I do NOT want this to turn into a political discussion, but this is President Reagan's first press conference in January 1981. Look at not only the cut of Reagan's suit, but also examine the hairstyles and outfits of the members of the press - it still looks very 70s. You see big hair on both men and women of the press; layered hair on the women; long sideburns on some of the men; Heavy mustaches on some of the men and even a small Afro on one of the African American women.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj5UgwwYWd4

Well that's to be expected. The first few years of every decade always contains some influences from the previous decade. It has been discussed on inthe00s to ad nauseam. There's countless of other threads which go into greater detail about this topic. 

OMG, fashion from 1961 still looks like the '50s!
OMG, fashion from 1971 still looks like the '60s!
OMG, fashion from 1991 still looks like the '80s!
OMG, fashion from 2001 still looks like the '90s!
OMG, fashion from 2011 still looks like the '90s! ('cause the 2000s are just an extension of the '90s)

Ugh, I seriously don't care at all.

OMG, fashion from 1961 still looks like the '50s!
OMG, fashion from 1971 still looks like the '60s!
OMG, fashion from 1991 still looks like the '80s!
OMG, fashion from 2001 still looks like the '90s!
OMG, fashion from 2011 still looks like the '90s! ('cause the 2000s are just an extension of the '90s)

Ugh, I seriously don't care at all.


It's just wild to me when a decade finally becomes itself. The video is from 1981 yet easily looks like it could have been shot in 1974 due to the hair and clothing. It's interesting to me in that changes in fashion have gotten more and more rapid as time has gone by.

It's just wild to me when a decade finally becomes itself. The video is from 1981 yet easily looks like it could have been shot in 1974 due to the hair and clothing. It's interesting to me in that changes in fashion have gotten more and more rapid as time has gone by.


Yeah, well plenty of videos from 1974 could have easily been shot in 1967 based on how they looked, too. Many 1981 videos, furthermore, would've looked pretty reasonable in the context of 1988. It's all relative.

I remember 1981 fashion.  Yes, there was still stuff around from the 70's but there were also definite early 80's influences too.  Think about it - how many of us throw away everything in our closet every year?  I suspect that in 1981, perhaps 35% of my wardrobe was obtained in 1981, 25% obtained in 1980, 20% from '79, the other 20% from before '79.  The only exception - anything that I thought was embarrassingly dated wouldn't come out of the closet (or at least wouldn't leave the house).

But fashion does continually change, especially since the late 20th century.  Here's a relevant post from a while back:

http://www.inthe00s.com/index.php?topic=55319.msg3570302#msg3570302 

OMG, fashion from 1961 still looks like the '50s!
OMG, fashion from 1971 still looks like the '60s!
OMG, fashion from 1991 still looks like the '80s!
OMG, fashion from 2001 still looks like the '90s!
OMG, fashion from 2011 still looks like the '90s! ('cause the 2000s are just an extension of the '90s)

Ugh, I seriously don't care at all.


He should just stop, It's becoming repetitive. ::)

I know nothing beyond what I can see being on here for a few days, but repetitive topics like these pop up partly because of the lack of organization. This is certainly not where I should discuss this, but I'm just reacting to the reaction to this thread in particular. Sorry.

It'd make sense for me to be like

The 1980s
>80s years classification(idk)
>80s fashion
>80s pictures
etc.

Instead it's just "80s" with 359 pages of topics compiled over how many years? That's ridiculous to me. I'd say organize based first on decade then by topics within that decade, then if that suborganization becomes too big (maybe 30 pages in a year), then subdivide again. Less pages to navigate=conversations will stay in less threads, which would probably be less "annoying" to people.

I like this topic, but organization would make it much cleaner, or perhaps making threads that compile data from lower threads to summarize info and pinning them, eliminating the usual small talk that users here engage in in regular threads.

I know this is probably unworkable without taking several days or months to rework the site (gasp!), but that'd clear things up...

Again, sorry for being in the wrong place, but I'm just reacting to a reaction.

I know nothing beyond what I can see being on here for a few days, but repetitive topics like these pop up partly because of the lack of organization. This is certainly not where I should discuss this, but I'm just reacting to the reaction to this thread in particular. Sorry.

It'd make sense for me to be like

The 1980s
>80s years classification(idk)
>80s fashion
>80s pictures
etc.

Instead it's just "80s" with 359 pages of topics compiled over how many years? That's ridiculous to me. I'd say organize based first on decade then by topics within that decade, then if that suborganization becomes too big (maybe 30 pages in a year), then subdivide again. Less pages to navigate=conversations will stay in less threads, which would probably be less "annoying" to people.

I like this topic, but organization would make it much cleaner, or perhaps making threads that compile data from lower threads to summarize info and pinning them, eliminating the usual small talk that users here engage in in regular threads.

I know this is probably unworkable without taking several days or months to rework the site (gasp!), but that'd clear things up...

Again, sorry for being in the wrong place, but I'm just reacting to a reaction.


In my experience, boards with too many sub boards are (or at least appear to be) much more inactive than boards with only two or three subboards. It makes the forum look dead if you have a subboard with no posts since 2016, or something. :P

I agree people here are being too harsh. That was a cool video OP, thanks for sharing. I think it can be very interesting to analyze how long the fashion more iconic to the previous decade lasts into the next, and when it is that the next decade forges its own fashion identity. It's not decadeology imo.

