1980 Was 40 Years Ago

born in 89, don’t feel much connection to the 80s. It is weird that the 80s now is equivalent to what the 60s felt like for my age group. The 60s feel so seismically different from now. The 80’s feel more modern

OP can math. OP smart.

Describing yourself as a "smug millennial" is a bit redundant, little boy . . .

Totally old. But Ive felt old for a while. Born in 1969. Grateful to have made it this far though. Given the option...

YES, I feel fucking ancient. I'm turning 40 this year. I remember thinking 40 seemed so old when I was younger. But, I suppose 40 today isn't what it was for my parents' generation.

I was born after the 80s. Can’t relate.

I still look good.

R7 Get it, gurl!

Jeremy Renner just turned 49.

R5, age 40 is still a baby, get out there and do young things with years of wisdom. I compare myself to my parents and grandparents. Well, I’m not dead, as three of them were, but the 3 grands died of diseases that are treated now, so they don’t count. Papa fathered three more kids after 40, not that I’m planning on that. Mom just made it under the wire.

I’m 60 this year. I haven’t felt old until this year. The one gripe I have is that the period, old age, lasts so long! My three family elders that I knew when I was born, all lasted to 90+, and Mom would have if she didn’t smoke! That gives me another 30 years, all things being equal. Blimey!

I can thank Mom’s side for a full head of hair. It’s salt and pepper, though. Mom’s brother died at age 64 of cancer, with that full head of salt & pepper hair. Well, I’ll look out for that. My two brothers are bald. One is mostly deaf, and one not, reflecting my parent’s genes.

I love the 80s music.

I also love the end of the Cold War. I remember leaving the submarine shipyard daily, where I was designing subs to kill Commies, in 1989. There were those almost daily, progressive news stories that were so wonderful, with the apex when the Berlin Wall came down, without mass shootings.

Mostly peaceful, except the Baltics and Romania, but still nothing like what it could have been. Even Russia was headed towards democracy.

I AM old! I was born in 1961, and graduated high school in 1978. Why fight it?

Yes. I saw this in a cinema.

We are currently much further away from the debut of fantastic 1980s tv nostalgia drama China Beach, than it was from the beginning of the war it depicted. The same thing is true about the nostalgic sitcom The Wonder Years.

Getting old plays tricks with perspective. Twenty years, thirty years ago, was a greater amount of time than twenty years now is, if that makes sense.

^Getting old? Speak for yourself darling.

Was born in 79. Yes, I feel old.

I was born in 1970. I feel old.

Buck would never have looked back, but, rather, 40 years ahead.

Somewhat in line with what r1 said: I was a child of the 80s and the 60s seemed SO long ago back then. When I saw a 60s tv show like Bewitched, I Dream Of Jeannie or Dragnet, for example, they all looked absolutely ancient to me and at that time the 60s were only 20 years in the past.

The 80s are now nearly twice that long ago, and I wonder if kids today think of the 80s as being prehistoric like my generation of kids thought the 60s were.

The Reagan 80s as I call them. I'm a Reagan baby along with my older brother. He was born in 83 and me 88. Then we have two more siblings born in the 90s, 91 and 93. Born in the 80s, but I'm definitely a 99s kid.

And glad to still be young.

^^^^90s kid I mean.

R19, think of it this way: the hoopla surrounding Y2K is now more than 20 years in the past. Think of something that was happening 20 years before your childhood years. We're now equally far from Y2K as you were from whatever that ancient event was when you were a child. (For me, the end of World War II would be an example, since I was 8 in 1965.)

It puts your parents and their ways of thinking in a different perspective to realize that what seemed like ancient history to you was in fact something that happened within their adult memories. The same applies to us boomers and older Gen X-ers today, of course. It's irritating when "these kids today" act like history started in 2010, but I guess for the youngest of them, it did.

