# 30 years ago now versus 30 years ago 30 years ago **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 14, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612 "2011-01-14T16:51:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/21 "2011-01-15T04:29:05Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > Huh? Neither I, nor nobody I ever knew, nor nobody I ever saw ever carried books with a belt (except in newspaper cartoons). Where the heck did you get this idea from? > > (However, we DID have lunchboxes) I didn’t know anyone who carried books with a belt exactly- but lots of people in the 60s and 70s carried books that were strapped together with an elastic strap. Only a few girls had book bags and there was a weird kid or two who carried an old fashioned, hard -sided briefcase. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/22 "2011-01-15T04:38:42Z")
Without disagreeing with many of the points and examples given, I think the basic dynamic affecting our perceptions in this thread is that most of us have lived through and been aware of the last thirty years, and not so many of us all of the previous thirty, too. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > On the other hand, for those of us who’ve experienced the internet revolution as a gradual thing, it’s probably impossible to imagine how disconnected today’s 13-year-old would feel in 1980. And conversely, how confined and regimented 1980’s kid might feel today. > [@monstro](#): > > Kids played freely in the streets, their parents none the wiser. In one episode of Leave It To Beaver, June casually asks Ward where the Beaver is, since she hasn’t seen him all day. Ward shrugs and asks Wally if he knows, and he doesn’t. Everyone seems just as calm and relaxed as ever. Nowadays, Beaver would be on Amber Alert and June would be on the six o’clock news, crying about her kidnapped 8-year-old baby. **monstro** is talking about '50s kids, but I played that way in the late '70s and early '80s. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/23 "2011-01-15T05:25:43Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > In one episode of Leave It To Beaver, June casually asks Ward where the Beaver is, since she hasn’t seen him all day. > > Nowadays, Beaver would be on Amber Alert and June would be on the six o’clock news, crying about her kidnapped 8-year-old baby. > . Amazing! ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/24 "2011-01-15T05:27:30Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I hope that title is concise enough 🙂 > > I was just pondering on this while watching a repeat of _Back to the Future_ (still one of my favourite films) the other day. > > So would a Marty McFly from 2011 suffer more or less culture shock in going back to 1981 than the original did from 1985 to 1955? You know what’s weird? I had this _exact_ question in mind a few weeks ago, also while watching Back to the Future. Great minds, and all that. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/25 "2011-01-15T06:18:15Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Between the 50s and the 80s was the 60s, when the country was turned upside down. Of course “the 60s” really means the late 60s and early 70s. This. I remember the 50s, and when I look back at the years I’ve been alive, it looks like: Pre-60s. 60s. Post-60s. Everything changed in the 60s, and it was those changes that ignited all the changes since then. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/26 "2011-01-15T06:31:55Z")
I was thinking this the other day: The Vietnam War is now further in the past than World War 2 was when I was born (1972). That is _crazy_. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/27 "2011-01-15T14:37:15Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > I was thinking this the other day: The Vietnam War is now further in the past than World War 2 was when I was born (1972). > > That is _crazy_. When I was a kid, Star Trek(the original) seemed like an old TV show. We are now further from Next Generation(which seemed “new” to me) than we were from the original back then. I still think of the original series as “old” and next generation as “new”. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/28 "2011-01-15T16:15:57Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Without disagreeing with many of the points and examples given, I think the basic dynamic affecting our perceptions in this thread is that most of us have lived through and been aware of the last thirty years, and not so many of us all of the previous thirty, too. > > And conversely, how confined and regimented 1980’s kid might feel today. > > **monstro** is talking about '50s kids, but I played that way in the late '70s and early '80s. That is true. Gen Xers were definitely more independent and downright ignored in childhood than the youngsters today. Parents won’t let their kids play outside lest they get kidnapped like the latest Nancy Grace victim did. I overheard a coworker say the other day that there was no way she’d let her 14-year-old neice walk around in her neighborhood, because she’s too naive and pretty. Back in the 