I turned 27 in 1980 and I seem to remember working very hard at a somewhat professional job and smoking lots of weed and chasing amiable women in my down time. Most of the women in my small social circle had seemingly embraced the modern appreciation of the pleasures of sex and were pretty generous about sharing.
There was just so goddam much Reagan and Falwell in that decade, though.
Everyone had names… Traditional names like Matt or John or Richard. Girls were all named Kathy or Michelle. So many Michelles.
Everything had a grid and we thought it was cool.
Why in the hell was that even a thing?
We thought it looked futuristic and cool! Early 3D-ish computer graphics, that sort of thing.
IMO, it was an relatively easy to render way to represent “advanced future” computer technology in movies and TV.
On Long Island (NY), the big poofy hair styles for young ladies, although well represented as an ‘80s archetype in videos and magazines, didn’t really seem to take hold till the very end of the 1980s into the early 1990s. Sad, cause I found that kind of look rather sexy for ladies.
Generally the default clothing style for young men (as I was then) was…jeans and t-shirts “which was the style at the time” (much like it had been for decades and would be for decades). Yeah, yeah, you could mix it up with shorts or sweatshirts and so on, but still - jeans and t-shirts pretty common. Don’t recall young men by default wearing sports jackets like they did in John Hughes’ movies.
Oh yes, there was a happening club scene on Long Island (Malibu, Zachery’s, Spit, 007, OBI, and dozens of others. And in general, we wore jeans and t-shirts to them as well (maybe a button down shirt and slacks instead to Zachery’s- but still no sports jackets).
And yes, we did think of ourselves as technically advanced…which was true even if we didn’t have home workshop laser saws…:mad:
Paying bills and taxes was a bitch. I moved into my first apartment in 1988. You collected all your bills as they came in, then twice a month, when paychecks got handed to you, you took the check to the bank and deposited it. Then you went home, got your checkbook, a pen, and your stack of bills, and wrote out a check for each one, put it in an envelop, and had to provide a stamp for each one. If you didn’t have enough stamps, you had to make a trip to the Post Office the next day.
You had to balance your checkbook. Every month, the bank mailed you all your cashed checks, and you had to go through your checkbook, and verify that every check you had written had been returned. If there was a check missing, and more than about a two week gap, you needed to call the place to which you’d written in, and verify that it had been received. You had to double-check all your math, and make sure it matched what the bank said you had.
It was right around 1987-88 that grocery stores began taking credit cards, and ATM cards became debit cards about two years later. Maybe only a year later. At first, you had to write every debit transaction in your checkbook, because you could not check your bank balance on your computer any time you wanted.
Taxes required going to the library to get tax forms, and you got extras, because you made mistakes. You had to fill out all kinds of forms and worksheets. Then you had to transfer the correct information to the right form. I always did it in pencil, and once I was done, went over my pencil in ink. It took hours. And hours. I usually ended up sitting on the floor, because it was the place I had enough room to spread everything out.
I did in fact, have a rotary phone, but cordless phone had been around for several years, and push-button phones even longer. I kept my rotary phone for a long time, because it fit my TTY. The second apartment I moved into had more than one phone hook-up, though, so I got a push-button phone (pretty cheaply), and after that had two phones. I kept the rotary until texting pretty much replaced the TTY.
I spent my 80’s in the East Asia and I really liked those tends. The 80s was a time of bold and exaggerated fashion trends. Extreme puffy sleeves, gold or silver lamé, padded shoulders, power suits and vinyl were some of the most popular and remembered 80s fashion trends. It could be tricky to style these trends in modern days without looking a little ridiculous. But still, I thought I’d give it a try! Surprisingly enough, I’m loving these 80s fashion trends! I think the key is these trends repeat themselves. Now after almost 40 years these trend are also very famous that is only because they had a strong base at that time.
Well goddamn, my 1st response got lost due to having to log in again. Anyway some random stuff…
I graduated from HS in 1980. After graduation I went to a concert in NYC (Bruford at the Bottom Line). Getting tickets involved either going to one of a few Ticketmaster outlets (mine was on the 2nd floor of the local Bamberger’s) or going to the venue box office (if not by a scalper or ‘broker’).
