This has come up in fragments on other threads, but I thought I'd ask about it on its own. This isn't meant as an insult or anything (Hey, I think I'm cool and a pretty nice guy ;) ), I seriously would be interested to know what everyone thinks, though.

I don't think you have to have lived through an era to know about it in detail, and you certainly don't have to, to merely be a fan of it. I admit I've gotten a little defensive on the subject over the years, just because I tend to like things before, or almost before my time. I don't like having to "defend" that sometimes, lol.

It's not like every person just enjoys what is popular when they're 14 or 16 (I mean, there's certainly nothing WRONG with liking that. Many people do - heck, I do :D ), but there's a difference between that and ONLY liking that stuff, which is inaccurate, IMO.

Because people who were actually around during a certain timeperiod assume that people who weren't around during that timeperiod don't know anything about it. People think because they were "there" that they like own the era.

Because people who were actually around during a certain timeperiod assume that people who weren't around during that timeperiod don't know anything about it. People think because they were "there" that they like own the era.


Yeah, I've noticed a certain "protectiveness" at times.

I do say this with a grain of salt, as I obviously love the '80s, and I do have quite a few Gen X friends born in the '60s and '70s, so this isn't a knock on them but, I think alot of people born around 1968 or 1970, etc. can be VERY protective of the '80s and think unless you were at least 15, you're just some bratty little punk kid who couldn't possibly like or know about it.

I know alot more about 60s culture that people who even grew up in that era (like my mum), which seems sort of strange. I probably know more about 60s culture than today's culture. I love it as much as anyone who grew up with it (up course I can't say I experienced it first hand), so I get your point.

I like alot of the music that was around before my time.  I've never considered myself an expert on it though, becuase there are people who were around in that era that will surely know more than me :)

I probably got this ball rolling in another thread when I bugged my eyes out at 20somethings who considered themselves  children of the  80s -- because I'm 30something, and consider myself too young to fully qualify as a child of the 80s.    Sure, I listened to the music, but I never even saw the white powder everyone was making such a fuss about on Wall Street, and a  feathered hair was something you saw in class, not in bed, and so on...

So I suggested "child of the 80s", meant "born from 1965-7 to 1975-7": you had to know what "stagflation" and "malaise" (70s terms, the Carter era) meant to appreciate the wacky materialism of the 80s.  (BTW, Marty, I wasn't so much being "protective" of the 80s -- I pretty much disqualified myself from the 80s too :)

Which is where Marty came in -- with the insight that people in their 30s today seem to define themselves by their late-teen/early adulthood years, but that people in their 20s today define themselves by their early teens.  That's an interesting topic, and I think he's onto something.

Speaking as a 30something (born ca. 1970), I'll buy the first half of his statement:  I certainly didn't define myself by my early years -- I never felt like a 70s kid. I remember, in the early 80s, being  confused by why folks about 5-10 years older than me listened to all that 60s-70s psychedelic/acid rock during the "flashback hour" on the local radio station. (It took me at least 10 years to appreciate how good some of that "dinosaur rock" was, but that's another story.)

Not that any of us will be here in 2016, but for you "born after 1980, but claiming to be children of the 80s", consider this question... in 10-15 years -- will you still claim the 80s mantle, or will you self-identify with the music of the 90s?  That's the interesting question of this thread.

Consider the following wager:

If, in 10-15 years, you still think of yourself as being part of the 80s instead of the 90s, you win:  The 80s music was just that much more interesting/better/whatever that it drew in just about anyone who was exposed to it, regardless of age.  Didn't matter whether you were 2 or 12 in 1980 -- if you heard 80s music, you adopted it as your own.  You were a child of the 80s.

If, instead, you wind up thinking of all that 90s stuff you currently disdain as being underrated, I win:  We all end up defining ourselves by our early adulthood years... even if we just don't have enough 20/20 hindsight to realize it until we're 25-30.  If you were 2 in 1980, you were a child of the 90s, you just didn't know it yet :)

The bet's made only as a rhetorical question:  Enough has changed over the past decade or two that I'm not sure I'd actually make such a bet.  For instance, I remember hearing everything from hair metal to new wave to punk  to hip-hop on the FM dial in the 80s, but all I remember from late-90s radio was  10 years of overproduced pop and bling-centric rap.  There may really have been  a wider variety of music to draw folks into "80s" culture, even if most of the children of the 80s never saw the inside of the bar until Nirvana was old hat.

Question for the night:  What's playing on "retro night" at your local clubs?  Is it 80s music or 90s music?  (If I'm right, it'll be 90s music.  If you young'uns are right, it'll be 80s.)