80s, my 14-year-old sister was dragging her six-year-old twin sisters all around Atlanta on MARTA, to hang out at various malls and watch various R rated movies. As long as we came home before nightfall it was all good. So a 2015 Marty would find that weird, if he had time to notice. One thing that a 2015 Marty might find jarring would be the lack of “black music” in pop music. We had Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and a little later on Janet Jackson. Who else? Hip hop didn’t cross over fully into the 90s. Michael Jackson was the only black performer they allowed on MTV for the longest time. TV would have been even weirder. Cable wasn’t as widespread (my own family didn’t get it until the 90s). No reality shows, for sure. Sitcoms were much tamer than they are now…much more family based. Growing Pains, Who’s the Boss, Benson, Mr. Belvidere, Family Ties, The Cosby Show, Alf…all of these shows were centered on the nuclear family. Now sitcoms are more centered around the workplace or friendships, it seems. There aren’t even a whole bunch of kid actors around. Another thing 2015 Marty would find weird: the smallness of everything. Houses have expanded into McMansions, cars have bloated into SUVs, people are fatter, size portions are larger, and even TV’s have a serious case of elephantitis. I remember watching TV on a little black-and-white set (do those even exist anymore?) that didn’t come with a remote and actually had knobs. It wasn’t in the living room, to be sure, but it was in the kitchen. 2015 Marty would find the existence of a black-and-white TV set just straight up weird. Besides attitudes towards homosexuality and the use of politically correct language, the mores of 2015 and the 1980s are not _that_ different. I mean, a black 2015 Marty could walk down the street in the 80s and not expect harrassment just like today. He could not have that expectation in the 1950s, however. Racial enlightenment has changed from the 80s to now, but it’s nowhere close to the revolutionary leap that happened from the 1950s to the 80s. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/29 "2011-01-15T16:59:11Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > One thing that a 2015 Marty might find jarring would be the lack of “black music” in pop music. We had Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and a little later on Janet Jackson. Who else? Hip hop didn’t cross over fully into the 90s. Michael Jackson was the only black performer they allowed on MTV for the longest time. This probably would seem weird to him – it seems weird to me, and I can at least vaguely remember those days myself! Before Michael Jackson’s death it might have seemed weird to a future Marty that a performer who’d been treated as a punch line for years was really so popular, but I think since Jackson’s death a modern teenager probably would have heard more about Jackson’s impact. > [@](#): > > TV would have been even weirder. Cable wasn’t as widespread (my own family didn’t get it until the 90s). No reality shows, for sure. Sitcoms were much tamer than they are now…much more family based. Growing Pains, Who’s the Boss, Benson, Mr. Belvidere, Family Ties, The Cosby Show, Alf…all of these shows were centered on the nuclear family. Now sitcoms are more centered around the workplace or friendships, it seems. There aren’t even a whole bunch of kid actors around. Now this I disagree with, because 2015 Marty is likely very familiar with reruns of '80s sitcoms. Even 1985 Marty was familiar with TV shows of the '50s, and if anything there’s probably more opportunity for a kid now to watch old shows than there was in the '80s. He wouldn’t have seen _every_ '80s show, but according to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programs_broadcast_by_TV_Land) both _Benson_ and _The Cosby Show_ have aired on TV Land within the past few years, and they’re not the only cable channel showing reruns of '80s shows. And if 2015 Marty felt like watching a workplace or friendship/non-traditional family sitcoms in 1985 then they were available, e.g. _Cheers_ and _Night Court_, or _The Golden Girls_ and _Kate & Allie_. I don’t think the lack of reality shows would seem especially weird either. Someone from 1985 who was transported forward in time might well be shocked that there were so many shows about “regular” people, and that these people were willing to have their private lives broadcast nationwide, but I don’t think 2015 Marty would be going “OMG, there are no reality shows!” I’m also pretty sure my family had cable in 1985 or close to it, and we weren’t particularly well off – at that time my father was in the military and my mother was a stay at home mom. Of course, cable in 1985 offered far fewer channels than you’d normally get today. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/30 "2011-01-15T17:47:55Z")