1 "Call Me" - Blondie

2 "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II" - Pink Floyd

3 "Magic" - Olivia Newton-John

4 "Rock with You" - Michael Jackson

5 "Do That to Me One More Time" - Captain & Tennille

6 "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" -Queen

7 "Coming Up" - Paul McCartney

8 "Funkytown" - Lipps Inc

9 "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" - Billy Joel

10 "The Rose" - Bette Midler

As a person who lived through the 80s, I now see Gen Zers reviving some of the horrible fashions, like ripped jeans and big baggy sweatshirts. I just feel like telling them "that looked like ABSOLUTE SHIT the first time around, please don't bring it back!"

The ripped jeans, especially. God, I can't believe that one is back in style again.

I speak jive.

Born in 1965. If I start doing the math, I feel old.

I was born old.

On the one hand, I remember Y2K so clearly that it doesn't feel like it was 20 years ago. On the other hand, when I think about specific events, like helping my parents with their first PC, it feels like a lifetime ago.

The weirdest thing for me is forgetting stuff from my childhood. Up until my early 40s I could remember scads of stuff that I did when I was a little kid, but now I find myself thinking about events that I know I remembered recently, but can't remember anymore.

OP's dancing mins is hot.

R28 Same, Y2K definitely doesn't seem 20 years ago. In my head anything happening after 2000 is recent history and it's shocking to me that babies born that year are grown ups now.

It just doesn't feel like the same amount of time came between 1960 and 1980 or 1980 and 2000 than 2000 and 2020.

01. The Empire Strikes Back - $209,398,025

02. 9 to 5 - $103,290,500

03. Stir Crazy - $101,300,000

04. Airplane! - $83,453,539

05. Any Which Way You Can - $70,687,344

06. Private Benjamin - $69,847,348

07. Coal Miner's Daughter - $67,182,787

08. Smokey and the Bandit II - $66,132,626

09. The Blue Lagoon - $58,853,106

10. The Blues Brothers - $57,229,890

I hate the OP and everything she stands for.

My God! Xanadu and Friday the 13th turn 40 this year. Unreal. I remember seeing both of them in the summer of '80.

[quote] Born in 1965. If I start doing the math, I feel old.

Well of course you would. Don’t turn to drugs at your stage in life.

Oh, wait. I thought you said meth. Never mind.

OP is wrong. The 80s were NOT 40 years ago.

They couldn’t be.

*takes off shoes and socks and counts*

Oh, shit. He’s right! Damn.

Fuck you OP!!!

The '80s make me think of "Space Age Love Song"

The 80s were not only the peak of the Pax Americana and the American Empire, but the peak of American pop culture. It's been in steady decline since.

Born '79, no I don't feel old. I feel like I should, but I don't. I've lived a weird life that I think has allowed me to sort of forget to age normally, or something. I pass for 30 with no help at all (I know guys my age who are starting to botox and shit like that). I'll be like my dad, preternaturally young-looking and -seeming until sometime in my 50s, then I'll suddenly and shockingly turn into an old man overnight, everyone will think I have cancer, but then I'll live another 30 years.

[quote] The 80s were not only the peak of the Pax Americana and the American Empire, but the peak of American pop culture. It's been in steady decline since.

The decline started in the 1960s when rock replaced jazz as the default form of popular music. After the cruel cold-blooded murder of disco for the unforgivable sin of trying to offer an alternative to rock, every genre of pop music just got more and more harmonically and lyrically simplistic with each new decade. The 1980s was just the last decade before the music industry gave up giving a damn altogether. The moment Kurt Cobain died, the mainstream music industry should have gone with him. It has been a zombie for the past quarter century.

[quote]The 80s were not only the peak of the Pax Americana

No, that was the 90s. The Berlin Wall didn't even fall till Nov 89

The 90s was Pax Americana? That's funnier than most of the TV sitcoms that decade generated. R42, do you not remember the first Iraq War, or the multiple conflicts in Eastern Europe that we got dragged into throughout the decade. The first bombing of the World Trade Center was in 1993!

r34, I was 10 in May, 1980; my sister took me and a couple of friends to the movies...she was 18, but didn't want to see Friday the 13th, so she paid for all of us to see Hollywood Knights, and the three of us kids snuck across the hall to Friday the 13th.