That summer I toured Scandinavia with a wind ensemble and afterwards hitchhiked through Germany, Belgium, and the UK, so that was still a viable form of transportation. Not so much in the US, I later learned.
My mom kept trying to get me to go to Chubb and learn computer programming (“they say musicians have an aptitude for that”) but I resisted, like the idiot I was. She was always up on technology and got one of those Kaypro portables to do word processing on. Eventually I started working with computers. I actually enjoyed it despite my previous luddite tendencies. Should have listened to mom!
Everything in the music industry seemed to be going ‘digital’ - digital delays, reverbs, choruses, digital synths, (Yamaha DX7, Roland D50). Sampling was starting to take hold but practically required a tech staff to be an effective musical tool. Synclavier and Fairlight were dominant, then Emu and Akai came along with more user-friendly systems. Of course now you can do it on your phone. I recorded on a cassette 4 track and didn’t buy a CD player until 1989.
Notable concerts were Laurie Anderson, Talking Heads, a couple of Zappa shows, and a slew of Grateful Dead concerts (mail-order tickets!). Local bands Big Head Todd and The Monsters and The Samples were starting out. I think Big Head Todd is still a going concern. The Samples are down to one original guy.
Weed started getting REALLY strong.
Everything that could be fastened with Velcro was.
South Africa/Aparthied, Central America, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Grenada invasion, constant hostage crisis in the middle east, Marine Barracks and Lockerbie bombings, Challenger explosion
Like most socially inept, somewhat nerdy, and broke guys, I didn’t have much luck finding a girlfriend, but I still had friendships with the women in my circle and enjoyed the company of an older woman who educated me. Nothing unique to the '80s about that, I suppose.
For a time I lived in a canyon outside of Boulder, CO and shared a party line with other residents of the canyon. IOW I could be in the middle of a conversation and someone up the road gets on the line, with increasing frequency if the conversation dragged on. Quaint, but a pain in the butt.
Mountainbikes were getting popular. Lycra saddle covers were a way of customizing. Route-finding was done with big topo maps.
There were “smoking rows” in class when I was in college, and certain smaller classes were held in a professor’s office–who smoked and allowed anyone else to do so as well.
It was the decade of my elementary and high school years. I remember recording songs off the radio onto a cassette and praying the DJ didn’t talk over the intro or the ending. Our telephone cord was long enough to reach all the rooms in the house. There was one phone. It was rotary. We didn’t upgrade to touch-tone until it didn’t cost extra. We got an Atari console and I played Frogger, Donkey Kong and Barnstormer constantly. There was no option to save your progress. You started from the beginning every single time. There was a lot of hairspray, hair was huge, and jeans were acid washed. Michael Jackson and Madonna were huge. Hair bands. Not bands for hair, but rock bands with long hair and spandex. Boy bands were in their infancy. (ha!) Seat belt use was optional for much of the decade. Our high school had a designated smoking area for students. People littered without a second thought. The highways were strewn trash. Our television options were limited to the big three networks and PBS. Fox hit the scene in the mid 80’s. We played outside. Newpapers had news. Those were the days.
And these games had crap graphics compared to the arcade versions of them - and the arcade games back then were crap compared to what the shittiest of smartphones can do these days.
Pac Man: arcade version
Versus
Pac Man: Atari 2600 version
Speaking of which, video game arcades were a big thing; see Golden age of arcade video games. Once home console games (e.g. Nintendo) started to get as good as arcade games in the late 1980s, the arcades went on the decline.
CNN was born in 1980. It was kind of a novelty at first to see news in the middle of the day instead of just at dinner time.
That was 1984. The other years were much better. 
The 80’s were happy and plastic.
They made today seem positively boring.
Counter point to some of the posts that have already been made, Aids was not even on the radar, but that may have had to do with age, as someone in their twenties may not even have heard of it, while someone in their thirties may have known people that have succumbed to it. So much, that I used to read a magazine called Details. A fashion and lifestyle magazine aimed at males, clothes, issues, where and how to score weed in different countries etc. Every other month in the letters to the editor, I don’t know if it was the same guy, but the letter went like this, A whole generation of young men are dying and no one gives a shit.
