# What were the 80s like? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 6, 2017, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671 "2017-12-06T00:19:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/81 "2017-12-07T17:28:53Z")
I was born in 1970, so I was a teenager in the 80’s. One thing I’ve noticed is that I had a lot more freedom than teens of today have. Conscientious parents today can basically be aware of their kids’ whereabouts at all times, thanks to cell phone GPS and all that. And even in the absence of GPS, a parent can call her teen son or daughter today and reasonably expect him or her to answer the phone. In my day, my parents had to take my word for it on where I was, and I was expected to call them if I planned to be somewhere other than where they expected me. Bottom line: I was downright feral compared to kids these days. Also, sex was a lot more free-wheeling then than it was now. AIDS was only just beginning to turn casual sex into a death sentence when I came of age sexually; nowadays, between the need for express, written consent and the ever-present specter of STD’s, I’d be surprised if teenagers weren’t just too scared to have sex with each other. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/82 "2017-12-07T17:41:42Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > By the end of the 80s, it was fairly common to watch educational programs in the classroom on video tape. At the beginning of the 80s, video and still images were shown to students on [reel-to-reel movie film projectors,](https://www.google.com/search?q=classroom+movie+film+projector&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi99sXbsvjXAhVDmuAKHWSkAMUQsAQIYg&biw=1264&bih=873#imgrc=GPnIw5s3Pph0lM:) or on [still-frame filmstrip projectors,](https://www.google.com/search?biw=1264&bih=873&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=fHYpWrv-I6K1ggfM7YTgBA&q=filmstrip+projector&oq=filmstrip+projector&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0j0i24k1.52323.55230.0.55494.11.10.1.0.0.0.128.855.3j5.8.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..3.7.653...0i67k1j0i13k1j0i7i30k1.0.ZGE38hEa9oU) which were often accompanied by an audio tape. Ah, which reminds me, we were also towards the end of [“dittos”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator) before photocopying became ubiquitous and affordable. I remember getting those blue/purple-inked dittos into the mid-80s at grammar school. Related would be the ubiquity of carbon copies, but that still seems to exist here and there. Same with dot-matrix printers. I still go to a mechanic that uses both dot-matrix and carbon copies for his receipts. ---
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/83 "2017-12-07T17:47:16Z")
Born in 1975. We lived under the constant threat of nuclear war through my elementary school years. Duck and cover drills were a thing. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/84 "2017-12-07T18:04:11Z")
> [@snoe](#): > > Born in 1975. We lived under the constant threat of nuclear war through my elementary school years. Duck and cover drills were a thing. We had those drills in the 60s, but by the 70s the schools I went to had discontinued them. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/85 "2017-12-07T18:30:30Z")
Corporate email service became commonplace in the late 1990s. People in the workplace nowadays are familiar with office humor being passed around via email - written jokes, comical images, and so on. in the 1980s, corporate email was virtually unheard of. Office humor was exchanged via hardcopies that got passed around within the office, and then transmitted to other offices by fax - or, if you were in a dual-income household, sometimes you passed hardcopies to your spouse, who would then bring them to his/her workplace. In many urban areas, [bicycle couriers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_messenger) were pretty common for ferrying documents and small parcels across town. You could transmit original documents this way, as well as documents that couldn’t be easily faxed (e.g. architectural drawings), and bicycles could cut through gridlocked traffic more easily than a UPS truck. With the advent of email/internet, bicycle couriers these days are considerably less common, but not gone altogether. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/86 "2017-12-07T18:59:35Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > [VCRs were the origin of the “Blinking Twelve” problem.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinking_twelve_problem) If you were a kid in the '80s, you probably could figure out how to set the clock on the front of the VCR. If you were middle-aged or beyond, with no kids at your disposal, chances are the clock on your VCR just blinked “12:00 AM” nonstop because you couldn’t figure out how to set it. I forgot how many VCRs I setup for people, set clocks for them, set up A/B switches to give them added flexibility, etc. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/87 "2017-12-07T22:41:33Z")