Other question for the night:  Maybe it's event-driven, not date-driven.  If you remembered where you were when you heard about JFK, you're a 70s kid.  If you remembered where you were when you heard about the Challenger, you're an 80s kid. 

I think you are trying to find something that's not there. You can certainly like something that's out of your time. I love the 1960s. I think one should be mindful not to come off as "arrogant" about a certain decade (which I've seen by younger posters) who believe they know more of a decade than someone who's lived it. No, you don't know more. You've read more about it, listened to music in more forms than were previously optioned, lived vicariously through the memories of others, and you've seen countless reruns of shows from previous decades. Do I ever claim to know more than my parents who lived it? Nope.

Of course, they forget some things, which is going to happen as time passes. The only ways I've come to know the information is by the aforementioned methods.

It's one thing to like something from another era and truly appreciate it than to claim you know more b/c you've studied it. I give my first-hand accounts of what I've witnessed through the late 70s, 80s, and 90s as a sharing piece with those who weren't there. As many archeologists and anthropologists realize, you can study on an era and not grasp the reality of the time. Does that mean they don't like it? No, it just means that they weren't there first-hand and will only get a third of what was available.

I think you are trying to find something that's not there. You can certainly like something that's out of your time. I love the 1960s. I think one should be mindful not to come off as "arrogant" about a certain decade (which I've seen by younger posters) who believe they know more of a decade than someone who's lived it. No, you don't know more. You've read more about it, listened to music in more forms than were previously optioned, lived vicariously through the memories of others, and you've seen countless reruns of shows from previous decades. Do I ever claim to know more than my parents who lived it? Nope.

Of course, they forget some things, which is going to happen as time passes. The only ways I've come to know the information is by the aforementioned methods.

It's one thing to like something from another era and truly appreciate it than to claim you know more b/c you've studied it. I give my first-hand accounts of what I've witnessed through the late 70s, 80s, and 90s as a sharing piece with those who weren't there. As many archeologists and anthropologists realize, you can study on an era and not grasp the reality of the time. Does that mean they don't like it? No, it just means that they weren't there first-hand and will only get a third of what was available.




you've said EXACTLY what I was going to post...I totally agree! ;)

I think it's innaccurate to believe that you have to be there to enjoy something. I enjoy my 50s - 70s music and I know I certainly wasn't there to enjoy it first-hand.

However, if you were in those time periods, it would probably mean so much more to you because you held memories of the songs you were listening to - I think that is the only difference.

I think it's innaccurate to believe that you have to be there to enjoy something. I enjoy my 50s - 70s music and I know I certainly wasn't there to enjoy it first-hand.

However, if you were in those time periods, it would probably mean so much more to you because you held memories of the songs you were listening to - I think that is the only difference.


Bobby, did you listen to "oldies" when you were a kid? That's how it was with me. As a five year old I could've cared less that I was listening to a Beatles song that was already 20 years old.

There was alot that I was "almost kinda there" for, so I just round it up. Such as watching Growing Pains reruns, or '80s videos on VH1 in 1992. It really took me till I was older to fully realize it wasn't always "cool" to be like that, lol. Before that, I just liked sfuff because I liked it. That's really all that matters IMO.


Also, some people really do pay more attention to things than others. For instance, I remember at the time in 1999, I thought some of the fads were silly (Pokemon, Ricky Martin, etc). I didn't dislike it or anything, but it wasn't really my thing. Now I'm sure there were 8 and 10 year old kids who were more into it than me. So I would never claim that just because I was 17 that I'm more "qualified" to talk about it than they are. It's all preference. ;)

I grew up on classic rock/oldies music, not the music that was popular and on the radio at the time.  It was essentially all the music my parents grew up listening to.  That stuff has a good 20 maybe 30 years on me, but I know more about those artists/bands and the music they made than people my own age right now.

Bobby, did you listen to "oldies" when you were a kid? That's how it was with me. As a five year old I could've cared less that I was listening to a Beatles song that was already 20 years old.

There was alot that I was "almost kinda there" for, so I just round it up. Such as watching Growing Pains reruns, or '80s videos on VH1 in 1992. It really took me till I was older to fully realize it wasn't always "cool" to be like that, lol. Before that, I just liked sfuff because I liked it. That's really all that matters IMO.


Also, some people really do pay more attention to things than others. For instance, I remember at the time in 1999, I thought some of the fads were silly (Pokemon, Ricky Martin, etc). I didn't dislike it or anything, but it wasn't really my thing. Now I'm sure there were 8 and 10 year old kids who were more into it than me. So I would never claim that just because I was 17 that I'm more "qualified" to talk about it than they are. It's all preference. ;)


That's right, Marty. When I was a kid I was listening to my dad's old record singles (consisted mainly of 60s/70s music). He had a ton of them and that was how I got to know classics like 'In the summertime' by Mungo Jerry, 'Start me up' by Rolling Stones and 'Ride a white swan' by T-Rex at such a young age - and I DO thank my dad for that because I would have missed out on a lot of music if he didn't show me the way.

