Just ran across this on Youtube.
If you remember the 80’s this is for you.
Link safe for work but watch the volume of course.
If you survived the 80’s then you don’t need to see the video. If you didn’t survive the 80’s then the video won’t make much sense.
:20 mark, wow, how racist. I demand this video be abolished from the internets.
I survived the 80’s, therefore, do not have computer skills to watch The You Tube.
The 70s were an embarrassment. The 90s were a bland empty decade. The 80s were my teenage years, and therefore the best.
No, no, you got it wrong. The 80s were an embarrassment, the 00s were a bland empty decade. The 90s were MY teenage years, and therefore the best.
I thought I survived the 80s but now I’m traumatized by flashbacks.
Vid-Fail!
Any video that fails to reference Freddy Kruger may NOT be referred to as the quintessential 80’s video.
Of the 4.5 decades I’ve experienced in full, the 80s were the most vapid. In fact, a good part of the 90s was spent recovering from and expunging the 80s.
I know it’s just a stupid video, but with all the pop culture stuff it seems odd to leave out Madonna and Springsteen.
Yeah, the linked vid is pretty much a cavalcade of everything terrible in the 80’s. Folks, if it’s in that song, I’d avoid it if I were you.
The only thing to miss about the 80s was that it was the last decade where teenagers were treated like fledgling adults, instead in infantilzed, and treated pretty much no differently from children. That began in the 90s, and has just gotten worse through the 21st century.
I think the 80s had the first generation of small children who had helicopter parents, although they were in the minority; but by 2000, they were taking over, and parents who’d raised their young children that way were not ready to give them any independence when they reached adolescence.
Yes, I realize there are exceptions, and probably Straight Dope parents has more than usual (I’m no helicopter parent). But I’m talking about society, not individual parents.
I enjoyed the 60’s as much as possible, considering I was young and lived with a dysfunctional family. How I wished I could run off to San Francisco with flowers in my hair!.. The 70’s were not kind to me, though there were good moments late in the decade, as I started serious relationships and we had some fun times… I loved loved loved the 80’s! Though late in the 80’s I became a mother and lost touch with popular culture for quite a while. In the 90’s thanks to my child and her friends, I briefly got a glimpse of that popular culture again… Now in the 00’s, I pretty much don’t know or care about Kardashians, Kanyes, Beyonces, etc. I am flummoxed as to what is considered a celebrity or a talent nowadays, so get off my lawn!
Indeed, I’m glad someone caught the factual error above.
I thought Mork and Mindy was a 70s show.
So was Love Boat.
Main things I miss about the 80’s was the pop culture and arcades, sure they’re still around in select places but nothing like the neon dim lit rooms they used to be. Most everything else kind of sucked, from cheesy shows like HeeHaw to small size TV screens with limited channels. If you weren’t rich, it was easy to get bored without all the entertainment mediums we have today. I guess that’s why teens back then hanged out at the mall?
I believe you’re right, as a child of the 80’s, I had a helicopter mom and raised only by her with no siblings. Although I turned out to be a complete opposite of what some would think a child brought up like that would be like. I’m a complete hardass, competitive and taught myself all the stuff that a father normally would right down to knowing how to build a car from the frame up and was very independent type from around age 12 or 13.
Likewise I’ve known guys that had siblings, both parents that didn’t hover them and still turned out to be momma’s boys that can’t do anything for themselves nor even wiling to try. Greatest personal example is my stepson, aside from his dad being a bit of a dick, his parents were far from the hovering type and he lacks any work ethics, whines and can’t even make a simple phone call without asking mommy for help.
I honestly don’t think being a helicopter parent plays as large of a role in how children develop than most think. Their personalities will come through regardless.
Post Traumatic Decade Disorder.
I think how society at large regards your age cohort is pretty important. Even if you try to go against the grain, the way society is directing children in general will touch your children. All the women who tried to raise their children without gender roles in the 60s learned that. Likewise, all the parents who tried to raise very conformist children in the 70s learned that you can’t when there’s nothing left to conform to.
Now we have parents who want to let their 10-year-olds take the bus alone (something that was perfectly normal when I was 10 in 1977) having people call the police about their abandoned children.
I enjoyed the 80s because the culture was so diverse, much was experimental which led to it being either fantastically brilliant or terribly awful. MTV was launched with Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Duran Duran, Prince, and Madonna, you had new wave and synthpop, house, goth, and rap metal, the keyboard synthesizer and drum machine in new wave music, hard rock, heavy metal, and glam metal with new bands like Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Poison, Europe, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, more success for AC/DC, Heart, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Queen, Van Halen, KISS, Ronnie James Dio, Judas Priest…
By 1989, hip hop with The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Run-D.M.C., Grandmaster Flash, N.W.A, LL Cool J, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Ice-T, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, 2 Live Crew, the Jungle Brothers, The Sugar Hill Gang…
Techno and House emerged…
Punk rock, hardcore, straight edge, college rock, the Pixies, R.E.M., The Replacements, Sonic Youth, XTC, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, The Jesus and Mary Chain, grunge from Soundgarden, Green River, Melvins, Screaming Trees, Skin Yard, Blood Circus, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone and Alice in Chains…
Live Aid, Airwolf, The A-Team, The Incredible Hulk, The Dukes of Hazzard, Diff’rent Strokes, Dynasty, Dallas, Knight Rider, Taxi, Happy Days, St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law, Magnum, P.I., MAS*H, Mork & Mindy, Miami Vice, Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, The Cosby Show, Murder, She Wrote, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Wonder Years, Coach, Quantum Leap, Saved by the Bell, Roseanne, The Golden Girls, Cheers, Benson, Soap, Family Ties, The Simpsons, Married… with Children, and Moonlighting…
Also the Fall of the Berlin Wall, democracy in Argentina (1983), Uruguay (1985), Brazil (1985–8) and Chile (1989), end of the Cold War, arcade games, Halley’s Comet, the DeLorean DMC-12…
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Return of the Jedi, The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Batman, Rain Man, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Top Gun, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, “Crocodile” Dundee, Fatal Attraction, Beverly Hills Cop, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Amadeus, Platoon, Rain Man, The Breakfast Club, Porky’s, Pretty In Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Weird Science, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Dirty Dancing, Flashdance, Footloose, Raging Bull and St. Elmo’s Fire…
It wasn’t all great and it wasn’t all bad.
Don’t forget Rain Man.