Anyone??  :(

It was for me.  I was a teenager throughout most of the 80's.  You know, 10 feet tall and bulletproof?  Nothing could happen to me. ;D

It was for me.  I was a teenager throughout most of the 80's.  You know, 10 feet tall and bulletproof?  Nothing could happen to me. ;D


I was a kid in the 90s and that's exactly how I felt during that decade and maybe even up to 2001. Careless, free, everything is new and big and you can do anything!  8)

It was an optimistic decade for me. I graduated high school in 1980 and went off to College/University. Summer jobs were so easy to find. Actual jobs were so easy to find after I finished University. You can't say the same thing today.

The music was still good back then and I was able to see so many good bands at the start of their career, when no one even heard of them yet. Sports events (Hockey/Baseball) tickets were still affordable.

As someone who wasn't interested in buying his own place yet, I adored the interest rates, they were so high and paid of well when I invested in a guaranteed income fund. The economy was booming during the 1980s, things started to go downhill in 1989 (except for the tech stuff)

It was a good time to be a young adult.

It was an optimistic decade for me, between the years 1988-1992 when I was in High School I started The Summer Youth Employment Program and making money doing maintainence and cafeteria work, trying to earn a living for myself.

It was an optimistic decade for me. I graduated high school in 1980 and went off to College/University. Summer jobs were so easy to find. Actual jobs were so easy to find after I finished University. You can't say the same thing today.

The music was still good back then and I was able to see so many good bands at the start of their career, when no one even heard of them yet. Sports events (Hockey/Baseball) tickets were still affordable.

As someone who wasn't interested in buying his own place yet, I adored the interest rates, they were so high and paid of well when I invested in a guaranteed income fund. The economy was booming during the 1980s, things started to go downhill in 1989 (except for the tech stuff)

It was a good time to be a young adult.


Didn't I hear you say once you don't prefer music after 1985 or something?  :D

It was an optimistic decade for me, between the years 1988-1992 when I was in High School I started The Summer Youth Employment Program and making money doing maintainence and cafeteria work, trying to earn a living for myself.


Sounds cool!

Didn't I hear you say once you don't prefer music after 1985 or something?  :D


I thought music went downhill after 1986, and very downhill after 1989. It was still pretty good though. I appreciate late 80s music more today than I did 10 or 20 years ago.

I thought music went downhill after 1986, and very downhill after 1989. It was still pretty good though. I appreciate late 80s music more today than I did 10 or 20 years ago.


Ha ha, my opinion of music is strangely bipolar, BUT I do think the 2002 to 2010 years were TERRIBLE and probably always will. Any other years I'm fickle about!

They sold it as optimistic wile they were sowing the seeds of the destruction we are reap in the '00s and '10s. 

Computers were going to make our world prosperous and leisurely.  Reagan told us it was "Morning in America" and, then, in 1985, a nice man named Mikhail Gorbachev took over as General Secretary in Moscow.  With Glasnost and Perestroika, it felt like the Cold War was winding down. Then the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.  Everybody was getting rich on Wall Street and Milton Friedman's supply side economics was going to make the whole world free and affluent.  Gasoline was a buck a gallon again.

Sen. Marco Rubio sold the same bill of goods in the SUM rebuttal last week, but all anybody can remember is him taking a gulp of water.  It's a different era now.
::)

I think this is a subjective question. A view of an optimistic or pessimistic decade usually depends on what happened in your life rather than what was happening in the world (and even then I'm sure there was a crappy year or two in between great times). For example, my family life in the early part of the 1980s was brilliant yet the UK was filled with unemployed people (rioting in some cases) trying to find their way through Thatcherite Britain.

My opinion is the media posed the 1980s as an optimistic decade and I think Mr Smart is right when he said it was a different era back then. We were all naive and willing to swallow what was presented to us. Now it seems with all the information at our disposal and the amount of times civilians have been burnt by politicians the world over we live in an age of cynicism and apathy.

I thought music went downhill after 1986, and very downhill after 1989. It was still pretty good though. I appreciate late 80s music more today than I did 10 or 20 years ago.


And don't forget rap as well, remember you had Tone Loc and Young MC in 1989 and then after that West Coast Rap in the early 90's.

