For people who were around in the '80s, what crap about the '80s has been overlooked in the current nostalgia? I've often thought alot of the mediocre corporate rock and A/C chart-toppers have been overlooked, and so has the inherent yuppieism and materialism of the decade as a whole.

I thinkone thing that has been overlooked about the 80's is the attitude. The cliche is it was the 'me' decade, and thats all anyone cared about. Not true. Everyone was pretty carefree in those days, and there wasn't any of the doom and gloom that started in the 90's and has gotten worse ever since.

The Recession?

^Not to step too far into politics, but there was plenty of doom and gloom for those who saw what the Reagan Administration was doing...and what they were getting away with!!!

Especially in the first half of the '80s, life moved at a slower pace, there was still Muzak playing in all the supermarkets and waiting rooms, and football was waaaay more popular than basketball.

Another thing, I consistently hear the canard that AIDS was not widely discussed in the pop culture until 1984. I distinctly remember hearing about AIDS in 1982 and 1983, and I was growing up in a small town in New Hampshire. So the word was out...

However, they were still marketing the Ayd's diet plan on TV. No joke, I remember this, we were cracking up like all-get-out, "Ha ha ha! He has AIDS...she has AIDS!" Uhhh, bad taste, yes, but times were different... the attitude toward AIDS was not in the early '80s like it was at the end of the decade, as expemplified by J.D.'s famous line in Heathers: "Football season is over, Veronica. Kurt and Ram had nothing left to offer the school except for date rapes and AIDS jokes."

Anyway, back to the Ayd's diet plan:
Yo, check it out:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7935064058166993925
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/05/grim.gif

The Recession?
That didn't last very long. In fact, when past recessions are discussed, the Reagan mini-recession is never mentioned.

That didn't last very long. In fact, when past recessions are discussed, the Reagan mini-recession is never mentioned.


Trimac is like me, Australian, and I believe he si referring to the near decade long explosion we had with inetrest rates and the like.
1980's Australia was a mixed bag, musically, politically and sport wise.

Musically there were some very talented local bands coming throuhg, but they woudl depart as quickly as they arrived, in fighting the main cause.
Someone once commented "the 1980's is the period where australias musical talent shone through and many bands came to the fore (INXS, Hunter and Collectors, Icehouse etc) but was also the time when even greater amounts of talent had been pissed against the back wall of the pub".

Pollitically, you had buckleys chace of owning your house in the 1980's unless you won lotto, Malcolm Fraser started the ball rolling with a series of moronic political investments that never paid off, the Hawke labor govt fell into the trap of being in government when the whole world was financially going to sheeshe (think: black monday) as a result interst rates near hit 20% (current rate is around 7.5% average)

Sport wise, rugby league had gone from being an open flowing game in the 60's and 70's where teams like St George, Manly, Eastern Suburbs and South Sydney hda thrilled crowds and viewers with dazzling displays of skill.
It is a testament to the australian sporting psyche that it remained "king" in a few states.
Somewhat reflective of the decade, from the years 1980 to 1989, 8 titles woudl be split between Parramatta and Canterbury Bankstown, propped up by their rich leagues clubs and men who would kill to win.
Canterbury took the title in 1980 with much dazzling football, however, many of the stars were aging, which led to a re-invention a few years later.....
Parramatta would take 3 in a row from 81 to 83 with an amazing style of open football, however, success was halted when the re-invented Bulldogs played a game based around demonic running, brutal defence and no flair.
It was crash or crash through, Canterbury would beat Parra 6 to 4 in the 1984 decider, then woudl go on to defeat St George 7 to 6 in the 1985 grand final, it was not pretty football to watch, injuries were high, it became regarded as a thugs game and mum's australia over would not let their sons pursue the sport.
Parramatta would get one back in 1986 in the only "tryless' grand final, won 4 to 2 on goals kicked, for them it was the end, Canterbury would re-invent, rather impressively to become a side that combined brutal defence with amzing attack, one more time to beat Balmain 24 to 12 in 1988 (Manly won season 87 with a brand of brutal football reminiscent of Canterbury).
For rugby league in the 80's it was the last chapter in the battle of C vs P and how they dragged the game to its depths.
Canberra would take its first title in 1989 in what is regarded as the greatest grand final of all time, won by the Raiders 19 to 14 in extra time (the game was levleed by Canberra with only seconds reaming, they then defended stoutly, kciked a field goal and scored a try to capture their first title) Balmain would have to wait until 2005 to taste grand final glory again (they had alst one in 1969). (Oddly the story of one club domination can be noted most in the years 1956 to 1966, with the greatest team of all time, St George, winning 11 consecutive titles, its not that other teams were poorer or unable to field competetive sides, its just that St George by freak of nature had developed some of the best players the game was ever likely to see, and as these players aged players of equal ability took there place to cntinue the tradition)

I was referring to here in the United States. I sometimes forget that there are alot of people from other countries that post at the forums I go to.

I've always thought how much it was the "me" decade and the way that Reaganomics and the general '80s attitudes and yuppieism predate the way we are today, in the '00s, is overlooked.

