During the actual 1980s, how did you look at the older, previous decades?  I was born in 1975, and during the 80s, I used to think of the '60s as being just so old and a time I couldn't relate too.  Vietnam War, hippies, Woodstock, Nixon....that just seemed so old. 

But now that we are in 2005, and the 80s are 16-25 years ago, basically the same time away the 60s were from the 80s....it's weird and a bit scary for me to realize that the 1960s really weren't that long ago during the 80s.  I do remember my teachers, parents and other "adults" from the time talking about the 60s like it wasn't that long ago at all, and I just could never understand that.  Now, eerily I do.  Because now I can remember something from 16-25 years ago, and I get why they thought of the 60s as not really that long ago.  That's so weird for me.  But it makes sense when you get to the other side of it.  So weird, so weird.  The 1960s really weren't that long ago during the 80s.  I mean it was many years ago, but it really wasn't that long ago if you know what I mean.  It's what the 80s are to the 2000s.   

Now that I'm 30, when I think back to growing up in the 80s I also remember that I honestly used to think of everything that happened before 1980 as being basically before my time too,...despite the fact that I was alive for half the 70s and actuallly do have some foggy memories of the late 70s.  It's bizzare thinking back on these things.  All that stuff from the 1960s, really wasn't too long ago during the 80s.  And remember, most high school kids during the 80s were born in the mid to late  60s.  The same way many high school kids in recent years were born deep in the 80s.

 

Oddly for me, the thought of past decades never really started to cross my mind until probably the early 90’s (this was when I began to watch a lot of TV and movies - around age 10).

For instance, I acknowledged the 70’s as being "some time back" and different from the present in 1992, but also not THAT far away, if that makes sense. Again, maybe the TV I watched played a part in my understanding of it all (especially shows like Unsolved Mysteries -- which I think is one of the closest accurate recreation of certain time periods without actually using a DeLorean). ;)

I believe it’s harder for us to realize the 80’s are averaging twenty years ago now because today isn’t that different. Almost as if we need to be reminded it’s over to actually believe it. In other words, take away the Internet, OnStar, DVDs, Ipods and likewise technology. The world still lives and acts the same. Very little has actually changed.

Whereas, I can see someone from 1985 thinking the 60’s were a world away, just because it looked so different (just thinking about most of the decade, especially before 1967, conjours up images of black & white TV’s, still prevalent racist attitudes, etc). Those things are literally another world now.

It was far easier to think of the 60’s as "old" in the 80’s because, in essence they were.

Agree with Marty. And to further justify... B&W tv made the 60's look old, whereas a 1980's sitcom wouldn't look too out of place on tv today.

The thought of past decades has long intrigued me and I'd have to say time travel would be interesting to say the least, having discussed the prospect with friends whilst drunk on several occasions, lol, it went something like this:
Me: "you know, we could go back and watch the 1979 Grand final if we could travel through time"
BB: "and how the fudge do we do that?"
Me: "well the DeLorean in back to the future never actually had to go that fast to start travelling through time, and my Torana being originally from 1976 and looking normal from the outside woudl fit right in, and it can go a hell of a lot faster than that DeLorean, we can do this sheesh"
BB: "I Dunno man, that DeLorean had a hella load of tecnological bullsheesh in it, plus that was a movie, plus I have only ever read of time travel working once, and that was in a porn magazines 'funnies' section"
Me: "yeah, but if we get there it'll be a reversal of B2TF Part 3 because the fuel back in 1979 would be better for the car than the crap we have right now, full leaded man, we could also stock up on safari suits"
BB: " hell yeah"

I've always viewed 60's as the Hippie era, 70's as the funked out disco era, the 80's as the white suit era, the 90's as a waste of everyones time and I think the 00's willd efine themselves in years to come.

I've always viewed 60's as the Hippie era, 70's as the funked out disco era, the 80's as the white suit era, the 90's as a waste of everyones time and I think the 00's willd efine themselves in years to come.


This is probably one of the most accurate descriptions I have ever seen on any of the "nostalgia" internet boards anywhere.

There's not much more to say after that.

In the '80s, I thougth the '70s bit the big one!
Lately I've come to miss having a president concerned about human rights and who was not a total sociopath, and no I don't mean Nixon or Ford.

In the '80s, I thougth the '70s bit the big one!
Lately I've come to miss having a president concerned about human rights and who was not a total sociopath, and no I don't mean Nixon or Ford.


i miss jimmy.

i miss him! jimmy, if you're reading this, call me.

call me!

i remember there was one day in the mid-80s, probably around my sophomore year so probably around '86, when i was walking to a guitar lesson in high school and suddenly it dawned on me, wow, the 70s were a long time ago.

and it's been this ongoing process of counting the years since then. funny as it seems to say now, i think the 90s and the "'00s" will take on meaning as time goes by, because back in the day people were down on disco and new wave and speed metal and ALL that stuff. everything takes on meaning as a little time goes by.

here's the scary thing though -- who remembers the fads of the 1930s and '40s? the 1890s? eventually our time will be just as obscure. :-\\

I think the 1960's essentially were much more of a universe away from the 1980s, then the 80s are to the 00s. 

