Does Anyone Miss The 80s? - Not The Terrible Reboot 80s But The Real One

[Mariposa Electrique]

Although I was extremely young toward the end of the 80s, I still remember how stuff was. There was no Internet in the 80s, and only pretentious jerks had cell phones. The films were amazing! I'm a huge horror fan, and I believe horror films really peaked during this decade. There were so many new horror genres created during this decade, it was unreal. I would argue that even large cities had this weird rural undertone compared to the shithole the West has become. The malls were new and amazing. Fashion and music were really nice as well. It's strange, I don't really feel connected to the modern era.

 

[Exorbital Columnations]

Dom?

 

[The Shadow]

I just wanna snort mountains of coke and vote for Reagan for God's sake!

 

[The Last Stand]

Although I was extremely young toward the end of the 80s, I still remember how stuff was. There was no Internet in the 80s, and only pretentious jerks had cell phones. The films were amazing! I'm a huge horror fan, and I believe horror films really peaked during this decade. There were so many new horror genres created during this decade, it was unreal. I would argue that even large cities had this weird rural undertone compared to the shithole the West has become. The malls were new and amazing. Fashion and music were really nice as well. It's strange, I don't really feel connected to the modern era.

If you miss the 80s, play GTA: Vice City. It's the most interactive 80s fantasy I could think of.

 

[Ita Mori]

No. Nostalgia and corporations romanticized the hell out of the 80s. It wasn't extraordinary or some golden age like the media swears.
It's easy to just to take the good films, songs, and consumer products of the time, add in your childhood innocence/teenage idealism and make you think that everything was utopia.
As if the:
- drug crisis
- rising crime rates in cities
- influx of illegal immigration
- oversaturation of shitty media
- financial woes of the early 80s
- gaudy as fuck fashion
...all didn't exist.
Unless you really have a hard-on for the decade, you wouldn't want to go back and lose the commodities you've grown accustomed to, and replace it with He-Man jammies and sugar cereal as your favorite cartoon blares on the telly.

If you miss the 80s, play GTA: Vice City. It's the most interactive 80s fantasy I could think of.

It is, and while I love it, it gives so many people the wrong idea of the 80s.
People think that music in the 80s was some of the best ever due to how awesome GTAVC's soundtrack is. But the reality is that you can do the same thing for any decade. Choosing 60-100 hits and hidden gems for top40 genres is easy to do (outside of licensing). People forget that for every:

we had 100:

The radio was not like it is today with retro stations playing nothing but the hits (or outright just playing VC's songlists), it was just a shit as modern pop stations today.

Spoiler: minor music ranting

That said, I will say that while everyone and their mothers who was remotely into mainstream metal was booking it to Sunset Blvd and trying to score a record deal, it meant a much livelier and tightknit scene than what we have today. Soundcloud/Bandcamp are great sites but it had a hand in killing going out to your favorite venue and hearing some emerging acts give it their all trying to get noticed. Nowadays most musicians will upload their song and annoy everyone spamming the hell out of the link to it.

 

[Gaming Gamer]

I never understood the hype around the 80s. Although I do miss the original meaning of "curvy" can't remember if it were the 80s or 90s when it started but it literally meant a curvaceous body. Now it means morbidly obese.

 

[mr.moon1488]

Somewhat, the movies were pretty good at least.

 

[Ita Mori]

I'm a huge horror fan, and I believe horror films really peaked during this decade.

Really? Which ones?
All that would play in theaters by the end of the 80s were slasher sequels. If I never see ANOES part 6 again, it'll be too soon.

 

[Derka Derka]

Evil Dead II was the best horror film ... Groovy!!

 

[annoyingfuck]

I'd give up current day technology to get it back (as long as I could take the knowledge of what is wrong with my brain with me). Well the Australian 80s (to early 90s) I should say. All the best bands existed then, Crowded House, Diesel, Midnight Oil, The Cure, INXS, Talking Heads...