Bobby, did you listen to "oldies" when you were a kid? That's how it was with me. As a five year old I could've cared less that I was listening to a Beatles song that was already 20 years old.

There was alot that I was "almost kinda there" for, so I just round it up. Such as watching Growing Pains reruns, or '80s videos on VH1 in 1992. It really took me till I was older to fully realize it wasn't always "cool" to be like that, lol. Before that, I just liked sfuff because I liked it. That's really all that matters IMO.


Also, some people really do pay more attention to things than others. For instance, I remember at the time in 1999, I thought some of the fads were silly (Pokemon, Ricky Martin, etc). I didn't dislike it or anything, but it wasn't really my thing. Now I'm sure there were 8 and 10 year old kids who were more into it than me. So I would never claim that just because I was 17 that I'm more "qualified" to talk about it than they are. It's all preference. ;)


Being someone who was 9 then, I actually think Y2K-era teens like yourself were more into the "mature pop-rock", adult contemporary, nu metal, dance music, etc. that was also popular at the time. The focus group for those trends was people born 1986 and under, people who were 13 and under around 1999. I'm actually sort of nostalgic for all that stuff now, because while I was never "very" into it, I sort of liked Ricky Martin in a way back then (though I wouldn't have actually said that), and the culture of that time definitely brings me back.

I agree with that perception about Gen Xers and to a lesser degree baby boomers being very, very protective about their culture. Like people born in the late '60s and early '70s who can't possibly imagine how somebody born in the late '70s even could be Generation X, and people born in the late '40s and early '50s who are fiercely protective of the '60s.

Then and again, there are other people who like the stuff from when they were preteens or in grade school more than the stuff around when they were say 17. For example, my mom. She likes stuff from the mid-late '60s and even early '60s much more than all the early '70s Philly soul, arena rock, and A/C, despite having been in high school during the early '70s and graduating in 1973.

This has come up in fragments on other threads, but I thought I'd ask about it on its own. This isn't meant as an insult or anything (Hey, I think I'm cool and a pretty nice guy ;) ), I seriously would be interested to know what everyone thinks, though.

I don't think you have to have lived through an era to know about it in detail, and you certainly don't have to, to merely be a fan of it. I admit I've gotten a little defensive on the subject over the years, just because I tend to like things before, or almost before my time. I don't like having to "defend" that sometimes, lol.

It's not like every person just enjoys what is popular when they're 14 or 16 (I mean, there's certainly nothing WRONG with liking that. Many people do - heck, I do :D ), but there's a difference between that and ONLY liking that stuff, which is inaccurate, IMO.



I totally agree. Despite being born in the late '80s I love '80s music and in fact love it alot more than most modern music. There may be alot of people out there that only like music that came out when they were 16 but i'm just not one of 'em.

I think you can look at it two ways:

1) Yes, you can appreciate what came before you or slightly after you were born the same way as someone who lived it.

2) You just can't say you honestly "experienced" anything before your time except to say, I wasn't alive yet.

I'm sure I've come off as maybe an '80s born kid who revels in my memories of that time, but I can't help but talk of what I remember and the fondness I hold for that time. I never really talk of the '70s that way, as I didn't live it. I tend to know a great deal of stuff about the '70s, but I can't say I really felt the effect of the gas shortage or the way the disco era felt like. I enjoy the stories people tell me about it and enjoy envisioning those times in my head, but this may be because they have a sense of the unknown to them and that's why we tend to dwell on what it may have been like. Probably kids bornin the '60s wonder what the '40s and '50s were like, but surely don't wanna say they are know it alls, even if they know a great deal about that time. Yet, it holds a sense of fascination and I think that's a natural thing for most of us.

The way I see it people here aren't saying you can't like stuff (music, clothes whatever) that was around before you were born.  It merely shows you have good taste  ;)  Most of the disagreements/arguments seem to occur when people who were around at that time are told that certain things happened this way or that way or for that reason by people who weren't born then.  This is what annoys me, personally.

I like a lot of 60s music, far more than my parents who are more into late 50s stuff, but I never pretend I understand all the drug culture surrounding the psychedelic music.  Or the politics behind some other stuff. 

Because people who were actually around during a certain timeperiod assume that people who weren't around during that timeperiod don't know anything about it. People think because they were "there" that they like own the era.

I think alot of people born around 1968 or 1970, etc. can be VERY protective of the '80s and think unless you were at least 15, you're just some bratty little punk kid who couldn't possibly like or know about it.