Contrary to today, it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve and the temple twirl of the finger, if you were to suggest more than two genders. Alternate lifestyles were making inroads in music, with Frankie goes to Hollywood among other bands. So in other words, it was a very hetero decade, others may have different experiences.
With Reagan and Gorbie being the two people that folks remember strongly about 80’s politics, no one really recalls Lech Walesa in Poland and really the man that really started the ball rolling with the collapse of Communism. Vietnam was not our war, but it was looking like a repeat was going to happen in El Salvador and Nicarugua.
It was a great time to be a straight white male. It’s weird but you didn’t really think of anyone other than straight white men having power and authority.
And Corvettes.
I was a new mom (sons born in 1981 and 1983), so my recollection of the '80s was a lot like those of you who were kids during that time. Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, My Little Pony, etc. Cable TV and the advent of the VCR was fabuloys. Hubs and I could have a movie date after the kids were asleep and didn’t need to hire a babysitter. And yes, I would dress up for those dates (or …cough…dress down, which was another story altogether).
Technology was constantly updating, although ridiculously expensive in today’s terms, and we met each new development with excitement. Microwave ovens were a godsend to a young mother for warming up bottles and babyfood, quick dinners on a chaotic day, etc. And microwave popcorn! Pure bliss.
We were constantly traveling for my husband’s job, and before we went anywhere, we carefully combed news reports for how safe we’d be as American tourists, as kidnapping and various other terrorist activities were common in foreign countries (not so much yet in the US). My husband was a petrophysicist and worked for oil companies, so many of our travel destinations were dicey. I loved it, though, and remember being resentful when my older boy started school and I could no longer gypsy about the world with Phil.
Personal grooming took TIME. Hair dryers weren’t very powerful and achieving '80s hair involved lots of product and hairspray. Same with makeup, which often included bright, exotic eyeshadow schemes and pounds of mascara. Clothing was bright, oversized (think big shirts) on top and tight on bottom. It mostly came in bright colors and geometric prints.
Cars were pretty awful in the '80s, ugly and boxy, and underpowered. Gone were the road mastering V8s and the sleek and powerful muscle cars of the previous decade or so. We had an Oldsmobile Cutlass Diesel that was temperamental at best and a lemon at worst.
MAD or mutually assured destruction and Reagan’s ‘Evil Empire’ were constant conversation topics. I can remember being able to identify most IBMs and fighter jets by sight.
Hitchhiking died in America after a massive PSA campaign to discourage it, both on the part of riders and drivers. In 1978, a 15-year-old survived a horrific rape and attempt on her life, and was left mutilated. It’s a ghastly story. So much, I’m not posting a link, but the man responsible was named Lawrence Singleton. Google at you own risk.
After Singleton’s 1978 attack on 15-year-old Mary Vincent, there were PSAs, lectures, sometimes by Vincent herself, and lots of Very Special Episodes of TV shows where hitchhiking goes really badly.
In fact, the 80s were a transitional period in parenting. Kids were free-range in the 70s-- I was born in 1967, so I know. In the 80s, more and more women were working outside the home, and leaving children in daycares. There was a backlash that resulted in the “Satanic Panic,” and even though it was eventually debunked, the result of it was helicopter parenting, which emerged for the first time in the 1990s.
The 80’s were tubular. We had stagflation but hey, we got 8-9% raises!
I think that depends where you are. Here in Chicago, Lech Walesa was well known and I think well remembered (I still hear talk occasionally referenced), as well as Solidarność (Solidarity movement.) Of course, we have a significant Polish population here. I wonder if he really is as obscure or unremembered outside this area. I also vividly remember the Christmastime execution of Ceaușescu and his wife at the very end of the 80s.
MTV and awesome music videos.
That’s my strongest cultural memory.
Bought my first PC and used Word Perfect for my college papers. I had a Texas Instruments scientific calculator for college. No more slide rule.
Lots of nudity in films. HBO and Cinemax delivered them straight to my bedroom tv. The Playboy channel began in 1985. I saw more boobs than any doctor ever has. 