I think this is a subjective question. A view of an optimistic or pessimistic decade usually depends on what happened in your life rather than what was happening in the world (and even then I'm sure there was a crappy year or two in between great times). For example, my family life in the early part of the 1980s was brilliant yet the UK was filled with unemployed people (rioting in some cases) trying to find their way through Thatcherite Britain.

My opinion is the media posed the 1980s as an optimistic decade and I think Mr Smart is right when he said it was a different era back then. We were all naive and willing to swallow what was presented to us. Now it seems with all the information at our disposal and the amount of times civilians have been burnt by politicians the world over we live in an age of cynicism and apathy.


In my seventies childhood, my impression of England formed from three sources -- Monty Python, Andy Capp, and The Hobbit.  Well, I don't have to tell you how Johnny Rotten, Maggie Thatcher, and the '81 riots put the kibosh on all of that!
;D

I think this is a subjective question. A view of an optimistic or pessimistic decade usually depends on what happened in your life rather than what was happening in the world (and even then I'm sure there was a crappy year or two in between great times). For example, my family life in the early part of the 1980s was brilliant yet the UK was filled with unemployed people (rioting in some cases) trying to find their way through Thatcherite Britain.

My opinion is the media posed the 1980s as an optimistic decade and I think Mr Smart is right when he said it was a different era back then. We were all naive and willing to swallow what was presented to us. Now it seems with all the information at our disposal and the amount of times civilians have been burnt by politicians the world over we live in an age of cynicism and apathy.


It all changed with the Internet circa mid-90s? People could research about things about if they were true or not?

It all changed with the Internet circa mid-90s? People could research about things about if they were true or not?


That's true but in the 80's people didn't have the internet or The World Wide Web so they had to research someplace else.

That's true but in the 80's people didn't have the internet or The World Wide Web so they had to research someplace else.


To the library everyone! :D

To the library everyone! :D



The library was the original place for research but now libraries have the internet too so you can stay there longer.

The '80s probably wasn't an optimistic decade for somebody who was dying of AIDS at the time.

The '80s probably wasn't an optimistic decade for somebody who was dying of AIDS at the time.


Yeah, not likely.  :-\\

The '80s probably wasn't an optimistic decade for somebody who was dying of AIDS at the time.


The disease was pretty popular.

It was a decade for good, fun party music.

The disease was pretty popular.


I don't know if "popular" would be the word I'd chose for AIDS. :-[

I don't know if "popular" would be the word I'd chose for AIDS. :-[



"widely known".  ;)

It all changed with the Internet circa mid-90s? People could research about things about if they were true or not?


Pretty much around the late 1990s, especially when dial-up turned into Broadband. It took ages for a website to come up.

The thing with the internet is it's a knowledge free-for-all. If I want to know the ins-and-outs of a cat's arse there's going to be a website out there that can tell me.


The disease was pretty popular.


Yep. From what I read on 1980s nostalgia websites, AIDs was all the rage back then.

;)

Excuse me, does anybody have an answer that is not semi-autistic?


I remember "The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades"
8)

Excuse me, does anybody have an answer that is not semi-autistic?

I remember "The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades"
8)


Y U NO Video?

Never mind, I'll deal with it.

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/074/5/c/trixie___deal_with_it_by_baggas-d4sweys.png

8qrriKcwvlY

I got a job waitin' for my graduation,
Fifty thou a year will buy a lotta beer,
Things are goin' great and they're only gettin' better.
I'm doin' alright, gettin' good grades,
Future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

  - Timbuk 3, Future's So Bright (I gotta wear shades)

(Never mind the stubborn jackass posting this, it only took me 20 years to realize they were being ironic.  Funny thing was, back in the late 80s/early 90s, a degree really was a sure shot to a job that would, within 2-3 years, get you past the $50K/year threshold that was the imaginary threshold between lower-middle-class and middle-middle-class.  The 2013 equivalent of "fifty thou a year" in 1993, accounting for 20 years of 3.5% inflation, $100K/year.)

Pretty much around the late 1990s, especially when dial-up turned into Broadband. It took ages for a website to come up.