They were my years! Graduated high school in 1985 and college in 1989. Our music was the best ever. Our clothes were the coolest ever. Our hairstyles were new and exciting. The 70s styles we distained are mostly back (ironed hair for women, longer shaggy hair for men, bell-bottoms to some extent) so the 80s should be back anytime now. Woot! ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/88 "2017-12-07T22:47:10Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > They were my years! Graduated high school in 1985 and college in 1989. > > Our music was the best ever. Our clothes were the coolest ever. Our hairstyles were new and exciting. > > The 70s styles we distained are mostly back (ironed hair for women, longer shaggy hair for men, bell-bottoms to some extent) so the 80s should be back anytime now. Woot! I was class of '84 and even I know how wrong you are. Music was OK in the 80s. Far from best. Hairstyles were downright silly, especially here in NJ. Clothes? Maybe, I don’t know, I’ve pretty oblivious to fashion, so you could be right. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/89 "2017-12-07T23:15:44Z")
> [@RadioWave](#): > > Everything had a [grid](https://www.google.com/search?q=80s+grid&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_qrvI-PXXAhVBKWMKHeXXBtkQ_AUICigB&biw=2400&bih=1184) and we thought it was cool. Everything had [teal and pink geometry](https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&biw=1437&bih=689&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=EsspWqO4DseKjwOomLTgDA&q=80s+teal+and+pink&oq=80s+teal+and+pink&gs_l=psy-ab.3...13780.16160.0.16494.15.12.1.0.0.0.254.1660.0j6j3.9.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..5.1.160...0.0.6myDl-Dr8FI), and it was also cool. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/90 "2017-12-07T23:39:02Z")
> [@RadioWave](#): > > Everything had a [grid](https://www.google.com/search?q=80s+grid&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_qrvI-PXXAhVBKWMKHeXXBtkQ_AUICigB&biw=2400&bih=1184) and we thought it was cool. [Patrick Nagel’s artwork was rather popular.](https://www.google.com/search?q=patrick+nagel&rlz=1C1OKWM_enUS772US772&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwip2uzfiPnXAhVh74MKHXDNA_UQ_AUICigB&biw=1230&bih=1364) ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/91 "2017-12-07T23:59:14Z")
\*\*One thing the 80s were best at, best teenage old movies. \*\* Ferris Bueller’s Day Off & War Games The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink & sixteen Candles. Real Genius Better off Dead & Say Anything Fast Times at Ridgemont High Heathers The Lost Boys & Stand by Me Risky Business & All the Right Moves Back to the Future ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/92 "2017-12-08T02:49:09Z")
Okay, I was 19-29 between 1980-90. Graduated college in 1982 and moved to NYC, enjoyed a continual upward spiral in my profession through the decade. (It all crashed down in 2001, but that’s another story) The weed was substantially better than in the ‘70s, and I was able to afford enough cocaine to be happy and not enough to create a problem. Pretty much quit LSD and other psychedelics, which are much less educational and fun in the big city than in a cloistered university environment. A LOT of the great jazzmen dating back as far as the 1930’s were still alive and performing in nightclubs…saw a lot of Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Sonny Stitt, and the Gil Evans band played Sweet Basil’s every Monday night. Went monogamous in 1981— after three years of wild polyamory — with the girl I later married in 1989, had two kids, and am still with her today. There was a lot of Reagan, and his shitty henchmen…James Watt, Ed Meese, etc…and we New Yorkers were all certain that we would NEVER have a Prez that horrible again. Spent a lot more time reading books, as there was no internet. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/93 "2017-12-08T03:50:33Z")
You could afford to put yourself through college. Racism was much less overt. We had hope. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/94 "2017-12-08T07:32:00Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > I was born in 1970, so I was a teenager in the 80’s. > > One thing I’ve noticed is that I had a lot more freedom than teens of today have. Conscientious parents today can basically be aware of their kids’ whereabouts at all times, thanks to cell phone GPS and all that. And even in the absence of GPS, a parent can call her teen son or daughter today and reasonably expect him or her to answer the phone. In my day, my parents had to take my word for it on where I was, and I was expected to call them if I planned to be somewhere other than where they expected me. Bottom line: I was downright feral compared to kids these days. I think this is the reason that kids seemed so much edgier then than they do now. And it’s reflected in much of the “teen comedy/drama” films already listed. In real terms, the concept of “latch key kids” who were largely unsupervised throughout the day was a thing. Which meant that we largely operated in our own world of youth culture. And being kids, it made us more sarcastic and we were less concerned about being “PC”. And that was largely portrayed in the films of the time. Think Ferris Beuller and his oblivious parents. Or Weird Science. > [@HeyHomie](#): > > Also, sex was a lot more free-wheeling then than it was now. AIDS was only just beginning to turn casual sex into a death sentence when I came of age sexually; nowadays, between the need for express, written consent and the ever-present specter of STD’s, I’d be surprised if teenagers weren’t just too scared to have sex with each other. Sadly…I was born 2 years after you. ☹ With kids these days, not just STDs, but the constant