Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
Watching Stranger things, and Wow, the 80's, so colourful! What a time to be alive!
I was born in 1995, but I wish I'd experienced the 80's. I'd like to know was it like for HN'ers who were there at the time.
I was born in 1995, but I wish I'd experienced the 80's. I'd like to know was it like for HN'ers who were there at the time.
Now that I got that out of my system, yea. The 80's were nothing special and kinda sucked in retrospect. Cars were crap, everyone thought we were months away from WW III, if you wanted to learn something, you had to head over to the library and hope the books you wanted were still there. Wikipedia, etc., simply did not exist. Google was not a thing. People made sure they always had change on their person in case they needed to make a phone call (girls I knew would have a dime sewn into their bra for emergencies). I lived in NYC at the time, Times Square was a shithole (no, it wasn't "gritty," it was flat-out nasty).
* OTOH, I think Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones came out in the 80's. And so did Neuromancer and we ended it with "Sex, Lies and Videotape" and the fall of the Soviet Union, so it wasn't all bad.
[edit] just googled it and Time Considered was written shortly after I was born. So much for that!
[second edit]Yeah, I'm old. The book I was thinking of was actually Stars in my pocket like grains of sand which was actually published in the 80's. So win one, lose one :-)
While I'm always one to dump on the MAGAs, they have a point in that for a LOT of people, life WAS better because labor jobs (mills, mines, auto factories, etc.) paid for a decent life. Those jobs which were good in the 1960s and 1970s then vaporized in the 1980s.
It was enough of a cultural phenomenon that there was a comedian created a character called "Loadsamoney" - a cockney carpenter that was earning massive amounts of money.
People moan about "boom and bust" economies, but for the last 20 years I think all we have had is "bust" and no "boom".
My graduation class chose Alphaville’s “Forever Young” as its commencement song. Yah, the one that starts off
> Let's dance in style, let's dance for a while > Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies > Hoping for the best but expecting the worst > Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?
I think that that musical choice perfectly encapsulates what it was to grow up as Gen X.
1968 here...
I was somewhat pessimistic about the world throughout most of the '80s, primarily because of the cold war, Libya, etc.
But when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and during the subsequent years in the 1990s, when it felt like Russia was becoming a democracy (in combination with the explosion of the WWW), I became optimistic about society.
I look back on my optimism and it makes me feel naive. :-(
Post the wall coming down there was a sense of optimism and then came the breakup of Yugoslavia with ethnic cleansing and the siege of Sarajevo. In the same time period - the Rwandan genocide.
So, yes the never-ending nuclear fear mongering (not saying the threat wasn't/isn't real - it is) gave way to a small window of time that looked promising.
plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
On the other hand people sometimes smoked and luggage was sometimes lost.
Case in point, there's a scene in a supermarket with a bunch of breakfast cereals from various pop franchises. That never happened in reality. In reality, the same cereal would be repackaged for whatever was the hot movie/brand at the time.
This is somewhat sent up in this video from UK's The Adam and Joe Show. https://vimeo.com/347912488
Yep, Season 3 Episode 1. Also seems like everyone went to the mall to hangout :-)
In UK cities people hung out at different places, not a lot of malls.
I've also always been interested in technology. I remember using some variant of Apple II in school (Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, and such), an IBM PCJr at home (a pack of Sesame Street games, Alleycat, and some others I don't remember well enough to identify). This was obviously before the internet was typically available in homes, and before the first web browser...I do remember using Prodigy on my grandfather's computer around the time (text-only, over a 2.4kbps modem). To me, one of the stark differences is that computers weren't so embedded and essential in people's lives.
The 80s did have lots of interesting things going on: new music, video games, crazy fashion.
We also had a mysterious epidemic (AIDS) and overhanging threat of nuclear war. Oh wait, we still have that.
I agree. I guess it's what movies do. Unfortunately, or fortunately for me, its all I have as a reference, including a few books here and there. But I like that there seemed to be a clear cut distinction between life and technology, today, technology is so intertwined into our daily lives
For many people the 80s were not good - the CIA was introducing crack to finance itself (and arguably targeting destabilizing black america), AIDS was killing thousands while significant portions of the world were celebrating the "gay plague" or GRID (Gay Related Immune Disorder), Police still routinely targeted LGBT clubs, being fired for being gay or trans was legal, etc
In that place and time, the 80's were mostly a very fun and exciting bunch of years to be a child, with the crazy hippie 60's/70's mentality of the adults crossing over into a new "cleaner" era of exploding fresh technology and intelligent comic vision.
Records became cassettes. Being able to record our own sounds and listen to music on mobile devices for the very first time was totally amazing. The first personal computers arrived, which were equally incredible, although quite mysterious and complex.
Atari 2600 and the video game revolution hit, with all of us hooking up our new joystick machines to parents big Zenith televisions, while dumping quarters into arcades.
The arrival of the VCR was a breakthrough in being able to watch movies at home, GOOD movies such as Star Wars, Breakfast Club, Blade Runner, Dark Crystal and countless other great films from the time, many of which we saw in theater.
Really cool new music was coming out regularly, from bands like Depeche Mode and Oingo Boingo. MTV arrived and was extremely bizarre and brilliant, at first.
The environment was less toxic and people were far less paranoid in general. We spent endless sunny days riding bikes, swimming in rivers, climbing trees, building forts, go-carts, and causing silly mischief, without any threat of watching cameras. We could make prank phone calls in the middle of the night without any worry about "Caller ID." ;)
We were afraid of the "nuclear war" propaganda constantly pouring out of the 3 mainstream TV channels (PBS was relaxing) and some young friends committed suicide. Yet, the Space Shuttle launches were inspiring and we felt that America was genuinely dedicated to freedom, democracy, and justice. This illusion was eventually crushed, for me.