Hold on, folks.  Look at your comments here.  A little judgmental?

Here's what I think:  There are two kinds of "knowing".  You can have information about a time period.  You can come to understand it by reading the analysis of others or by studying cultural writing and then listening to the music, looking at the art, and making decisions about how you think things went down.  You can love the general feel of what you see in pictures and hear on your albums.  And all of that is very legitimate.

I, myself (born in 1959) am not a person who retains lots of details.  You could probably list more artists and albums and song names and even years of events than I can from the 70s and 80s.  So all of that is one kind of "knowing."

But there is a whole other kind of "knowing" that comes from living through a time -- especially if you experienced your adolescence and young adulthood or some particularly important experience during that time (i.e. your family was effected by a certain war, the cultural mood when your parents got divorced, whatever was going on that led to your first experience with sex or the issues that stopped you from getting that first job -- whatever).  There is an emotional imprint of a time that is planted by first hand experience.  Another kind of "knowing".  (For instance, being a young woman when women were fighting for the right to be something other than teachers and nurses vs. having read about it but never having to fight for that right yourself).

So from both sides, there can be a sort of defensiveness.  Please know that I'm not putting anyone down when I say that,  if you're still a teenager -- you might not fully understand all of those dynamics yet.  That doesn't mean I think anyone here is a "bratty punk kid" because I don't -- and I don't think others do either.  There's a difference sometimes in the way we see and understand things.  Guess we all could try to be aware of that.

Sorry if you've felt insulted.

I don't share that presumption. I like the moon, but I've never been there, at least not in the literal sense!
;)

Since time immemorial old folks have told the young folks about the old days. That's how history was passed down through most of human history.

If there was an attitude of "you weren't there, so you don't know," it was in the context of how much tougher they had it in the old days, like when my grandparents talked about the Great Depression and the WWII years. It was either, "you weren't there so feel grateful," or "you weren't there so you don't appreciate how fortunate you are," or "you don't appreciate how much we sacrificed."

On an intergeneratonal level, "you weren't there, so you're not as cool as we are," started with the Boomers, to wit, Woodstock. IMO, the Baby Boomers were on the whole narcissistic and never really grew up. Their obsession with being "cool" did not die in their twenties. It was still there in their thirties and forties, and we the, Gen-X-ers and Gen-Y-ers, still have to suffer the protracted adolescent "coolness" of the Boomers well into their fifties and sixties!
;D

ADDENDUM:
The Boomer difference also has a lot to do with:
1. the baby-boom producing the first generation to refer to their own generation as something special.
2. the baby-boom generation having easier lives than the baby-bust (aka Gen-X, talkin' about my generation) and the subsequent Gen-Y.
On the second count I blame the the illogical Boomer attitude for causing a lot of the problem, "We were the coolest when we protested the Vietnam war, dropped acid, and went to Woodstock, so we must still be the coolest when we get MBAs, get jobs on Wall Street, and vote for Reagan!"

Maxwell and CeeKay make some excellent points... maybe this should be turned into a book  ;D

I don't share that presumption. I like the moon, but I've never been there, at least not in the literal sense!
;)

Since time immemorial old folks have told the young folks about the old days. That's how history was passed down through most of human history.

If there was an attitude of "you weren't there, so you don't know," it was in the context of how much tougher they had it in the old days, like when my grandparents talked about the Great Depression and the WWII years. It was either, "you weren't there so feel grateful," or "you weren't there so you don't appreciate how fortunate you are," or "you don't appreciate how much we sacrificed."

On an intergeneratonal level, "you weren't there, so you're not as cool as we are," started with the Boomers, to wit, Woodstock. IMO, the Baby Boomers were on the whole narcissistic and never really grew up. Their obsession with being "cool" did not die in their twenties. It was still there in their thirties and forties, and we the, Gen-X-ers and Gen-Y-ers, still have to suffer the protracted adolescent "coolness" of the Boomers well into their fifties and sixties!
;D

ADDENDUM:
The Boomer difference also has a lot to do with:
1. the baby-boom producing the first generation to refer to their own generation as something special.
2. the baby-boom generation having easier lives than the baby-bust (aka Gen-X, talkin' about my generation) and the subsequent Gen-Y.
On the second count I blame the the illogical Boomer attitude for causing a lot of the problem, "We were the coolest when we protested the Vietnam war, dropped acid, and went to Woodstock, so we must still be the coolest when we get MBAs, get jobs on Wall Street, and vote for Reagan!"