It would be interesting to get a child's or young teenager's perspective on this though.  Say some 12 year old born in 1993, find out what they think about the 80s. 

There was a definite backlash against the 70's (specifically disco) in the 80's.

I was born in 1966, so, during the 80's, the 60's happened on another planet.  The 70's were nothing I looked back on with any nostalgia.  It's funny, but as soon as the 80's rolled around, I knew I was living in the greatest decade. With each new year, I looked forward to living it, and looked back with great memories. I even started a quasi-diary because I just felt I would always want to know what I was doing in the 80's. I didn't care about the 60's or 70's. As I moved into the 90's, I knew I was exiting "my" decade.  :-\\

i miss jimmy.

i miss him! jimmy, if you're reading this, call me.

call me!


http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/americavotes/carter-shirt.jpeg

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/americavotes/carter-shirt.jpeg


H
O
T

H
O
T

Remember the band Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine?  Well, they weren't actually named for Jimmy Carter, but during the '92 convention in NYC, they were passing around postcards with a photo of JC captioned: "The Unstoppable Sex Machine."
;D

Remember the band Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine?  Well, they weren't actually named for Jimmy Carter, but during the '92 convention in NYC, they were passing around postcards with a photo of JC captioned: "The Unstoppable Sex Machine."
;D


lol! i never heard of any of that stuff! i'ma get one of those postcards on ebay. EVERYTHING's on ebay!

i miss jimmy.

i miss him! jimmy, if you're reading this, call me.




Yes I do too.

C-O-M-E-B-A-C-K!!

Another quick general obsevation:

It seems people in the earlier half of the 80's were more prone to disliking/making fun of the 60's -- after all, in 1982 for instance, 1967 was fifteen years past, which is that "middle ground" of too old to be current, too new to be retro.

Yet, despite the fact that 60's styled things started making a comeback in the later 80's (around 1987), this was the period of the decade it seems more of the "grown ups" and parents disliked.

This always struck me as kinda ironic. ;)

^Another thing about 1982:

That was the year the NBC sitcom Family Ties came on the air.  It was about former 60s flower children/hippies dealing with their more materialistic, "hanging out at the mall" (like Mallory Keaton did) Reagan era 80s kids.  After only 13 years (the last year of 1969) we got a show like that?  Shows that there was indeed a lot of changes going on between the 60s and 80s.

Back in the 80s there was nothing too bizzare about that concept.  But as I got older, I realized that's like a 2002 show about former 80s kids dealing with their '00s kids.  I would have thought it was too recent for a show like that 3 years ago. 

The parents on Family Ties were still pretty young I think.  They were in their mid or late 30s when that show started out in 1982.  But they had teenage kids in Alex (Michael J. Fox) and Mallory (Justine Batman).  They must have had kids when they were teenagers or in their early 20s, because only the two youngest kids Jennifer and later that other kid....I forgot his name, would have looked "more normal" for those parents and the ages they were.


another one of our TV comparisons to real life.  But the ideas in the show reflected thinking in the real world.   

Since I was rather young in the 80's, I had more of a "childish" view of previous decades. I remember being exposed to certain things from the 50's and 60's due to my parents upbringings and the things they had collected and transfered over to my brother and I.

From hearing my Dads old records, to listening to my mom's old 8 tracks, from watching classic episodes on TV like Little House on the Prairie, Ozzie & Harriett, Zorro, the Twilight Zone, Topper, and watching movies from olden days - none of those things never seemed all that far away to me. I mean, of course we had all those 80's things we were growing up with, but I also had these 50's and 60's things my parents brought into my life as well.

        I really embraced all eras pre-1980's. I enjoyed listening to 50's music when we watched "Great Balls of Fire" and buying the soundtrack to it, I enjoyed the 1950's era movie theatres we went to when I was a child, etc. I had no animosity at all towards any of the previous decades, as I can recall.

Since I was rather young in the 80's, I had more of a "childish" view of previous decades. I remember being exposed to certain things from the 50's and 60's due to my parents upbringings and the things they had collected and transfered over to my brother and I.

From hearing my Dads old records, to listening to my mom's old 8 tracks, from watching classic episodes on TV like Little House on the Prairie, Ozzie & Harriett, Zorro, the Twilight Zone, Topper, and watching movies from olden days - none of those things never seemed all that far away to me. I mean, of course we had all those 80's things we were growing up with, but I also had these 50's and 60's things my parents brought into my life as well.

         I really embraced all eras pre-1980's. I enjoyed listening to 50's music when we watched "Great Balls of Fire" and buying the soundtrack to it, I enjoyed the 1950's era movie theatres we went to when I was a child, etc. I had no animosity at all towards any of the previous decades, as I can recall.


I couldn't possibly add to this, since it was so well said (as usual!). :)

Like I've said, I had a very similar experience growing up with a mix of then-new stuff, and classics from the 50's-70's.