The 80's officially died in a wave of hip-hop, rap, awful "butt rock," bad films, and a sudden appreciation for general stupidity. The inspiring momentum of what felt like a positive movement seemed to fall apart suddenly with corporate consolidation of media, commercialization of everything, and a darker, harsher, lifeless cultural attitude.
Been missing that bright 80's era, ever since.
The Satanic Panic or moral crusades about horror movies like Poltergiest had no bearing on your life?
>The 80's officially died in a wave of hip-hop, rap, awful "butt rock," bad films,
Why do you think those music genres killed the '80s?
>and a sudden appreciation for general stupidity.
Is this in reference to the Simpsons or something else?
>The inspiring momentum of what felt like a positive movement seemed to fall apart suddenly with corporate consolidation of media, commercialization of everything, and a darker, harsher, lifeless cultural attitude.
Wasn't the media already consolidated to begin with (i.e. 3 channels if you didn't have cable or satellite)?
Being a child at the time certainly biased my opinion and experience, as well as my particular living location. Probably didn't really notice or care about already established cultural trends until older. It's easy to grow attached to our specific "generation" and have a hard time accepting change.
Growing up in country towns with plenty of friends around was a blast and kept us away from screens much of the time. Wishing all children could experience a more natural youth with direct contact with plants and animals. It's some of the best education possible and provides a deeper perspective of all things human, technological, or political.
We are simply "smart monkeys" after all, aren't we?
Well, my first experience of hip-hop and rap was very shocking. It seemed completely crude and disgusting to me, especially all of the gang violence expressed. I was deeply confused as to why so many people were enjoying this new "music" and my immediate thought is that there must be racist white media owners pushing aggressive propaganda to fuel fires of blacks fighting each other.
Later in life, I learned to appreciate rap slightly more with the sharp political expressions of Public Enemy, the heart of Arrested Development, and the sick hilariousness of Too $hort.
Intelligent, meaningful lyrics, complex melodies, and innovation in general seemed to take a back seat at this time. The same was reflected in films. The quality of all media just felt like it was in decline.
Quit watching television and most movies soon after and never looked back. My favorite "modern" movies are Ex Machina, I Am Mother, Children Of Men, and Sorry To Disturb You.
My favorite current bands are Ladytron, Marsheaux, Electric Youth, and Maps (the best!):
Indeed, my country town life was absolutely awesome, along with growing up with a young single "hippie" mom who loved me fully and set me free. It was a perfect balance of endless nature in sunny weather with tons of friends along with rapidly advancing technology that felt empowering.
We were no longer just being merely consumers of media, yet able to get inside those screens and speakers ourselves.
Wish more people these days would jump in with us:
From the Urban Dictionary: "The name "butt rock" has a few possible origins. First, in the 1980s, the musicians in many hair metal bands often dressed in a "glam" style, wearing tight pants that would accentuate their butts. (This may also be the origin of the term "cock rock," which has the same connotations, as the tight pants would also accentuate the musicians' crotches.) A less flattering origin for the name is that the lead singers of these bands sounded like they were singing out of their asses. Finally, the term can generally mean that the music sounds like ass."
By the way, here is my band: https://tryad.bandcamp.com
Other than that it had the same ups and downs as any other time.
Honestly, I was probably the most "techy" person I knew and I remember spending a lot of time back then messing around configuring memory and what was loaded to get things to run. It was interesting at the time, but I was also young and had nothing better to do.
To me, I find technology today be a lot more magical. I'm really glad I don't have to spend so much time just to get something basic running today.
The future is here and the yuppies won.
Source: I was born in the 80s
Other than that, the 80's were shit. The economy tanked. Rural America embraced Reaganomics during the campaign. Didn't turn out to be such a good deal for most of us, BUT...
We Gen-X rats were fed Superior Bullshit.
The 80's had the Star Wars Project. It is worth looking up--basically, we (the US) ran a (supposedly) successful con on the Soviet Union. Around $61 billion dollars was spent to incite a false tech race with the hope of siphoning Soviet resources into research that neither country had a hope of viably creating. The Reagan admin's winning card was having the money to cover the bluff (that money was doled out on legal contracts with not-altogether-clear film footage of some pieces of in-flight ICBM interdiction tech being dropped every few years).
How much that project contributed to the end of the USSR? Dunno. But it was cool!
Oh, and the Internet was wee. Most nerd comms were done by way of "borrowing time" on one of the corporate X25 networks (chat with a few primitive bulletin-board type systems) or by BBS. I don't know if that actually contributed to the 80's un/pleasantness, but they were fun (as long as you could dodge the bill).
The 80's might also have been the last complete decade that no one was arrested for letting their kids play outside by themselves.
Sure, video games and MTV were new and fun. Computers were new. But aside from that, it was different decade with different styles, but the day-to-day life was the same. Go to school, hang out with friends, have dinner with family, maybe watch a little mork & mindy on channel 57, and go to bed.
Here is what it felt like for a brief moment in 1991, our national victory lap for the triumph of the 80s: https://youtu.be/eng4OTDqtoM
Well, back in the 80's all you had to do to worship Satan was play your record backwards. Now it is so much more of a ritual.
Back in the 80's I felt like the year 2000 would be the epitome of tech, but now I have no hope for floating skate-boards.
Back in the 80's I had protection for my hair-do, but now my hair stands vulnerable to all forces of nature.
Japan in the 1980s was booming and would’ve been magical.
In the US, the 1980s was a sort of economic rebounding from stagflation and high oil prices of the 1970s.
The crack epidemic, the renewed “war on drugs”, nuclear war (“the day after” was a big deal), blatant racism, terrible American cars, and high interest rates?
I don’t miss those at all.
Growing up in the 80s in the UK I remember a lot of grey and beige TBH.