I hated dial-up, It was so annoying having to wait for pages to come up.  ::)

I would say that the 80s perceived as a cheerful decade with all those bright clothes and makeup along with the overload in fashion accessories, wholesome cartoons and many of the toys were based off these shows, lots of comedy movies and tv shows, new wave/dance music (Madonna, NKOTB, Michael Jackson, Prince, Duran Duran...), series books for kids, aerobics/work out craze, health eating but to balance it junk food was popular at the time particularly powdered sugar candy/ice cream/soda/pizza....

I spent most of my childhood in this decade so life was carefree for the most part. I would get up really early on Saturdays to watch the cartoons including Rainbow Brite, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Muppet Babies..., never get bored with the toys that I had, enjoy some of the fashion such as those gummy bracelets, make trips to convenient stores that seemed to sell a huge variety of candy back then (I still remember inhaling all that powdered sugar as soon as I would walk through the door), watch John Hughes' films on VHS, and catch a music video when MTV/Much Music would only play...well music videos!

Y U NO Video?



I decided NOT to subject people to Timbuk3.
8-P

I would get up really early on Saturdays to watch the cartoons including Rainbow Brite, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Muppet Babies...,

I remember those days of waking up Saturday and Sunday mornings and turning on the television watching cartoons all day.  :)

Excuse me, does anybody have an answer that is not semi-autistic?

I remember "The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades"
8)


'Semi-autistic'?  ???

I don't understand, Mr Smart. I would probably understand better if you made your point rather than use a song I didn't know to make it for you.  ;) ;D

'Semi-autistic'?  ???

I don't understand, Mr Smart. I would probably understand better if you made your point rather than use a song I didn't know to make it for you.  ;) ;D


His name is Ted, can you believe that?
Ted, oh, Ted, fighting off danger!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s05jcrJw0as

'Semi-autistic'?  ???

I don't understand, Mr Smart. I would probably understand better if you made your point rather than use a song I didn't know to make it for you.  ;) ;D


I linked to the song on his behalf.  Consider Poe's Law, as formalized in 2005: without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between sincere extremism and an exaggerated parody of extremism.

http://i.imgur.com/GrHm4.gif

Without the context of the rest of their works (A$$holes on Parade, which had too many awesome modern video tributes to list, Reverend Jack and his Roamin' Cadillac Church, Hairstyles and Attitudes and Life is Hard being the ones best-remembered), Timbuk3's top-charting song Future's So Bright featured a college kid who was "heavenly-blessed, worldly-wise, a peeping-Tom techie with X-ray eyes", studying nuclear engineering in order to obtain what was at the time, a guaranteed high-paying job that would provide more than enough to fund his projected beer budget... yeah, 30 years before Poe's Law, Timbuk3 created something that was indistinguishable between sincerity and exaggerated parody of 80s optimism.

Flip back a page and listen to the song. Max couldn't have picked a better example. It's timeless acoustic jammin' stuff, no 80s big-hair-cheeziness involved.

I linked to the song on his behalf.  Consider Poe's Law, as formalized in 2005: without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between sincere extremism and an exaggerated parody of extremism.

http://i.imgur.com/GrHm4.gif

Without the context of the rest of their works (A$$holes on Parade, which had too many awesome modern video tributes to list, Reverend Jack and his Roamin' Cadillac Church, Hairstyles and Attitudes and Life is Hard being the ones best-remembered), Timbuk3's top-charting song Future's So Bright featured a college kid who was "heavenly-blessed, worldly-wise, a peeping-Tom techie with X-ray eyes", studying nuclear engineering in order to obtain what was at the time, a guaranteed high-paying job that would provide more than enough to fund his projected beer budget... yeah, 30 years before Poe's Law, Timbuk3 created something that was indistinguishable between sincerity and exaggerated parody of 80s optimism.

Flip back a page and listen to the song. Max couldn't have picked a better example. It's timeless acoustic jammin' stuff, no 80s big-hair-cheeziness involved.


I will take a look at the song. :)

I don't think this is about music or making points about an optimistic decade that bothers me. It was the idea that Mr. Smart described our comments as 'semi autistic'. Couldn't he have used a better term than that? I don't mind being classed as clueless, I work with what I know.

If I misunderstood his post, he meant something else and I am being too sensitive then fair enough.

I actually think the 80s can seem pretty dark sometimes. Have you seen episodes of the Twilight Zone from then? Of course its supposed to look creepy and all but it makes the 80s seem kind of dark.