I remember 1997 or 1998 being when people often said things like "Eww, you like that?" when I would talk about some '80s bands or movies that I enjoyed. Not just people my age, but also even some 20somethings who were very much old enough for it the first time around acted kinda disgusted and thought I was a dork for my love of it, lol. Some things got dissed more than others, and it also depends on the person, but the decade just seemed to be thought of as a joke around then. I guess because they had gotten as old as they possibly could without people wanting them back. Anything around ten years ago seems to be like this.

Maybe the Internet and other early forms of digital technology getting popular also started shifting the lifestyle and entertainment away from what had been '80s standards up till that point (i.e. film cameras, audiotapes, VHS, old-school video games).

For example, malls seemed to really be getting less traffic. In early high school I used to go there on Friday nights sometimes to hang out, and while it wasn't deserted or anything, it also wasn't like a centralized hangout place, ala Fast Times at Ridgemont High. They still were pretty much unchanged from their initial Eighties layout in terms of stores and designs. I wonder if the big facelifts they got around 2002/'03 with lots of new shops and restaurants tacked on (usually out front, closer together and just more modernized looking) was because of that declining interest?

I never noticed that.  Heck, alot of rap and dance songs in that time were sampling 80s songs

I didn't notice this neither.  Maybe it depends on where you lived at the time.  In 1997-1998 I was spinning an 80's night at a club in Raleigh NC on Wednesdays and it was one of our biggest nights of the week.

I think it may have to deal with who you're talking with. Kid's my age were just not into retro stuff like myself (around 1996-2000).

I actually think kid's today have a better taste for retro stuff because they download music more freely and listen to a lot of different styles - in which we weren't exposed to a lot unless someone else introduced it to us.

I think it may have to deal with who you're talking with. Kid's my age were just not into retro stuff like myself (around 1996-2000).

I actually think kid's today have a better taste for retro stuff because they download music more freely and listen to a lot of different styles - in which we weren't exposed to a lot unless someone else introduced it to us.

That's true, yeah. I know you've said you were really into The Beatles during high school, right? I was too (I always also liked things from clearly before my time too) and that received mixed reactions among my friends and classmates, lol. It really is a variety with people around our age, like there's no clear cut answer what someone will like.

Without getting into the age-old discussion again of who can remember what year...;), I do think our peers are old enough to know the '80s fairly well (both as it happened, and secondhand in reruns or songs on the radio), but also could've likely become embarrased about liking them as they got older. I do see comments from kids/younger teens on YouTube nowadays quite a bit praising '80s and '90s music. So you're probably right that they have more choices to look stuff up if they wanted to.

   Seemed to me that the 80s got the most hate during the extreme end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s...

   Coming out of the decade, the nation collectively rolled it's eyes and sighed.  As for myself, I just wanted to forget it.  Not that it was bad, but it was just so ridiculous...

   Silly 80s... :)

I never noticed that.  Heck, alot of rap and dance songs in that time were sampling 80s songs
Puff Daddy and Will Smith were notorious for sampling the 80's during 1997-1998 especially Puffy. I think the 80's got the most hate in the mid 90's maybe when Grunge and Gangsta Rap was popular. I remember counting up the votes for what our prom song was going to be since I was class of 1998 and one kid on his vote card said that "Don;t Dream Its Over" "its 80's" and he voted for "Footloose" I think which is also 80's but he didn;t know that I don;t think. I think a song "Don;t Dream Its Over" by Crowded House even though the 80's were hated on in the 90's that song had a very good following throughout the 90's I think. "Don;t Dream Its Over" really didn;t have that typical 80's overproduced sound to it so thats probably why the song continued to have a good following throughout the 90's.

I don;t remember dance songs sampling the 80's in the late 90;s but I remember the big outrage after the grunge period had tied over the backlash that rappers were getting for sampling alot of 80's Pop/R&B songs in 1998. Rap along with R&B was very huge in 1998.

You really didn;t talk about the 80's when I was in High School because it just wasn't talked about. I;m sure the 70's got the treatment by people who went to High School in the mid to late 80's.

I didn't really notice that too much, even though I was pretty out of touch with the pop culture of that era. The backlash was more prevalent in the early to mid nineties (from my experience) because of grunge and hip hop.

I remember alot of people saying that the "80's sucked!" in the 90's. But now it seems like everyone looks back on them fondly.

Now people are saying the 90's suck, but I suspect in a few years, things will change....

I didn't really notice that too much, even though I was pretty out of touch with the pop culture of that era. The backlash was more prevalent in the early to mid nineties (from my experience) because of grunge and hip hop.


Yeah, it was probably twice that people hated them - first around 1991 (starting earlier actually), because they had just ended and people wanted to forget them. Then it happened again in the late '90s and very early '00s because they were noticeably starting to get "old", yet still a little bit too new for people to think about wanting them back.


