Other decades have their stereotypes. The 1920’s (Roaring Twenties) is associated with partay-time, loosening of social rules, and widespread lawlessness. The 1930’s is associated with frugality and economic trauma.
It’s been over 20 years since the 80’s and over 10 years since the 90’s. In a nutshell, how could you give a compact, witty description of those decades? In another fifty years, when teachers talk about the 1990’s to eager young kids, how will they summarize it?
The Cosby Show, morphing into The Simpsons, with the note that the latter was more realistic.
80s were the ME decade
90s had Pearl Jam!
In addition to the 80’s being the ‘me’ decade, I think one thing that makes them noteworthy is that’s when really amazing technology started to become available to the average person.
Looking back at tv shows or movies from that decade, I get a sense of ‘Wow, check out where we’re at!’
I think one line sums it up, I believe it was from a Gallagher special I saw not too long ago, and he said something like ‘C’mon! It’s the 80’s man!’
But hey, I was in grade school then, so what do I know 
eta I think the 90’s were a little bland.
80s: big hair and spandex.
The 80’s had a lot of stuff. The Cold War and then the fall of the Soviet Union at the end had lots of influences. Video games became popular with the masses. Greed was good in certain circles. Tastes in fashion and music were questionable at best.
The 90’s weren’t so distinctive except for the internet boom in the latter half and the emergence of alternative rock.
1920s: I thought alcohol was illegal :rolleyes:
1990s: Nickelodeon
2000s: increased social isolation, facebook, HDTV, cell phones
The advent of the personal computer.
Assuming electricity is still around in fifty years, that will probably be held as the most important event of either decade.
I have to say that the central theme of both decades was the tearing down of the Berlin wall and the end of the Cold War. In the Eighties we lived under the threat of Nuclear War, the Russians tanks coming through the Fulda Gap and proxy wars in Asia, Africa and the Americas. The Nineties ended that in just moments. I think the enduring image of that is the pictures of people tearing the wall down with hand tools, I never understood why they didn’t wait for power tools to arrive(which soon did) until I went to Berlin, it is hard to describe but imagine a barrier going up randomly in your neighborhood, zig zagging all over the place including the water(Berlin has an extensive river and canal system) with no rhyme or reason. Suddenly you cant go to your cousins house and he lives two blocks away and if you try you will be shot. The really odd thing is the former East Berlin is the hipster part of town, and the US has a beautiful new embassy there. IMHO
80’s. Lots of pastel and really bad hair.
In the 80s, pro wrestling peaked and died, and this modern “Sports Entertainment” crap took its place.
i think the 90s will likely be remembered for the explosive expansion in the use of the internets. in the very early 90s, we had prodigy and i knew a few other people who had modems, and by the end of the decade i could find information on most any topic within a few seconds. and after going away to school, i was sad that it took a few seconds and that my parents hadn’t yet moved beyond a modem. ebay, yahoo, amazon, email outpacing the postal service, and just a general explosion in computing power. i’m a nerd, but that’s the 90s to me.
I think the '80s could be typified by conspicuous consumerism. Brands were huge: you wore Guess or you were nothing, we all drank Coke or Pepsi and everyone knew what Michael Jackson or Madonna were doing. Like David Lee Roth (supposedly) said: “The hair smiled and the clothes smiled.” There was this weird material optimism; everything was neon ebullience and glowing and just popped. We had stuff and could buy stuff and we were gonna, consequences be damned.
The '90s toned that all down. Optimism and the “go fuck yourself” vibe gave way to almost goth-like introversion. Everyone became rather contemptuous of brands and “stuff” and consumerism and rebelled against it, going their own “alternative” way (never mind that it was still the same way everyone else was going anyway). We got jaded.
Yeah, I guess the 90s could be the DotCom decade …
I recall the mid 90s had a lot of bandwagon jumping on with regards to Alt Rock.
For the 00s, I’d think of The War On Terror.
The 80s had some big Pop Music and even bigger hair.
It’s the consumerism mentality that helped define the 80s: Reaganomics, Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is good” philosophy, a lot of young college age people were going into accounting and marketing. It was literally a “neat” decade: guys wore jackets and ties, girls often (but not always) wore skirts. Big hair and big makeup reigned.
All that changed in the 90s with grunge and alternative music, which was a backlash toward the 80s. And of course the WWW as has been mentioned. Dotcoms were going to change the world, all but eliminating brick and mortar stores “within 5 years” as I remember hearing around 1998.
The ever increasing power (and worship) of the wealthy and the religious fanatics, continuing until the present day.
(em added)
For other decades the latter half tends to define the popular nostalgic perception. So I have no problem thinking of the 90s as the internet boom era.
While I wasn’t alive during the 80s, I agree with Red Shirt on that one: I see it as the time the Republicans alighted on the exploitation of religious sentiment while simultaneously training people to kill religious fundamentalists in the School of the Americas, of apartheid in South Africa and unemployment in Britain… The music doesn’t factor into it for me, though it is a much more bipartisan view.
80’s: new wave music, punk rock haircuts, rubics cubes. Popularization of the Microwave and VCR. Ronald Reagan.
90’s: Not so sure.