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Hop up here on my knee, Sonny, and let me tell you about the golden age of the 1980s.
Unemployment was at 30% - and that was during good times! Divorce hadn't been invented yet! And as for the Soviets, well, you've seen the original Red Dawn, right? Few people know that that was actually a documentary!
But for all that unpleasantness, it was a magical time when the world was blissfully free of online forums. As such, there was no place for anyone to start inane threads like this:
WHAT WERE THE OLDEN DAYS OF THE 50s LIKE?
and DID THE SIXTIES REALLY BEGIN IN 1960, OR DID THEY ACTUALLY BEGIN IN 1959, OR HADN'T THEY EVEN BEGUN BY 1961?
and WAS 1974 MORE LIKE 1971 OR 1977?
And I think most of us children of the 80s would agree that even the occasional communist invasion pales in comparison with the horror of being asked, yet again, about such mind-numbingly banal topics as these.
I don't come to the history forum very much, but when I do I see stupid posts like this. Why does everybody here have to act like such d-bags? The kid asked a question about an era before he was born, and the first three or four posts were condescending. If you don't want to answer his post, just ignore it. No reason to come on here and berate him like he's an idiot for asking a valid question.
I was a teenager in the '80s, so I'm not sure about the economics. I did worry a little about the Soviets and the possibility of a nuclear war, but not enough to hunker down in fear. We did find out later that we came very close a couple of times in the '80s, but luckily were blissfully unaware.
As for families being more together, I don't think that was the case at all. We were the first generation to really see a lot of divorce with our parents' generation. My mom raised two kids all by herself, and the courts didn't really do much to collect child support. Our parents, having very little experience with divorce in their own lives, pretty much did it all wrong. Dads went off and became single without much thought to their children, resented ex-wives for having to pay child support/alimony so they didn't, and mothers talked bad about fathers to their children. I'm sure there were some who did it right, but this was the experience of nearly all of my friends whose parents were divorced. Working in family law, I think things have gotten better since then.
I don't have time to really think about other things right now, so I'll come back later with more thoughts.
Did life revolve around the fear of unemployment like it does now? Were families more intact (people more loyal to one another)? What would you say the general feeling during the time was? Did the fear of the soviets grip the nation?
If your grow up in a major City, the 80's could literally be hell. Especially around 84 when crack cocaine hit the scene. All of the major cities had homicide rates like never before, especially among minorities.
Also, That era represented the last time the Italian Mob families had any real strength.
Buuuut......Rents and homes were relatively cheap. I never heard people complain about what they paid for living the way they do today. Also, the 80's is when you first began to get really great action movie (Terminator, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Rambo)
And TV and music were the best. As you can see, alot of the music gets sampled today or remains on Airwaves. Thank the British for their contributions for that one
Last edited by jacktravern; 10-16-2014 at 01:06 PM..
Reason: Added Reasons
It honestly depended where you were. I see the '80s as the pinnacle of pleasant suburban living and was the peak of shopping malls, gas was still fairly cheap (especially later in the decade), before people got concerned about sprawl, and the continued shift away from a manufacturing-based economy into a service one. The growth of technology in the '80s was much more important compared to the '70s. Basically the only new tech in the '70s were calculators, cassette players, touch-tone telephones, pong consoles, and primitive PCs that few could afford. The '80s brought a boom in so much tech: Pagers, Personal Computers, printers, video games, car phones, answering machines, cordless landline phones, fax machines, compact discs, cable TV, satellite dishes, VCRs, and synthesizers. This led to the beginning of a decline in outdoor activities, though people were still fairly active and daring compared to the '90s and beyond. But there was still lots of old-schoolness functions that the '80s (and to a degree the '90s) have that mish-mash of where atomic age lifestyles contrast with the early information age. E-mail was around at some terminals in which Teletext and Usenet were part of early versions of what became the Internet, though people still sent letters via snail mail, you had to drive to the store or go over the telephone to do your non-grocery shopping, and people still were courtageous when introducing one another more so that today. You weren't in contact with foreigners in that pre-Internet world except via air mail. When you dialed a toll-free phone number, actual people still replied on the other side of the line and not some generic background music forcing you to wait. The thought of a same-sex couple outside of some ultra-liberal hot spots wasn't tolerated at all. Smoking vending machines were still around. Cars were boxier and prone to rust. That said, for the OP, you're best off asking your parents since they lived through them as teens/young adults which is the ideal age range of what best gives off an opinion for any time period.
That said, there are lots of reasons who don't see the 80s as an ideal decade, especially for the working class, inner city residents which were ground zero for the War on Drugs, those who were effected by unemployment due to outsourcing (which really took off this decade), the tacky fashions (though there was some good fashions in the '80s), and the rise of AIDS.