I guess when you're a kid, you really do have a purity of vision about everything - you're totally nondiscriminating. In other words, you don't pay attention to if something is cool, or what others think about it. You only care if YOU like it and you see it for what it is.

It's not until later (say, about anywhere from age 9-14) that you start to notice and put more stock in detailed stuff about people or things.

^Another thing about 1982:

That was the year the NBC sitcom Family Ties came on the air.  It was about former 60s flower children/hippies dealing with their more materialistic, "hanging out at the mall" (like Mallory Keaton did) Reagan era 80s kids.  After only 13 years (the last year of 1969) we got a show like that?  Shows that there was indeed a lot of changes going on between the 60s and 80s.

Back in the 80s there was nothing too bizzare about that concept. But as I got older, I realized that's like a 2002 show about former 80s kids dealing with their '00s kids.  I would have thought it was too recent for a show like that 3 years ago.

The parents on Family Ties were still pretty young I think.  They were in their mid or late 30s when that show started out in 1982.  But they had teenage kids in Alex (Michael J. Fox) and Mallory (Justine Batman).  They must have had kids when they were teenagers or in their early 20s, because only the two youngest kids Jennifer and later that other kid....I forgot his name, would have looked "more normal" for those parents and the ages they were.

Surprisingly, for the pretty big Michael J Fox, and 80's fan I am, I haven't seen enough FT to be really familar with it. But I've watched enough to know I agree -- the parents almost seemed like they could've been older brothers/sisters to Alex.

They didn't seem real "parent like" either in age or actions that much of the time, almost as if a part of them was still living as a 20 year old in the late 60's.

I always felt one of the biggest points of the show, was to point out the change in social values and pop culture over the interceding 15 or so years. Far less 80's teens did things like smoking weed than late 60's teens. In many ways it was more conservative. So, it was almost like Alex was "rebelling" against them in his own way by being a Republican - kinda embarrased, probably, about their freewheeling past.

And yeah, I think it would still seem way too soon to have a like minded 2000's show about 80's teens (especially late 80's). Like we've said, not enough major has changed to make that work - just smaller technological and pop culture stuff.


another one of our TV comparisons to real life.  But the ideas in the show reflected thinking in the real world.


:)

I couldn't possibly add to this, since it was so well said (as usual!). :)

Like I've said, I had a very similar experience growing up with a mix of then-new stuff, and classics from the 50's-70's.

I guess when you're a kid, you really do have a purity of vision about everything - you're totally nondiscriminating. In other words, you don't pay attention to if something is cool, or what others think about it. You only care if YOU like it and you see it for what it is.

It's not until later (say, about anywhere from age 9-14) that you start to notice and put more stock in detailed stuff about people or things.


Thanks Marty! Yeah, I think once I even got to be about 10 or 11, I was listening to music because it was "cool" not because it was of real qaulity. I mean, I still had some decent taste, but I was really more of a follower rather than someone who thought on their own about what to like. I started changing that after MTV was going down hill and I think that happened at an opportune time when I was still at more impressionable ages (12-14).

Surprisingly, for the pretty big Michael J Fox, and 80's fan I am, I haven't seen enough FT to be really familar with it. But I've watched enough to know I agree -- the parents almost seemed like they could've been older brothers/sisters to Alex.

You would love the show.  It's classic 80s.  Though I think the show was taped instead of live audience, because they always seemed rather muted, and the laughter seemed more "canned".  But the look and feel of the series is classic, classic 1980s.  When 1989 came, the series creators wanted to end the show, they refused to go into 1990 because they said the show was about the 1980s and the contrast b/w the 60s. 


They didn't seem real "parent like" either in age or actions that much of the time, almost as if a part of them was still living as a 20 year old in the late 60's.

Yeah, they didn't seem "parent like".  But to Alex, Mallory, Jennifer and the other kid (I always forget his name), it didn't seem to matter how cool their parents thought they were in the 60s.  They saw them as relics of a bygone era. 


I always felt one of the biggest points of the show, was to point out the change in social values and pop culture over the interceding 15 or so years. Far less 80's teens did things like smoking weed than late 60's teens. In many ways it was more conservative. So, it was almost like Alex was "rebelling" against them in his own way by being a Republican - kinda embarrased, probably, about their freewheeling past.

I was never old enough to smoke weed in the 80s, not even in 1989.  So I don't know how many kids did smoke weed.  I know they did do it, but compared to the 60s, 70s, 90s and 00s,....it seemed far less.  Like it just faded into the background a bit.  It still went on, but it seemed like in the 80s it wasn't so in your face and upfront like the decades before and decades after.  I think that whole "Just Say NO" campaign mau have had a lot to do with this.

  Uh, let's see here...

  To the best of my recollection, while in the 80's, the 70's were definately something to distance onesself from.  I mean really, the whole Disco Backlash thing was taken very seriously by many.  We were conditioned to regard the 70's pop culture (especially mid - late) as the epitome of um..."uncoolness".  Sort of like the 80's as viewed from the 90's, I s'pose.

  I'll always say, however, that some most of the best rock came out of the 70's...

  Have a nice day! :)