XsiouxBoy, have you actually heard people trashing the '90s as a whole now? That's interesting, I thought everyone loved them, lol. From what I've seen, I think it's just the most extreme stuff that people might find silly. The current "cheesy period" is probably the 1997-2001 or so. Like I had a Backstreet Boys song on a mix CD recently, and one of my friends said to the effect of "My god dude, you're actually listening to this?" Whereas this guy loves classic rock and '80s music as well as current stuff.

I remember alot of people saying that the "80's sucked!" in the 90's. But now it seems like everyone looks back on them fondly.

Now people are saying the 90's suck, but I suspect in a few years, things will change....
Ah, the way I look at is the 90's had its share of bad music as well as good music as did the 80's.

I remember alot of people saying that the "80's sucked!" in the 90's. But now it seems like everyone looks back on them fondly.

Now people are saying the 90's suck, but I suspect in a few years, things will change....
Ah the 90's really didn;t backlashed at all in the 00's the way the 80's did in the 90's.

XsiouxBoy, have you actually heard people trashing the '90s as a whole now?

I've seen people on here saying the 90's sucked, and that they were boring.

I've seen people on here saying the 90's sucked, and that they were boring.


If you mean that one annoying MelTinpot guest, I wouldn't take it too seriously. ;D I think he was just trying to get a rise out of people. Like I've said, some people might laugh at extreme things from the '90s, but in general, everyone seems to really miss them, especially if you spent any of your childhood memories (age 3-12) back then.

Actually, I've often said the 90s sucked ;D

Grunge and Gangsta Rap really ruined what would have been my love for the 90s.  Movies, TV Shows, Dance Music, and those early 90s pop songs were good though

I remember 1997 or 1998 being when people often said things like "Eww, you like that?" when I would talk about some '80s bands or movies that I enjoyed. Not just people my age, but also even some 20somethings who were very much old enough for it the first time around acted kinda disgusted and thought I was a dork for my love of it, lol. Some things got dissed more than others, and it also depends on the person, but the decade just seemed to be thought of as a joke around then. I guess because they had gotten as old as they possibly could without people wanting them back. Anything around ten years ago seems to be like this.

Maybe the Internet and other early forms of digital technology getting popular also started shifting the lifestyle and entertainment away from what had been '80s standards up till that point (i.e. film cameras, audiotapes, VHS, old-school video games).

For example, malls seemed to really be getting less traffic. In early high school I used to go there on Friday nights sometimes to hang out, and while it wasn't deserted or anything, it also wasn't like a centralized hangout place, ala Fast Times at Ridgemont High. They still were pretty much unchanged from their initial Eighties layout in terms of stores and designs. I wonder if the big facelifts they got around 2002/'03 with lots of new shops and restaurants tacked on (usually out front, closer together and just more modernized looking) was because of that declining interest?



I was in Jr High School for the majority of this time period, and I remember alot of my friends and other students making fun of '80s music and fashions. I think part of that may be because most of us were exposed to it when we were growing up. Overall, I would say the '80s probably recieved the most hate in the peroid right after grunge really took of, and right before the Backstreet Boys and the other boy bands took of. Maybe between 1993 and 1996. Though there were stiill really hated in the late '90s as well.

I was in Jr High School for the majority of this time period, and I remember alot of my friends and other students making fun of '80s music and fashions. I think part of that may be because most of us were exposed to it when we were growing up. Overall, I would say the '80s probably recieved the most hate in the peroid right after grunge really took of, and right before the Backstreet Boys and the other boy bands took of. Maybe between 1993 and 1996. Though there were stiill really hated in the late '90s as well.


  Didn't the whole 80s revival thing begin around the mid 90s..?  People started to realize that the backlash aginst the pop culture of the 80s was more ridiculous than the pop culture of the 80s.  80s pop culture evolved naturally and was what it was.  Grunge was an innovation that was quickly cast aside because people grew weary of rebelling and, furthermore, could'nt remember what they were rebelling against...

 

   Didn't the whole 80s revival thing begin around the mid 90s..?  People started to realize that the backlash aginst the pop culture of the 80s was more ridiculous than the pop culture of the 80s.  80s pop culture evolved naturally and was what it was.  Grunge was an innovation that was quickly cast aside because people grew weary of rebelling and, furthermore, could'nt remember what they were rebelling against...

  


I know there's really no concrete answers to this stuff, but I'm guessing what you're thinking of was the very very first traces of it. There were movies in 1997 and '98 like Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, There's Something About Mary and The Wedding Singer. They were partially or fully set in the '80s, and really screamed it with the settings. I think this was more from older people who wrote and directed them, either they missed the era themselves or felt it was just long enough ago to have some "period pieces". As much as I love those movies, it didn't feel authentic. It was like they were trying too hard to shove the time period in your face with all the pop culture references. For movies I think 13 Going on 30 was a much better example because the time was just a backdrop to the full story.