I agree with all that. The baby boomers had much easier lives in many ways than us Gen Xers and Yers, people born like 1965-1995. I actually think they were the peak of American prosperity and "having an easy, charmed life" in terms of generations, people born from 1946 to 1964 or so. My parents were typical boomers, born in 1955, which I think you would agree is just about a "peak boomer." They were roughly as prosperous as I am, with professional parents like I have. And yet, they never had to work, basically got every toy they wanted in childhood, had their parents financially provide for them on many levels, and didn't have alot of competition. My dad got into Yale, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania with a 1500 on his SATs and very few extracurriculars except the debate team. Society has been focused around boomers so heavily since then, and I blame yuppie-esque boomer parents on the sorry state of my generation, in terms of our "emotional bankruptcy", because they've pushed us into this state of emotionally immature materialism without us even being self-confident in it.

You're right about people born pre-1946 thinking differently about generations. Like there was the "Greatest Generation" of people who fought in World War II and lived through the Depression, but it was more like "we gained alot of cohesive experience from growing up through that, and I'm glad you didn't have to do that." On my father's side, my grandfather had an unemployed father for ten years during the Great Depression, and his mother was a Holocaust refugee. They definitely WEREN'T talking about "how cool the '30s and '40s were."

The way I see it people here aren't saying you can't like stuff (music, clothes whatever) that was around before you were born.  It merely shows you have good taste  ;)  Most of the disagreements/arguments seem to occur when people who were around at that time are told that certain things happened this way or that way or for that reason by people who weren't born then.  This is what annoys me, personally.

I like a lot of 60s music, far more than my parents who are more into late 50s stuff, but I never pretend I understand all the drug culture surrounding the psychedelic music.  Or the politics behind some other stuff. 


Yes, Karen, you hit it square on the head!!!!

I agree with all that. The baby boomers had much easier lives in many ways than us Gen Xers and Yers, people born like 1965-1995. I actually think they were the peak of American prosperity and "having an easy, charmed life" in terms of generations, people born from 1946 to 1964 or so. My parents were typical boomers, born in 1955, which I think you would agree is just about a "peak boomer." They were roughly as prosperous as I am, with professional parents like I have. And yet, they never had to work, basically got every toy they wanted in childhood, had their parents financially provide for them on many levels, and didn't have alot of competition. My dad got into Yale, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania with a 1500 on his SATs and very few extracurriculars except the debate team. Society has been focused around boomers so heavily since then, and I blame yuppie-esque boomer parents on the sorry state of my generation, in terms of our "emotional bankruptcy", because they've pushed us into this state of emotionally immature materialism without us even being self-confident in it.

You're right about people born pre-1946 thinking differently about generations. Like there was the "Greatest Generation" of people who fought in World War II and lived through the Depression, but it was more like "we gained alot of cohesive experience from growing up through that, and I'm glad you didn't have to do that." On my father's side, my grandfather had an unemployed father for ten years during the Great Depression, and his mother was a Holocaust refugee. They definitely WEREN'T talking about "how cool the '30s and '40s were."

The difference between then and now was not entirely the doing of the Boomers. Much of it was the evil machinations of the governemt the older generations bamboozled the Boomers into electing in 1980. Let's take education, for instance:
The Great Depression ushered in a period of economic liberalism. FDR, part of the patrician elite, saw how the vagaries of unregulated capitalism hurt the people and made the country weaker. Following WWII, the population feared a resumption of the Depression. The New Deal mentality persisted. From the 1940s to the end of the 1970s, we considered a college education a social good. The state college systems flourished, and a person could attend college on government grants.
Right-wing conservatives hated every second of this. When Reagan came in, they took their revenge.
The extant rhetoric may have been to shrink the size of government and to make the education industry run more like business. The real goal, of course, was to price the poor and middle classes out of educational advancement AND enrich the bankers with a scheme we now know generally as "student loans." The Reaganistas killed the government grants by and large, so by the time my generation was entering college, unless we had rich parents, or could attain lavish merit or athletic scholarships, we had to borrow OUTRAGEOUS somes of money from the government. The cost of education got on an upward trajectory frrom which it has never paused, and wages became more depressed as the bosses sold out our industrial base for a crock of sh#t known as the "service economy."
In essence, I, and millions like me, graduated college with a giant mortgage on our future 20, 30, 40, 50 + thousand dollars. We are beholden to the man. Housing costs also skyrocketed, so we were priced out of buying homes, and if any of us fell on hard times and couldn't pay the man for these usurious student loans, we saw our credit ratings destroyed. My credit rating is still in the negative...but as that sage of the Boomers Rush Limbaugh would say, "That's the way things oughta be!"

The President 500 feet below in stone
appears on television and gives the American people the finger.
'I got mine. F**K YOU! Every crumb for himself!
--William S. Burroughs.