I think the first half of the '80s was still sort of like the '70s, in terms of attitudes, up until maybe early 1986. That whole "anti-Muzak", yuppified, sushi bar thing was around before that, but I think of that as really exploding in late 1986, really the first part of the '80s that was closer to the '90s than the '70s.

^Not to step too far into politics, but there was plenty of doom and gloom for those who saw what the Reagan Administration was doing...and what they were getting away with!!!

Especially in the first half of the '80s, life moved at a slower pace, there was still Muzak playing in all the supermarkets and waiting rooms, and football was waaaay more popular than basketball.

Another thing, I consistently hear the canard that AIDS was not widely discussed in the pop culture until 1984. I distinctly remember hearing about AIDS in 1982 and 1983, and I was growing up in a small town in New Hampshire. So the word was out...

However, they were still marketing the Ayd's diet plan on TV. No joke, I remember this, we were cracking up like all-get-out, "Ha ha ha! He has AIDS...she has AIDS!" Uhhh, bad taste, yes, but times were different... the attitude toward AIDS was not in the early '80s like it was at the end of the decade, as expemplified by J.D.'s famous line in Heathers: "Football season is over, Veronica. Kurt and Ram had nothing left to offer the school except for date rapes and AIDS jokes."

Anyway, back to the Ayd's diet plan:
Yo, check it out:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7935064058166993925
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/05/grim.gif


I remember AIDS hitting the news.  I had surgery in '85 and hemorrhaged about 3 days later.  Doctors wanted to give me a blood transfusion, but I refused because of AIDS and so little information that was available to us at that time.  In 1985 - AIDS was like a death sentence. We were naive.  I was VERY sick for a long time, but I did not get that transfusion.

I remember AIDS hitting the news.  I had surgery in '85 and hemorrhaged about 3 days later.  Doctors wanted to give me a blood transfusion, but I refused because of AIDS and so little information that was available to us at that time.  In 1985 - AIDS was like a death sentence. We were naive.   I was VERY sick for a long time, but I did not get that transfusion.

That's a great example. We didn't know how contagious AIDS was. Could you get it from kissing, could you get it from vaginal intercourse, could you get it from a public toilet? There were hysterical homophobes saying AIDS was around every corner, and there were head-in-the-sand types saying it was all a big scare. The surgeon general was saying one thing, the Johns Hopkins researchers were saying another. You had a-holes like Eddie Murphy putting down homophobic routines, "yeah, your wife has one of her f*ggot friends, she kisses him on the lips, and brings that sh*t home to you. Then we your doctor says 'sorry, Mr. Johnson, I'm afraid you have AIDs,' you say, 'but I'm not I a homosexual, and your doctor says sure you're not a homosexual!"
With transfusions, we did not really know how infected the supply was. The same kind of speculation/information/disinformation applied. There was that one boy, I think his name was Ryan White and he was 12 at the time, who did get AIDS from a blood transfusion, so everybody was really nervous. If it happened to him, it could happen to anybody!
Then you your run-of-the-mill creeps trying to impose a quarantine. I remember there was a child with AIDS out in suburbia somewhere, the story was covered on the TV news because the PTA hayseeds wanted him barred from the school. I remember one dumpy matron waving a placard with the caption: "Our kids want good grades, not AIDS!" Real ugly stuff. So it was a nervous time.

And there was always the possibility that we could get nuked off the horizon.
Of course, we still have that possibility today, but back then we had the big bad Soviet Union and our government's tensions with it. They were the big scary that people are trying to make terrorists into today.

That's a great example. We didn't know how contagious AIDS was. Could you get it from kissing, could you get it from vaginal intercourse, could you get it from a public toilet?


I remember the ads we have on tv here.  AIDS: Don't die of ignorance

Soon after they started one of my Cubs came and told me to be careful I didn't catch AIDS; he'd seen me holding hands with my boyfriend!!

I remember the ads we have on tv here.  AIDS: Don't die of ignorance

Soon after they started one of my Cubs came and told me to be careful I didn't catch AIDS; he'd seen me holding hands with my boyfriend!!

;D
I had a very conservative great-aunt who advised my older sister, "just don't get AIDS," when she found out my sis was living with her boyfriend. I mean, it was a clean and monogamous relationship, but they weren't married, so to Aunt Carol, that meant "living in sin," and church-goers associated AIDS with all things carnally "sinful"!
::)

Stepping away from the AIDS topic. . . .  I remember in the early '80's how some adults would talk to us about the "Evil" subliminal messages hidden in certain rock songs.  For example - "Stairway to Heaven" supposedly had many satanic messages the mind would pick up subliminally while listening to the song.  Then if you played the song backwards you would hear even more satanic words and messages. In high school we actually had an assembly where these "experts" came and talked to us about the evils found in music.  They even played the songs backwards for us. . . .  personally - I never heard anything evil.  But I remember that was a BIG issue in the early part of the '80's.  Anybody else remember this -- or was this just out here in California?