However, it was at least 2002 before pieces of the '80s started coming back into the mainstream (i.e. Izod shirts and other brighter colored clothing, remakes of movies like Miami Vice, new wave and other Eighties-inspired rock bands...such as The Killers and Rooney). Anytime before would've been too early. I think a decade needs to have ended at least 12-15 years ago for it to be old enough to get totally revived in terms of fashions and music coming back, etc.

I know there's really no concrete answers to this stuff, but I'm guessing what you're thinking of was the very very first traces of it. There were movies in 1997 and '98 like Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, There's Something About Mary and The Wedding Singer. They were partially or fully set in the '80s, and really screamed it with the settings. I think this was more from older people who wrote and directed them, either they missed the era themselves or felt it was just long enough ago to have some "period pieces". As much as I love those movies, it didn't feel authentic. It was like they were trying too hard to shove the time period in your face with all the pop culture references. For movies I think 13 Going on 30 was a much better example because the time was just a backdrop to the full story.

However, it was at least 2002 before pieces of the '80s started coming back into the mainstream (i.e. Izod shirts and other brighter colored clothing, remakes of movies like Miami Vice, new wave and other Eighties-inspired rock bands...such as The Killers and Rooney). Anytime before would've been too early. I think a decade needs to have ended at least 12-15 years ago for it to be old enough to get totally revived in terms of fashions and music coming back, etc.



Yeah, these days it takes at least 10 years for decade to begin to be revived It wasn't until 2002(around the time that I Love The '80s first came out)that the '80s started to become "retro". I do agree with Davester to the point that there was a small amount of nostalgia for the '80s in the mid '90s, kinda like how you started to notice some '90s nostalgia begin around 2004/2005. 

At that point enough had changed so someone that grew up in the '80s and didn't like the grunge and gangsta rap culture of the '90s would start to miss there younger carefree day's in the '80s, even though it wasn't mainstream yet.

^ Yeah I think if you were a kid/very young teen at the time, it moves faster. Like a 17-year old could be warm and fuzzy for the time when they were 7.

I know there's really no concrete answers to this stuff, but I'm guessing what you're thinking of was the very very first traces of it.

  Concrete answers, definately not.  Decadeology is seriously subjective, but there are trends...

  I think it was the early 90s when I first heard what I used to listen to in high school, and call "heavy metal", being referred to as "hair metal" (read: uncool).  The whole Seattle scene phenomenon.  Douglas Coupland's Generation X with it's scathing social commentary -  I see all these as a big, fat slap in the 80s face.  If it's a slap in the 80s face, it's kind of a slap in the face to those who most strongly indentify with it.  Those in high school somewhere in the 80s were young adults when the 90s rolled around (20-30?).  I'm probably not alone in the sentiment that I was way too busy with "things" in the early 90s to be bothered with recapturing some of my 80s youth...

  Get into the mid-to-late 90s and I'm probably more settled - job, young family, etc.  I'm sitting on my fat, lazy butt feeling quite pleased with myself when the media tells me that the 80s are, once again, cool.  So I get my old favorite songs on a Chevrolet commercial, a contrived "period piece" as you call it, albums I've owned previously on every conceivable medium remastered and repackaged, TV specials on washed-up, has-been metal heros, internet messageboards, etc.  I'm pretty sure the 80s retro, uh, "thing" (not sure what else to call it) began, in earnest in the mid/late 90s...

  And the 80s weren't as cool as the media/marketing folks would like everyone to believe.  But that's also very subjective...
 

However, it was at least 2002 before pieces of the '80s started coming back into the mainstream (i.e. Izod shirts and other brighter colored clothing, remakes of movies like Miami Vice, new wave and other Eighties-inspired rock bands...such as The Killers and Rooney). Anytime before would've been too early. I think a decade needs to have ended at least 12-15 years ago for it to be old enough to get totally revived in terms of fashions and music coming back, etc.


  The 12-15 years, as far as trends, is probably right, but consider what Mr. Coupland himself writes about Legislated Nostalgia:

  "To force a body of people to have memories they do not actually possess: "How can I be a part of the 1960s generation when I don't even remember any of it?""

  The media and corporations will tell you when and what to revive, thank you very much..! ;D  This can easily get political, but I won't go there...

  Apologies if this posting is all over the place, I'm a cherry comes to decadeology groove ;) on...

 

^ Those are good points actually, I never quite thought about it that way before. If we're talking about which time is being revived in the mainstream, I think it boils down to whoever is in a position of power to influence the media. I think I get what you mean in a personal sense about moving on from the '80s with personal things in life, then starting to want to revisit them c. 1997 or so. I wonder if that's one reason movies like The Wedding Singer were released and became popular around then.