This is somewhat tangential to the topic. I watched _Blade Runner_ for the first time last week. Made in 1982, set in 2019 (I think). Beautiful film… design and art direction stunning. Fascinating how the prediction of the future was so off. Hover cars in Los Angeles? Zillion-story buildings? But two of the major definers of our everyday lives were missing: the internet and cell phones. Harrison Ford talks to a sort of computer that looks like a 1950’s small screen TV, and he stops to use pay phones (or something that looks like a pay phone). I’m not criticizing BR’s picture of the future or the writers’ conception of 2019… it’s just interesting that when the future gets here, it’s not all THAT, well… _futuristic_, and yet in some ways it’s way beyond what people imagined. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/31 "2011-01-15T17:55:21Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Hover cars in Los Angeles? Zillion-story buildings? Not to mention major “off-world colonies” to which huge numbers are evidently emigrating. And of course the replicants themselves, by far the biggest technological leap imagined. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/32 "2011-01-15T18:06:29Z")
_Blade Runner_ did correctly predict video billboards, though. Thinking of Philip K. Dick, when I read _Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said_ (1974) I was amused that this was set in a future world where flying cars were common but people still listened to LPs. And not audiophiles either, that was depicted as the standard format for music albums. Then again, the “future world” of this book was specified as 1988. While there definitely were not flying cars in 1988, LPs were in common use and IIRC still more popular than CDs. ---
**Author:** ![Arjuna34](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Arjuna34](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arjuna34)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/33 "2011-01-15T18:23:09Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I don’t think the lack of reality shows would seem especially weird either. Someone from 1985 who was transported forward in time might well be shocked that there were so many shows about “regular” people, and that these people were willing to have their private lives broadcast nationwide, but I don’t think 2015 Marty would be going “OMG, there are no reality shows!” > . Agreed, and even the reality TV concept wasn’t completely new in 1985. I remember watching [Real People](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_People) at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/34 "2011-01-15T18:25:52Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > This. I remember the 50s, and when I look back at the years I’ve been alive, it looks like: > > Pre-60s. > 60s. > Post-60s. > > Everything changed in the 60s, and it was those changes that ignited all the changes since then. This is the way I see it. The only major social changes that happened since the 80’s, that weren’t started in the 60’s, were gay rights and maybe rights for disabled people. There were social changes from decade to decade, but nothing as big as the shift from the start of the 60’s to 1970. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/35 "2011-01-15T19:00:28Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > Uhhh, What the heck are you talking about? > > NONE! of those things you mentioned were happening in the 1980’s, nor are they happening today. No, they happened _between_ the 1950s and the 1980s, and are among the main reasons why the 1980s were so different from the 1950s. Major social upheavals. There hasn’t really been anything comparable between the 1980s and the 2010s, apart from the “connectedness” of everybody. **Lamia** made the point about trying to remember life pre-internet. I didn’t use the internet at all until I was 17, and didn’t have internet access at home (or a mobile phone) until I was 22, so my teenage years were effectively “non-wired”. Yet I find it hard to recall what that was like. Want to know what’s on at the cinema tonight? Phone up and listen to a recorded announcement. I can’t remember whether any places had automated booking in those days but I seem to recall having to speak to _a real person!!!_ to book tickets in some cases, or just get to the cinema early and hope it hadn’t sold out. Want to phone a friend without the parents earwigging? Walk down to the phone box and hope it was one of your friends whose parents had an _upstairs extension_ on their phone (oh the luxury!). And as for trying to organise a night out… endless phone calls, “OK now you call A and B and I’ll phone X, Y and Z”, arranging meeting points etc. [QUOTE=Ogre] I was thinking this the other day: The Vietnam War is now further in the past than World War 2 was when I was born (1972). That is crazy. [/quote] 9/11 is further in the past now than the _first moon landing_ was when I was born. _That_ is crazy. ---
**Author:** ![heathen\_earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/13edae/32.png) [@heathen\_earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heathen_earthling)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/36 "2011-01-15T19:22:39Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > One thing that a 2015 Marty might find jarring would be the lack of “black music” in pop music. We had Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and a little later on Janet Jackson. Who else? Hip hop didn’t cross over fully into the 90s. Michael Jackson was the only black performer they allowed on MTV for the longest time. On the other hand, many styles of popular music in the '10s did exist somewhere in the mid-'80s. They had hip-hop (even if it wasn’t mainstream yet), electronic pop and dance music, rock, punk, post-punk/indie, metal, etc. Most popular music styles of the '80s didn’t exist at all in the '50s. