Marty, yes a thousand times yes the 80s were criticiszied like hell back when it was actually the 80s.  Anyone who ever says the 80s weren't slammed by "the adults" is lying their ass off.  The adults said essentially the same thing back,---they didn't have to lock their doors at night back in the 50s and 60s and it was safe for kids to go out and play.  There was a lot of child kidnappings in the 80s, and ofcourse kids were getting into drugs, hence Nancy Reagan's "Just say No" campaign.  Parents and teachers felt kids wasted too much time playing video games, watching TV, and/or hanging out at the mall and just wasting time.  They said MTV was all style and glitz with no substance and that music in the 50s and 60s were much better.

There was one thing about the 80s that I will concede on, and that was I don't remember there being so many school shootings....at least they never made headlines.  There was plenty of on campus violence, but they involved knives or stuff like that.  I do remember some high schools had metal detectors in the late 80s, but again gun violence didn't make headlines the way it does post-1999 Columbine.

Good post, Chris (in fact, I was kinda hoping to get your input here). :)

I agree on the consensus that -- if we based the criticism solely on those who disliked the present, both in the 80's and the 2000's -- it would come out to be about the same level of "my generation was so much better than this time".

All I think that varies today is, I believe the ratio of younger people saying "the present sucks" is higher. When I was 15 in 1996/97, I was already going on about how I missed the 80's (albeit not as much as today, but I still did). I doubt many 15 year olds in 1985 were saying they wished they could go back to their early childhood in 1974. ;)

While alot of "typical adults" probably disliked the popular stuff in the 80's (claiming the 50's and 60's were so much better), I do think it was somewhat easier for the average adult to enjoy than it is today, if that makes sense.

For instance, even if MTV largely consisted of teens and maybe 20-somethings, it wasn't purely aimed at rappers and 12 year olds back then.

(In fact, one of my earliest memories was being around three, and wandering into the living room when my parents happened to have MTV on for the moment - this was when Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here" video first scared the bejesus out of me. LOL! I doubt people their age then would watch it now.)

Getting back to my point, I agree crimes and anything else has always been prevalent no matter when. It's simply pushed "in our face" these days far more. The violence and shootings that gangsta rappers sing about - it's not like that was nonexistant in the 80's. It just wasn't a part of the mainstream, so people sometimes mistake it for meaning it wasn't around, IMO.

The music, movies, TV and other pop culture simply focused on much more fun aspects of the world in the 80's than they do now.

^I'm going to guess we are probably right that the the typical 35 year old in 1985 probably got into pop culture more then the typcial 35 year old in 2005.  Especially the early and mid 80s, that time was very Baby Boomer friendly, I'm not sure about the late 80s, just because I remember the late 80s the best and I remember authority figures never had anything good to say about the times. 

But I do think 30 somethings seem to act much younger in the 2000s compared to the 80s, if that makes any sense..  Ofcourse my perspective has obviously changed, they seemed sooooooo old to me back then.  Even through most of the 90s, 30 somethings seemed pretty damn old.

When I was in middle school in the late 80s, all I heard was how great the 60s were.  It's interesting that I thought of the 60s as being ancient history at that time, because it was all 20+ years ago at the time.  The "adults" of that time (the teachers and parents) spoke of the 1960s like it wasn't that long ago, and I never understood that.  Now that I am basically on the other side of it, and reflect on my childhood in the 80s, I kinda understand what they were talking about.  And looking back, it's kinda scary to think that in the 80s, the 60s really weren't all that long ago....

The 80's to me were all of my childhood memories and nothing but great in my eyes.  There are so many times that I sit and think about things that happened back then and I feel that I would do anything just to escape back to, IMO, a much simpler time, for a few moments.  I think a lot had to do with the fact that I was pretty young back then....from 1980 to 1989 I was from ages, 3-12....so I was oblivious to anything bad or negative around me....that is why I have such fondness concerning this time period, and didn't realize any criticism that may have been going on around me.




Erin :)

The 80's to me were all of my childhood memories and nothing but great in my eyes.  There are so many times that I sit and think about things that happened back then and I feel that I would do anything just to escape back to, IMO, a much simpler time, for a few moments.  I think a lot had to do with the fact that I was pretty young back then....from 1980 to 1989 I was from ages, 3-12....so I was oblivious to anything bad or negative around me....that is why I have such fondness concerning this time period, and didn't realize any criticism that may have been going on around me.