Life in the 80s was all about consuming things. Shopping, cocaine, booze, excess, sin, debauchery, the glory days I like to call them.
Jobs were plentiful, Reagan was our president, fresh off the gas crisis of the 70s the 80s were a breath of fresh air. Big hair, cool music, amazing television, yuppies, the whole 9 yards. Neon was really in.... everything neon. Stone washed jeans were all the rage. Talking like a valley girl was pretty popular....like, u know what I mean? totally! oh my god!
Generally it was a time of renewed optimism after the 1970s which featured Watergate, Stagflation, the fall of Saigon, the Iranian Revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, etc. Reagan was tougher with the USSR although ended up striking a lot of deals with them- helped to be dealing with Gorby rather than the prior goons.
Patriotism was a constant theme and seen in everything from commercials to cartoons.
There was renewed scorn to imbibing. The drinking age was raised and concert halls began to crack down on getting high openly. Nancy Reagan told us to just say no and the DEA would actually conduct operations at Dead shows.
Some fashions that were popular: Wayfarer sunglasses, parachute pants, stone washed jeans, denim jackets with khaki pants, docksiders, Lauren Polos, and those outrageous jackets worn by everybody from Michael Jackson to Billy Idol.
Music: What was soon to be called Classic Rock was still strong but their then contributions were weak. Synth-Pop, kind of a watered down, commercialized sequel to New Wave was huge for a time.
AIDS was the health issue of the decade and probably the first medical problem that was portrayed as something akin to a Civil Rights issue.
The technology we take for granted today (cell phones, computers, Internet) was either on the drawing board, unknown, or existed as luxury items. CD Players were new and very expensive. The Walkman was the mobile music choice. No SUVs yet. Just trucks.
All in all, a fun time. I miss it. Seems more calm and innocent compared to now although I am sure people were saying the same thing then about the 70s, 60s, etc.
The 80s were much like today, but with better music, less diversity, worse cars and no internet.
That about sums it up. I was a kid/teenager in the '80s so I didn't care about politics. I remember my parents HATED Reagan, as did most all of my family, and most of them struggled with jobs and money.
As for day-to-day life, it was similar to today, minus the connectivity of cell phones and the Internet. I know cell phones first came out in the 80s, but typical people didn't have them. I remember "checking in" with my mom from the mall via a pay phone for 25 cents. Once you left home, that was it. You were on your own and disconnected.
I remember making "mix tapes" from albums, and then playing my mix tapes in the car. We had MTV, HBO, Showtime on cable TV, but not all the thousands of very specific channels of today. And you could record shows if you were away, but it was a huge PITA to set a VCR to record certain channels at certain times. And you couldn't set the VCR to record a certain show every week. You had to have the time set right on the VCR, program in your channels and set it to record a certain channel at a certain time, and do it over each week. But for the most part, you had to watch TV "live", and you couldn't pause it. I remember rushing home because I wanted to watch something on TV. And rushing for a bathroom break during commercials.
I had Atari video games that were fun, and a great way for teenagers to waste time (the same as today). We liked to go to movies and theaters (we used to go to an AMC multiplex) were mostly the same as they are today. Or we'd go to friends' houses to watch rented movies. We'd ride our bikes up to Blockbuster and browse movies, rent one, and go watch it. Or sometimes watch something specific on HBO.
I remember since there was no "guide" on the television, you had to check your "TV Guide" to see what was on television. And I think there was a separate guide you got for HBO/Showtime. TV Guide would tell you basically the same thing you see today on the guide on your screen. You just had to flip to the date and browse the pages that showed all the shows in chronological order and by channel. But we did have remote controls
Music was awesome with all the new electronic music technology that you still hear today. I remember you had to go actually buy tickets for concerts. Since there was no Internet, you had to go to a travel agent to buy plane tickets and you had no clue what was going on on the computer screen as the agent would look at flights and give you options. Then you'd get an actual physical ticket for your flight.
The only new technology I remember taking off besides video games, VCRs and cable TV (which had been around in the 70s, but wasn't really anything special until the 80s) was cordless phones. I remember thinking that was amazing that I could talk on the phone outside in our yard or in the bathroom lol! Home computers hadn't really become a thing yet. We had a Commodore 64 that was rather useless. If I typed a paper for high school, it was on an electronic typewriter and a total PITA because you couldn't just back up and erase things or move paragraphs around. "Word processors" came about maybe in the very late 80s that were basically computerized typewriters, but allowed you to see words on a screen and edit prior to printing.
As for clothes, I wore Levis (until they disintegrated), Vans and surfer t-shirts mostly. Not that different from today. Girls fashion was rather... uh... well, I'm just glad I'm gay and didn't care
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