ending. As a kid, i always though 80s stuff was corny and lame, growing up with CGI stuff like Jarassic Park, and 3D video games like Playstation. However, as i got older, i started becoming more fascinated with 80s. Seems like a pretty cool laid back, and cheesy, yet fun time. I wish i could just walk down the street with a boombox on my shoulder now-a-days. I'd trade my teen years in the 00s for being a teen in the 80s

I was born in 1970, so with my teenage years, the 80's started as well. It wasn't long before I got introduced to computers and videogames, most notably Scramble, Missile Command, Donkey Kong, and Pacman. Music was very interesting in the 80's, with all those brand new digital synths such as the yamaha dx 7 and the whole parade of drummachines that were being made back then. I really enjoyed the 80's, wouldn't want to have missed them.

 

[Violator[xL]]

Sure I do. I was born in '80 and grew up with cheap animation like Transformers G1 and crap music like Europe.

The '90s sucked already, but not as hard as the '80s.