In my experience, boards with too many sub boards are (or at least appear to be) much more inactive than boards with only two or three subboards. It makes the forum look dead if you have a subboard with no posts since 2016, or something. :P

I agree people here are being too harsh. That was a cool video OP, thanks for sharing. I think it can be very interesting to analyze how long the fashion more iconic to the previous decade lasts into the next, and when it is that the next decade forges its own fashion identity. It's not decadeology imo.


Thanks. I think the line of decadeology is topics like: "What did people in 1981 think of 1971?" "What did people in 1980 think of the 1960s?" Discussing the transition, culturally, of one decade to another, is part of discussing pop culture and that is the point of this forum. If we can't discuss when a decade culturally began and ended, what is the point of having boards which discuss different decades? A big part of what makes a decade, well, a decade is the pop culture that defines it both at the time and retrospect. Seeing when that pop culture developed and how it evolved is important to understanding the decade in question.

Wow, this is so surprising.  I didn't know the very early portion of a decade could still have influences from the previous one. I thought they were supposed to be all gone by December 31 11:59:59 PM!

This board is starting to suffer from "seasonal rot", as most of the recollections have been tried for now two decades now, meaning that the basic definitions have long since been defined. More interesting threads would be those that are relatively unknown, such as the culture in a third world country, forgotten TV shows like Hooperman, videos and photos of a city or shopping mall that have changed. Speaking of which, here is the video of a shopping mall in Kansas. It aired nationally in early 1982, but based on the signs visible, it was filmed in November 1981. It honestly isn't too different from even 1989 (just not as much Agree and neon), and the presence of songs of "Physical" and "Waiting For A Girl Like You" along with someone playing Centipede in a video arcade shows that the '80s identity has already found it self by this time:

G2BlyvN6EeI

Honestly, 1980 and even 1989 are far better candidates for a "different from", as here's one discussing the state of 1989, and the "Do you think" sound much more valid as it encompasses opinion and not fact like the title of this thread indicates:

http://www.inthe00s.com/index.php?topic=51827.0

Thanks. I think the line of decadeology is topics like: "What did people in 1981 think of 1971?" "What did people in 1980 think of the 1960s?" Discussing the transition, culturally, of one decade to another, is part of discussing pop culture and that is the point of this forum. If we can't discuss when a decade culturally began and ended, what is the point of having boards which discuss different decades? A big part of what makes a decade, well, a decade is the pop culture that defines it both at the time and retrospect. Seeing when that pop culture developed and how it evolved is important to understanding the decade in question.


There are plenty of minute examples of decadology here, but in my opinion things like "what did people in 1980 think of the 1960s?" is not decadology. I think it is vitally important, when discussing matters like those that get discussed here, for people in the present to know what people in other eras were thinking. Otherwise one ends up with PRESENTISM, the tendency to interpret past events in terms of current values and concepts. If people dressed a certain way in 1985, it just might be a reaction against something that had come before. Hence, it is important to know what they thought about the relatively recent past. I can tell you from experience that in the 80s, for example, values of the 60s and 70s were largely held in scorn. As was the music. The hippy "we are all one" type concepts were blown apart by the legitimization of greed in the 80s. And the organic music style of the 60s and 70s was replaced by a plastic, synth sound and songs from the 60s and 70s that are now considered undisputed classics were considered VERY unhip. As someone who comes from he 60s and 70s, you can imagine how the 80s attitude  did not sit well with me. By the time the 90s rolled around some of the 60s and 70s values had seeped back into culture as the sort of "universal truths" they are,  but they were taken in a more prosaic, down to earth way rather than the radical concepts they were seen as in the 60s and 70s.

The thing is some trends start earlier than the decade they are associated with. Some trends have a long run. Others have a shorter one, we call them fads. With so many things appearing, going on, evolving or disappearing all at once a decade is fluid. We can only identify the main feel of a year/part of a decade. And while years are true astronomically, the division into decades by the West is human-made. I would group 1975-1985 for example when it comes to haircut trends but that’s not true for politics. In reality every year is a mix of some trends of the previous and the appearance of trends that will get bigger in the next with some unique to it things.

1981 is a combo of ongoing trends and fads that started in the 70s or 1980 but it likely had one-year only fads of its own. It probably was the first year of long-term trends that spilled over to the following years. And this is true for every year. As it’s ongoing, people don’t notice the changes initially. I can say now mid 2014 started a change towards 2015-2017 music but back in 2014 I didn’t notice the shift as it was gradual. Save for some sudden events like quakes, assasinations of polititians, 9/11, etc. most cultural things change gradually, not suddenly.

It’s just very hard to analyze too much - just define the (repative) time periods you enjoy and focus on them. With so many trends and fads going on simultaneously in a year analysis is very hard and time consuming (some can be just for a few months even and often get forgotten although they were huge).

Also many of it is pure speculation by people that were not there or were too young to remember. No wonder some crazy people believe average next door girls in the 80s all dressed like Madonna. Some did, but that was a very small number. I don’t like the fake, exaggerated versions of prior decades people portray. Most girls circa Madonna’s Borderline music video looked like that girl with the jacket and plain jeans sitting in the bar scene (with early/mid 80s wavy hair) rather than Madonna and her friends (it was a very low % of the population that wore that). I bet in the future people will think we were all emo in the 00s or women walked dressed like Lady Gaga in the streets :P

People do not suddenly ditch their wardrobes simply because the tens digit in the calender year rolls over!  Here's the 1980 film The Blues Brothers.  Pay close attention to the audience.

u7ogK_unbqM

I agree, but so was 1980.  :D

I lived through 1981, and it was the same as the other years of the 80s!

I was 7 years old in 1981.