 

[Cyclonus]

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Since the question is about real 80s, no, not really. That time was when women's fashion was transitioning from generically pretty to outright skanky. Synthesizer music just isn't that good either and it's the birth decade of rap. That being said, it had more culture than the 90s. The 90s was the beginning of corporate art which influences modern art.

Also, fake 80s in media came about because Gen Xers are nostalgic for that decade and their attitude that it was the golden age of culture really makes me skeptical of the claim.

 

[Revo]

Dom?

@Dom Cruise*

 

[Disheveled Human]

I wasn't born yet so yes.

 

[Maxxicus Callahan]

I never got to experience the Cold War. Did you 80’s kids actually have to duck and cover in school or was all that paranoia about nuclear war starting to simmer down by then? It must have been strange living in a world where global capitalism wasn’t the only ideology left on the table but I have a feeling people kind of knew which way the wind was blowing after the wall came down and the first McDonalds opened in the USSR. Still for anyone growing up after the 1980’s to try and imagine the world split down those lines and how that influenced the broader culture as well is interesting. Horror films are often influenced by politics and the things that drive our real world fears. I think of John Carpenter’s movie The Thing it’s almost like a fear of who is the secret communist, those trying to spread among us and attack from within. And then the other film They Live not horror but more of a social commentary where Rodney Piper puts on the glasses and sees all of the true underlying messages in society and finds out the aliens
are already here and secretly running in all the circles of power and influence behind the facade of freedom and democracy.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev were a thing. So was Iggy Pop and the Ramones.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

I wasn't alive in the 80s so nope.

 

[Sonder]

We're living in the best times in human history in basically all areas. Socially, specifically culturally, I would say we've gotten worse, and that makes all the difference for some because social conditions are a critical aspect of psychological wellness.

 

[Derka Derka]

Since the question is about real 80s, no, not really. That time was when women's fashion was transitioning from generically pretty to outright skanky. Synthesizer music just isn't that good either and it's the birth decade of rap. That being said, it had more culture than the 90s. The 90s was the beginning of corporate art which influences modern art.

Also, fake 80s in media came about because Gen Xers are nostalgic for that decade and their attitude that it was the golden age of culture really makes me skeptical of the claim.

I agree there is a weird nostalgia for the 80s, but no different from 00s/90s/70s/60s/...
If you weren't there, you don't get an appreciation of experiences during those eras.

Also corporate art actually was big in the 80s.
I think it stalled after the '87 Wall St crash, and resumed in the 90s

 

[Dom Cruise]

I was born in the 80s but too late to remember them, however I've always had a fascination with the decade's culture my whole life, I grew up watching so many 80s movies and listening to 80s music that I honestly feel to some degree I did have as much an 80s childhood as a 90s childhood.

There really is something incredibly special about 80s movies, it was without a doubt the best decade for blockbuster filmmaking, a movie like Ghostbusters is just so much more creative than any movie being made today, it's kind of unreal how on fire filmmaking was back then, there really is a special magic to an "80s movie"

It was such a great decade for movies that even it's flops are better than anything today, like The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China, it's no wonder people have been obsessed with 80s movies for decades.

However the 80s wasn't perfect, it was the best decade for live action movies, it was a good decade for music, it was even a good decade for books, but it wasn't a great decade for animation in the US nor was it a great decade for TV, think cheesy (if fun) stuff like the A-Team, the Dukes of Hazzard, they might have been entertaining but we're hardly talking The Sopranos here.

And animation wise Disney didn't know what the hell they were doing until the end of the decade, TV cartoons were just toy commercials, there are exceptions like the films of Don Bluth and TV cartoons like The Real Ghostbusters or Thundercats but overall the 90s was way, way better for US animation.

And I can certainly accept the idea that actually living in the 80s wasn't so great, that it was just the pop culture that was great, if I were to analyze things though I would say that people back in the 80s generally had better attitudes, more mellow, more fun loving, American culture had a proudness and a confidence in itself that has been lost since, we need to get that back.