The difference between then and now was not entirely the doing of the Boomers. Much of it was the evil machinations of the governemt the older generations bamboozled the Boomers into electing in 1980. Let's take education, for instance:
The Great Depression ushered in a period of economic liberalism. FDR, part of the patrician elite, saw how the vagaries of unregulated capitalism hurt the people and made the country weaker. Following WWII, the population feared a resumption of the Depression. The New Deal mentality persisted. From the 1940s to the end of the 1970s, we considered a college education a social good. The state college systems flourished, and a person could attend college on government grants.
Right-wing conservatives hated every second of this. When Reagan came in, they took their revenge.
The extant rhetoric may have been to shrink the size of government and to make the education industry run more like business. The real goal, of course, was to price the poor and middle classes out of educational advancement AND enrich the bankers with a scheme we now know generally as "student loans." The Reaganistas killed the government grants by and large, so by the time my generation was entering college, unless we had rich parents, or could attain lavish merit or athletic scholarships, we had to borrow OUTRAGEOUS somes of money from the government. The cost of education got on an upward trajectory frrom which it has never paused, and wages became more depressed as the bosses sold out our industrial base for a crock of sh#t known as the "service economy."
In essence, I, and millions like me, graduated college with a giant mortgage on our future 20, 30, 40, 50 + thousand dollars. We are beholden to the man. Housing costs also skyrocketed, so we were priced out of buying homes, and if any of us fell on hard times and couldn't pay the man for these usurious student loans, we saw our credit ratings destroyed. My credit rating is still in the negative...but as that sage of the Boomers Rush Limbaugh would say, "That's the way things oughta be!"

The President 500 feet below in stone
appears on television and gives the American people the finger.
'I got mine. F**K YOU! Every crumb for himself!
--William S. Burroughs.


This may explain why I am struggling SO much to work, go to college and all the while trying to SAVE money. It's Extremely difficult.

The difference between then and now was not entirely the doing of the Boomers. Much of it was the evil machinations of the governemt the older generations bamboozled the Boomers into electing in 1980. Let's take education, for instance:
The Great Depression ushered in a period of economic liberalism. FDR, part of the patrician elite, saw how the vagaries of unregulated capitalism hurt the people and made the country weaker. Following WWII, the population feared a resumption of the Depression. The New Deal mentality persisted. From the 1940s to the end of the 1970s, we considered a college education a social good. The state college systems flourished, and a person could attend college on government grants.
Right-wing conservatives hated every second of this. When Reagan came in, they took their revenge.
The extant rhetoric may have been to shrink the size of government and to make the education industry run more like business. The real goal, of course, was to price the poor and middle classes out of educational advancement AND enrich the bankers with a scheme we now know generally as "student loans." The Reaganistas killed the government grants by and large, so by the time my generation was entering college, unless we had rich parents, or could attain lavish merit or athletic scholarships, we had to borrow OUTRAGEOUS somes of money from the government. The cost of education got on an upward trajectory frrom which it has never paused, and wages became more depressed as the bosses sold out our industrial base for a crock of sh#t known as the "service economy."
In essence, I, and millions like me, graduated college with a giant mortgage on our future 20, 30, 40, 50 + thousand dollars. We are beholden to the man. Housing costs also skyrocketed, so we were priced out of buying homes, and if any of us fell on hard times and couldn't pay the man for these usurious student loans, we saw our credit ratings destroyed. My credit rating is still in the negative...but as that sage of the Boomers Rush Limbaugh would say, "That's the way things oughta be!"

The President 500 feet below in stone
appears on television and gives the American people the finger.
'I got mine. F**K YOU! Every crumb for himself!
--William S. Burroughs.


I think of my parents as being "anti-boomers", despite being about the right age to be yuppies. They never idealize how great the '60s and '70s were, criticize alot of the hypocrisy of yuppies and the counterculture at the same time, and don't like their generation very much...and HATED Reagan.

I think of my parents as being "anti-boomers", despite being about the right age to be yuppies. They never idealize how great the '60s and '70s were, criticize alot of the hypocrisy of yuppies and the counterculture at the same time, and don't like their generation very much...and HATED Reagan.

