I was a kid in the 80's and of course I remember it, but I remember mainly the toys. The 80's seem to be more "I miss..." than any other period.
I guess I'm asking those who grew up in both the 70's and 80's what they think made the decade so memorable.
I'm erasing you and I'm happy!
Pre-internet and most great technologies today, had their infancies in the 80s.
Video games, movies and music just had an epic feel to them. Innocence as a kid. Hanging out with your friends, all day with little to no supervision, you could get into some minor mischief without fear of being shot or arrested. I was born in 80, but the 80s were awesome for me. Transformers, GI Joe, original nintendo, Contra, Zelda, Tecmo Bowl.
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Is this Idaho? Because I will not limbo in Idaho.
Pre-internet and most great technologies today, had their infancies in the 80s.
Video games, movies and music just had an epic feel to them. Innocence as a kid. Hanging out with your friends, all day with little to no supervision, you could get into some minor mischief without fear of being shot or arrested. I was born in 80, but the 80s were awesome for me. Transformers, GI Joe, original nintendo, Contra, Zelda, Tecmo Bowl.
The movies, the tv shows, the music, the fun, the ability to be let out all day as a kid and not be scared of rapists and pedos everywhere.
shareAren't you really talking about the 50's? By the 80s, there were pedos and rapists galore in neighborhoods. And drive-by shootings, too. And gang violence. And that's when video games took hold, and kids STOPPED going outside to play.
shareI didn't grow up in the 70s or 80s but I'll answer anyway. I was born in the 60s.
What I remember most and love about the 80s was the family tv shows, the music and the fashion. The Golden Girls was one my favorite tv shows in the 80s along with The Cosby Show. I have always love country music so I enjoyed Dolly Parton. Anyone remember the specials she did with Kenny Rogers? He was sexy then and still is even though he is up there.
~ Whoever said diamonds were a girls best friend never owned a dog ~
I was born in the 70s, was a teenager in the 80s.
There is nothing specifically cool about both eras.
Of course there is the stuff EVERY generation likes to remember with a nostaglic tear in their eyes, the music, entertainment, toys, etc.
We love those because we remember them from when we first became interested in them or when they meant the most to us.
But they weren't that great or at least not much better than what came before or after.
I do remember that I hated the way everything, yes everything, looked.
Fashion, design, architecture, I actually noticed how ugly everything was as a child.
I had purple curtains with brown and orange flowers and even as a toddler I felt that those had to go.
Neither decade was very visually pleasing.
But we had drugs, terrorism and to top them all; the constant threat of the Nuclear Armageddon.
It didn't feel like a golden era, not a time of optimism or progress, nothing like the roaring 20s, the Fin de siècle, not the rock 'n roll fifties, or the swinging sixties.
So besides those few cool nostalgic memories, I really don't like those decades much and have no love for them.
Give me a time machine and none of the last say 50 years would be even anywhere near the list of times I want to go visit.
Definitely the toys! Especially the Star Wars toys and the WWF figures of the mid-80's (the big rubber ones).
The cars. Trans Ams, Corvettes, Ford Broncos!
The movies and TV shows. Goonies, BTTF, Indy Jones. A-Team, Knight Rider, sit-coms.
The music. Big hair, loud music.
Ronald Reagan. God Bless America.
Safety. The fact that we could head out the door in the morning, and not have to be back until dinner time. If we were hungry for lunch, probably ate a friends house, or they ate at your house. No need for cell phones, if you wanted to find your friends, ride your bike down the street-the house with five bikes thrown on the lawn in front is where your friends were at. We'd ride our bikes everywhere, even blaze trails through the woods. We'd have tree-forts, climb trees, fall out of trees. If you and one of your friends had a disagreement, sometimes you'd slug it out. No one got there 'feelings' hurt, you'd shake hands and move on with life most of the time.
Safety? I remember the 80s for a lot of saber-rattling with the Soviet Union and talk about nuclear war. We heard about it every day! All of that came about when Reagan was president. There was also the rise of the "Moral Majority" under Reagan's administration that began pushing for prayer in public schools, and let's not forget the AIDS crisis and Reagan's complete ignorance of the issue, while millions were dying.
And you say, "God Bless America?" My word. Yep, He blessed us, all right.
he fact that we could head out the door in the morning, and not have to be back until dinner time. If we were hungry for lunch, probably ate a friends house, or they ate at your house. No need for cell phones, if you wanted to find your friends, ride your bike down the street-the house with five bikes thrown on the lawn in front is where your friends were at. We'd ride our bikes everywhere, even blaze trails through the woods. We'd have tree-forts, climb trees, fall out of trees. If you and one of your friends had a disagreement, sometimes you'd slug it out. No one got there 'feelings' hurt, you'd shake hands and move on with life most of the time.
Ohhh....kkkkk.... Hey if you if you joined gangs and did drugs, that's great. But the 80's for me is just like I described it. Threat of nuclear war with Russia was around since the 50's, it didn't pop up overnight in the 80's. Sorry your childhood sucked so bad, but mine was pretty good.
shareThreat of nuclear war started in the 40s, accelerated in the 50s, and pretty much stopped in the 60s and 70s. It wasn't until Reagan became president that it started up again. Don't you remember "The Day After?" And "War Games?" Why do you think movies like that were so popular in the 80s? It wasn't because we were friendly with the USSR. Reagan made the Cold War hot, and the wind wasn't taken out of his sails until Samantha Smith went over to Russia and made him look like a Red-baiting fool.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/?ref_=nv_sr_2
My childhood didn't suck, but I'm a realist who hasn't sugar-coated it. My peers in the 80s, all teens, partied, smoke dope, and banged their girlfriends. And by sophomore year, most of them were drinking. The childhood you described was like something out of the Andy Griffith Show...the idyllic, "let's ride our bikes into the sunset" scenario had died long before 1980 rolled around.
I guess I'm asking those who grew up in both the 70's and 80's what they think made the decade so memorable.