talk of “sexual harassment”. I feel like these days, I would need a stack of “Sexual Consent Forms” in my college dorm room. Well…maybe not a stack. But at least a couple. Culturally, high school seemed to fit the John Hughes Breakfast Club social model. But our class was only about 250 so the divisions were not as pronounced as what you see in film. You had preppy jocks and what we called “hoods” (kids who smoked and dressed in lots of denim and metal T-shirts). You had “AV” kids who were mostly a mish-mash of punks, goths, new wave, skaters and listened to bands like Joy Division You had nerds. But I really can’t think of anyone who was a completely friendless outcast. But mostly there were just groups of regular kids. I have to say, my wife was surprised how many mullets there were in my yearbook (she went to prep school). ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/95 "2017-12-08T14:50:03Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Culturally, high school seemed to fit the John Hughes Breakfast Club social model. But our class was only about 250 so the divisions were not as pronounced as what you see in film. My high school of 1,500 - in Illinois, no less, just like John Hughes films - had two main groups, and multiple sub-groups within them. And the divisions were pronounced. The two main groups were Rich White Kids From The Lake, and Poor Black Kids From The Ghetto. I was a poor white kid from the ghetto - I stood no chance. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/96 "2017-12-08T15:35:27Z")
A bunch of random thoughts on the 80s: Big hair, bright clothes, lots of new technology like VCRs and microwaves. Video cassette rental was a thing so you could watch movies at home on your own terms instead of whatever happened to be on broadcast TV. The video rental stores charged a yearly membership fee and if you didn’t have VCR you could rent one there too. Cassettes were standard for music, they were pretty portable but to me they sounded muddy and tended to get tangled at times even if you had a decent player. TV was 4 over-the-air TV channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS) but at least we had a color TV. Fox came to my area in the mid 1980s IIRC, bringing shows like Married With Children that were very controversial. Towards the end of the 80’s we got MTV and the ADHD plugged-in lifestyle began. No cell phones, no GPS. If you were going somewhere you took a map or got directions from someone. The economy seemed good, bank accounts actually paid ~8% interest. Of course I had little money to put in a savings account back then. Overall I think it was a forward-looking optimistic time, by the end of the decade the USSR had fallen so nuclear war fears were greatly reduced. But grunge music came in and gave all the shiny happy people of the 80’s a dose of sludgy reality. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/97 "2017-12-08T15:37:31Z")
I was born in the 80’s, so I don’t remember much until the last few years. Terrorism was a thing here in England, with IRA bomb threats being pretty common (actual bombs somewhat less common, but they happened). As we didn’t have a television, I missed out on a lot of the popular culture, and missing out on it all was a lot easier to do than it is now. VCRs were spreading, but most people still watched TV live, and with so few channels, nearly everyone watched the same stuff. My parents weren’t paying money for music for us kids, so we had to tape songs off the radio if we wanted to listen to them again. It was really hard to not miss the intro when you did. Seat belts were optional, and no-one I knew had a car seat for kids except tiny babies. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/98 "2017-12-08T16:12:23Z")
Split decision for me. The first half were great with plenty of work and a fair amount of hope; OK - home loans were a little tough but all in all things were good and life was easy. Fresh out of college the OW (wife) and I still had that “new adult” shine. Towards the second half I started having health issues that still continue and some of the shine was gone but over-all there was still a lot of things we looked forward to. Some came to be and some didn’t and both of us are more nostalgic for the 70s than the 80s but it was still a good time to have lived through. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/99 "2017-12-08T16:21:45Z")
**kopek** , that reminds me, bad time for loans but great time for CDs. I recall getting over 15% for 6 and 9 month CDs. I wasn’t in the loan phase of my life, so that worked out OK for me. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671/100 "2017-12-08T22:10:39Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > My high school of 1,500 - in Illinois, no less, just like John Hughes films - had two main groups, and multiple sub-groups within them. And the divisions were pronounced. The two main groups were Rich White Kids From The Lake, and Poor Black Kids From The Ghetto. I was a poor white kid from the ghetto - I stood no chance. Same here. Junior and High School were very clique stratified, mostly by rich / poor kid divisions. It was self-sorting, kids whose parents could afford them Levis, Vans, Izod, and Ray-bans were the rich popular clique. Those who got Wranglers, Payless, and K-Mart glasses rack were the poor unpopular clique. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-80s-like/803671.md?page=6)