Erin :)


Very well said, especially the last sentence. :)

I'm only 4 or 5 years younger than you, so it's the same for me. I wasn't starting to pay attention to politics or serious issues like that until around the mid 90's. Not only was the pop culture of the 80's fun, but so was my life at the time. That really goes hand in hand with why I feel so positively about them.

I see what Chris is saying about the age issue changing our perception too. I don't feel I should be old enough to recall 20 years ago, but I am. However, the only MAJOR change between the 80's and today is technology and the Internet. That's why I think it seems so recent to alot of us.

I did pay close attention to politics and world events in the late 80s, I was in middle school, so I was most definately old enough to get what was going on at ages 12, 13, and 14.  I wrote a paper about the presidential hopefuls when I was 12 1/2 years old in 1988. 

I vaguely remember the presdential election of 1980 and somewhat the election in '84, I didn't understand a whole lot of what was going on, especially when I was in kindergarden, but I do remember them.  I also remember the TWA hijacking that happened in 1985, I think I was also in the 4th grade, or perhaps 5th grade.

Like I said before, and many times previously on this message board, I remember the late 80s very well.  Basically my middle school memories of the late 80s are *almost* adult like.  Let's average my age out to 13 at that time, it was pretty damn close to adult like...not adult adult like, like "a grown up", or a 17 or 18 year old legal adult, but you guys know what I mean.  I still got sent to the pedi ward when my mom took me to the hospital in 1989, but I was one of the big kids. 

For the sake of debate, did adults really dig 80's culture, or was it the 50/60's themed 80's culture. Films like Back To The Future were really 50/60's nostalgia films, as was Dirty Dancing. And on tv you had Wonder Years and Rags To Riches. A lot of old songs were also covered by 80's artists or re-released in the 80's (Locomotion, Chubby Checker, Righteous Brothers). Even fashion had a very "60's surfer" look towards the end of the 80's with bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirts etc. Of course nostalgia will always be around no matter what time frame you look at, but I wouldn't say todays adult nostalgia is any different from the nostalgia in the 80's.

Of cause there was grown-ups in the 80s who missed the 50s and 60s, like we do the 80s today, and for exactly the same reasons, my grandmother missed her time in the late 30s and early 40s, my mother is missing (Though she won't admit it) the 60s, I guess it kinda runs in the family.
I guess some people hang on to the past, for all the wrong reasons, and show this by critizing what's new, it's not so many years ago that men wore hats, imagine the horror it must have been for some, when young men - most of them just home from Europe or the Pacific - started going without hats.
Some things never change, I'm sure just as many adults were into the 80s culture as was against it, just look at us, we're suppose to be the adults now, and I'm sure that we evenly split between those of who are into the 00s culture, and those of us - like yours truely - who isn't.

In the '80s, all the pop music critics grew up in the '60s.  So all the New Wave bands I liked got called "robotic," "bubble gum," "soulless," and "dumb," because critics were idealizing Hendrix, Joplin, Doors, Dylan, Grateful Dead, and The Beatles.  The New Wave movement was never judged on its own meritis, always compared unfavorably to something else. 

Politically speaking, the baby boomers bemoaned the shallowness, materialism, greediness, and conservatism of the '80s, as opposed to the idealistic '60s.  Of course, there was so much about the '60s the glossed over or just ignored in their idealism of that era.  Furthermore, many of the same baby boomers were being yuppies, working corporate jobs, buying BMWs, and living in tract mansions.  Of course, being self-absorbed baby boomers, they thought everything THEY did was automatically marked with the "Groovy" stamp.

Others on this thread have alluded to the same thing, whatever music and pop culture was beaming through your transom when that seminal spark of teenage sexuality and social consciousness hit your brain will be forever enshrined with a magic with which no other media will be imbued.  The pop songs, fashions, and cinema of subsequent times will never feel the same to you because you will never be sixteen again...for better and for worse (I assure you, mostly for the better!)

So, Just pull those Depeche Mode records off the shelf, I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself...
;)

All I think that varies today is, I believe the ratio of younger people saying "the present sucks" is higher.


You have just hit the nail right on the head there Marty.

They know darn well how cool the 80's were, because the vast majority of them are currently forming part of the resurgence of early 80's pocket video games, popular television shows and games.

Within my office, I must have heard mobile ringtones to the A-Team, Ghostbusters, Knight Rider, Magnum etc etc a thousand times!

Now, that was never the case with me during the 80's.  As a youngster I lived for NOW, not the 1960's!!  ;)