So did mine...though technically my parents are not Boomers. Born 1940 and 1941, they're technically in the "Silent Generation," however it was the "Silent Generation" that really started the "hippie" movement, picking up where the bohemians and beatniks left off. Guys like my dad who were in college and grad school in the early/mid-1960s were the ones who really paved the way with long hair and f**k the establishment. Of course, my parents were idealistic about a "new way," inspired by figures as diverse as Allen Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, Buckminster Fuller, Rudolph Steiner, John Lennon, Henry David Thoreau, and Chairman Mao.  Chairman Mao? Yeah, I'm afraid so, BUT the Red Book seemed a lot more promising in 1964!
The later Boomer "hippies" seemed much more fixiated on the "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" part of the hippie thing. I mean, my parents were into that too, but they had a much more intellectual foundation for their ideals.
I don't lionize my parents, however. As individuals they turned out to be rather loopy and unstable. The idealism collapsed in the '70s even faster than their marriage, and I was left to face the most rank hypocrisy on their part.
And that's why I was up for a major backlash against the "hippies" because they were "phonies." I was kind of a punk Holden Caulfield. It was one thing when I had the orange mohawk, but it was the Marine corps buzzcuts that really bugged my mother! She would chide, "Why don't you let your hair grow out? That short hair is terrible!" The most naked irony I ever heard, laughed that I'd die!
There was, of course, a backlash against the hippies as personified by Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties. To me, that was even more despicable. I was Left, and my point was our parents generation betrayed the Left and became materialistic yuppies. The problem I had was my peers were apolitical dopes. They didn't want to think about NOTHIN' 'cept getting drunk and getting laid.
I SAW THE BEST MINDS OF MY GENERATION...LEFT ON THE SHELF.
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/drunken_smilie.gif

So did mine...though technically my parents are not Boomers. Born 1940 and 1941, they're technically in the "Silent Generation," however it was the "Silent Generation" that really started the "hippie" movement, picking up where the bohemians and beatniks left off. Guys like my dad who were in college and grad school in the early/mid-1960s were the ones who really paved the way with long hair and f**k the establishment. Of course, my parents were idealistic about a "new way," inspired by figures as diverse as Allen Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, Buckminster Fuller, Rudolph Steiner, John Lennon, Henry David Thoreau, and Chairman Mao.  Chairman Mao? Yeah, I'm afraid so, BUT the Red Book seemed a lot more promising in 1964!
The later Boomer "hippies" seemed much more fixiated on the "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" part of the hippie thing. I mean, my parents were into that too, but they had a much more intellectual foundation for their ideals.
I don't lionize my parents, however. As individuals they turned out to be rather loopy and unstable. The idealism collapsed in the '70s even faster than their marriage, and I was left to face the most rank hypocrisy on their part.
And that's why I was up for a major backlash against the "hippies" because they were "phonies." I was kind of a punk Holden Caulfield. It was one thing when I had the orange mohawk, but it was the Marine corps buzzcuts that really bugged my mother! She would chide, "Why don't you let your hair grow out? That short hair is terrible!" The most naked irony I ever heard, laughed that I'd die!
There was, of course, a backlash against the hippies as personified by Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties. To me, that was even more despicable. I was Left, and my point was our parents generation betrayed the Left and became materialistic yuppies. The problem I had was my peers were apolitical dopes. They didn't want to think about NOTHIN' 'cept getting drunk and getting laid.
I SAW THE BEST MINDS OF MY GENERATION...LEFT ON THE SHELF.
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/drunken_smilie.gif



I think that's definitely a similarity between Gen Xers and Gen Yers. We're less apathetic about life as a whole than Gen X, but we're enthusiastic about the materialism and emptiness of it. We're not even sorry we're empty.

Because people who were actually around during a certain timeperiod assume that people who weren't around during that timeperiod don't know anything about it. People think because they were "there" that they like own the era.


Lol that's kind of true....Although there are certain nuances that you will never know unless you lived through a time period. You can hear of 9/11 Y2K or Pearl Harbor and imagine that it was totally horrible for ppl back then, but that's really all you can do....imagine...

I probably got this ball rolling in another thread when I bugged my eyes out at 20somethings who considered themselves  children of the  80s -- because I'm 30something, and consider myself too young to fully qualify as a child of the 80s.    Sure, I listened to the music, but I never even saw the white powder everyone was making such a fuss about on Wall Street, and a  feathered hair was something you saw in class, not in bed, and so on...

So I suggested "child of the 80s", meant "born from 1965-7 to 1975-7": you had to know what "stagflation" and "malaise" (70s terms, the Carter era) meant to appreciate the wacky materialism of the 80s.  (BTW, Marty, I wasn't so much being "protective" of the 80s -- I pretty much disqualified myself from the 80s too :)

Which is where Marty came in -- with the insight that people in their 30s today seem to define themselves by their late-teen/early adulthood years, but that people in their 20s today define themselves by their early teens.  That's an interesting topic, and I think he's onto something.

Speaking as a 30something (born ca. 1970), I'll buy the first half of his statement:  I certainly didn't define myself by my early years -- I never felt like a 70s kid. I remember, in the early 80s, being  confused by why folks about 5-10 years older than me listened to all that 60s-70s psychedelic/acid rock during the "flashback hour" on the local radio station. (It took me at least 10 years to appreciate how good some of that "dinosaur rock" was, but that's another story.)