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/37 "2011-01-15T19:37:33Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > When I was a kid, Star Trek(the original) seemed like an old TV show. We are now further from Next Generation(which seemed “new” to me) than we were from the original back then. > > I still think of the original series as “old” and next generation as “new”. To me TNG has dated far worse than TOS ever did. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/38 "2011-01-15T19:39:13Z")
Although 1985 was well past the “duck and cover” days, it might seem very strange for 2015 Marty to find himself living during the Cold War. I think hearing news about what the Soviets were up to would really make 2015 Marty feel like he was back in history. If he happened to hear much about the Soviet War in Afghanistan he might really have a “WTF?” moment: “We’ve been _helping_ the Afghan rebels?” It’s my recollection that back in the '90s our American history classes didn’t cover much past the end of WWII, so I could believe that a teen from 2015 wouldn’t even be sure when the Berlin Wall fell or the Soviet Union collapsed. He might be genuinely surprised to find that in 1985 these events hadn’t yet occurred. How did Americans feel about Japanese cars in 1985? IIRC by the late '80s there was a lot of concern and anger about how the Japanese were beating us on those fronts. I don’t remember if this was as big of a deal in 1985 though, or if a lot of people then still felt like Japanese cars were dinky little things that couldn’t possibly compete with “real” American cars now that the 1970s gas crises were over. Either way, 2015 Marty is going to have an interesting perspective on the issue of American vs. Japanese automobile manufacturers. On another note, judging by what I see undergrads wearing these days, many elements of 1980s fashion probably won’t seem all that dated to 2015 Marty. By 2015 the retro ‘80s styles I see today may be several years out of fashion, but Marty would remember things like skinny jeans, leggings, and popped-collar polo shirts from his own middle school days and not just his parents’ old photos. 1980s hair would probably give him plenty of amusement, though. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/39 "2011-01-15T21:11:05Z")
I was going to post this exact thread. I was born in 1976 and wondered if my perception made me feeling this way as well. I would think that a 2011 teenager dropped into 1981 wouldn’t be out of place much at all. Maybe be lost without internet search tools or having to use pay phones, but nothing like the stark differences between the 80s and the 50s. I can’t imagine someone in 1981 being SHOCKED at the idea of a black President. Maybe surprised, but Jesse Jackson ran for President in 1984. Then while watching BTTF 2 it amazes me how every future prediction seems to get basic ideas right, but completely missed the avenue in which they are provided. Like how fax machines are located in every room of the house. They got the idea that communication would be everywhere, but couldn’t take the next step and see that maybe we didn’t need paper copies of everything. ---
**Author:** ![VernWinterbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c67d28/32.png) [@VernWinterbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VernWinterbottom)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612/40 "2011-01-15T21:34:13Z")
The Sixties Divide is a big one. I was born in 1958. My wife was born in 1968. My childhood years were much more similar to my parents’ childhoods in the '40s, than my wife’s childhood is to mine just ten years before her. My parents and I share: three channels of (often fuzzy) B&W TV, mostly B&W childhood photos, no home video recording or playing of any kind, one rotary dial phone in the house, few sit-down restaurants which were virtually all family operated and for special occasions only, a couple of locally-owned burger or pizza places where teens hung out, many neigborhood markets often with their own butchers and bakers, two or three big mail order catalog companies, busy “downtowns,” one car in the family which dad took to work, and many other similarities of lifestyle. Ten years younger than I, my wife childhood included color TV, cable channels, VCRs, many more franchise restaurants and much more eating away from home, big box stores, malls, two cars in the family, credit cards, and many other things that were not part of my childhood. And we both grew up in the same hometown. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-ago-now-versus-30-years-ago-30-years-ago/567612.md?page=3)