Not that any of us will be here in 2016, but for you "born after 1980, but claiming to be children of the 80s", consider this question... in 10-15 years -- will you still claim the 80s mantle, or will you self-identify with the music of the 90s?  That's the interesting question of this thread.

Consider the following wager:

If, in 10-15 years, you still think of yourself as being part of the 80s instead of the 90s, you win:  The 80s music was just that much more interesting/better/whatever that it drew in just about anyone who was exposed to it, regardless of age.  Didn't matter whether you were 2 or 12 in 1980 -- if you heard 80s music, you adopted it as your own.  You were a child of the 80s.

If, instead, you wind up thinking of all that 90s stuff you currently disdain as being underrated, I win:  We all end up defining ourselves by our early adulthood years... even if we just don't have enough 20/20 hindsight to realize it until we're 25-30.  If you were 2 in 1980, you were a child of the 90s, you just didn't know it yet :)

The bet's made only as a rhetorical question:  Enough has changed over the past decade or two that I'm not sure I'd actually make such a bet.  For instance, I remember hearing everything from hair metal to new wave to punk  to hip-hop on the FM dial in the 80s, but all I remember from late-90s radio was   10 years of overproduced pop and bling-centric rap.  There may really have been  a wider variety of music to draw folks into "80s" culture, even if most of the children of the 80s never saw the inside of the bar until Nirvana was old hat.

Question for the night:  What's playing on "retro night" at your local clubs?  Is it 80s music or 90s music?  (If I'm right, it'll be 90s music.  If you young'uns are right, it'll be 80s.)

Other question for the night:  Maybe it's event-driven, not date-driven.  If you remembered where you were when you heard about JFK, you're a 70s kid.  If you remembered where you were when you heard about the Challenger, you're an 80s kid. 




I think the argument stems from the fact that many ppl take the word "child" "kid" and "teen" more literally than others. As I stated before in another thread, a child of the 80s is going to appreciate certain things that children appreciate from that time period! It's fairly simple. Children are home based and home focused...they're not going to be focused on more than their home environment, what's fun to them and their immediate outside environment, such as school trends etc. Children also may be aware of more serious social and cultural issues if they have communicative parents.

For instance, born in 83, my very fond memories of the 80s were carebears, transformers, when barkly the dog was still on seseme st, all other 80s toys, food, and also some major events that i saw on newspaper headlines or heard from adults like "the central park jogger" etc. I consider myself a child of the 80s as well as the early 90s for those reasons. I consider that a lot different from someone born in 1989 or 90 saying they are a child of the 80s!

A teen is going to be more aware of social, cultural issues. they are fully aware of what's going on around them....they appreciate all the trendy music, fads, fashion, etc. Someone born in the late 60s (early end) to 1976 (late end) may be considered an 80s teen.

An adult is an adult. If I were late teens to 20 something and up, in the 80's I would not consider myself and 80s child! That doesn't really make sense to me because you did not spend your childhood in the 80s!

I think you are trying to find something that's not there. You can certainly like something that's out of your time. I love the 1960s. I think one should be mindful not to come off as "arrogant" about a certain decade (which I've seen by younger posters) who believe they know more of a decade than someone who's lived it. No, you don't know more. You've read more about it, listened to music in more forms than were previously optioned, lived vicariously through the memories of others, and you've seen countless reruns of shows from previous decades. Do I ever claim to know more than my parents who lived it? Nope.

Of course, they forget some things, which is going to happen as time passes. The only ways I've come to know the information is by the aforementioned methods.

It's one thing to like something from another era and truly appreciate it than to claim you know more b/c you've studied it. I give my first-hand accounts of what I've witnessed through the late 70s, 80s, and 90s as a sharing piece with those who weren't there. As many archeologists and anthropologists realize, you can study on an era and not grasp the reality of the time. Does that mean they don't like it? No, it just means that they weren't there first-hand and will only get a third of what was available.



Thank you. That's what I was thinking. I can appreciate the 70's and some aspects of the 80s that I was not privy to because I was either not born yet (70s) or too young to appreciate fully (80s). However, I know that my memories of the 80s are limited to a child's memories (this does not discount the fact that i am a child of the 80s). I remember dancing and appreciating Beat it by michael jackson because my mother played it on the radio over and over...that 80s song is part of my childhood memories, but I can admit that I don't know what it was like to be sporting bamboo or doorknocker earrings or tights with shorts! (although I do remember thinking that i wanted to be like those "pretty girls in the videos" with tights and shorts when I got older). *shudders*