It does seem that 1960-80 was warp speed change. Even with tech, 2000-20 doesn’t seem that different. Gay marriage/acceptance and IPhones are biggest changes. Born in 1968, but also feel the 80s globalization of capitalism killed so much. Creativity and the arts were killed because they weren’t profitable. Everything became about money and capitalism - which bred the sociopathic culture we live in now.

Born in 1966. 1980 seems a world away. Like a dream. You can not imagine. Everyone was thin. Everyone smoked. Music was good. Cats stayed outside.

[quote]born in 89

You’re a child.

[quote]Cats stayed outside.

Mine didn't.

In 1980, there was no question the world would be a better place in the future. So much for that.

R39- WRONG! The peak of Pax Americana was the late 1940's to the late 1970's. NOT the 1980's.

No, Pax Americana is technically the end of WWII in 1945 to the escalation of the Vietnam War in 1965.

It was also a pretty homophobic period in American history. If that's your idea of peace, then maybe war actually is healthy for children and other living things.

Those goddam shoulder pads!

The 1980s was the first full decade of the obesity crisis, but it took until the 1990s to really manifest itself.

True r53. And by the 2000s America was a nation of land whales.

It's interesting when you see crowd shots or video of the general public from before the 1990s. You really notice how thin the populace was. Of course really fat people were still around in those decades, but they were not the norm.

Also the 1970s was the paranoia that we would run out of food because of population growth. So we created artificial growth methods to create more food - and coincidentally, not only did the food supply grow, people’s bodies grew. Antibiotics in chicken is just one example.

A lot has to do with sedentary life but quality and chemical composition of food likely contributed.

I'd like to go back long enough to stop them from giving careers to either Tony Danza or Scott Baio, but not after I go right some of the wrongs committed against film preservation.

Pictures taken in American shopping malls in 1989, just to refresh your memory of how truly hideous the fashions were. Lots of acid-washed denim and big frizzy hair.

I was born in the mid Sixties and I can just barely remember them. The Seventies sucked in a lot of ways - the Vietnam War, self-absortion -- so did the Eighties with even more selfishness. I remember the Nineties as being better, and the Aughts better yet. But I'll take the here-and-now over any of those decades, despite it all. We're finally getting to know ourselves as a species, it seems, and we're all growing together, thanks to the Internet. I think humanity's pointed toward a Renaissance of some kind once we get through some shit.

^absorption*

I hated the 1990s. I hated the 2000s. I hated the 2010s.

I want the 1980s back.

Hell, I want the 1970s back just because I missed them the first time.

Op, here’s a shocker for you, 1970 was 50 years ago and 1990 was 30 years ago!!! Shook!

Anyone who hates the 1970s or 1980s and loves any decade after it hates humanity. Why wouldn't I be nostalgic for the last decade without the Internet and the last decade before being overweight or obese became the rule and not the exception?

Kennedy was assassinated 16 years before I was born. To me it was just something I watched in a History Channel documentary. Which is how a 20 year old today would feel about 9/11.

Amazing that there are now grown men and women who look at 9/11 as something historical.

if you're a gay man of a certain age, you certainly don't want the 80's back. There was growing tolerance but it was fed by years of heartbreak and disease and for every bit of newfound acceptance, there was the terror fomented by the moronic media and their coverage of the AIDS crisis. Sure the music was good, but let's not get too nostalgic for the fucking Reagan era.

R66 Who elected you to dictate nostalgia?

1980 was one of the best years for movies. You had The Fog, Dressed to Kill, Cruising, Friday the 13th, Terror Train, Prom Night, He Knows You're Alone. It was probably my favorite year for movies.

i’m more intrigued that 90’s is about 30 years ago. we don’t really felt nostalgic about it yet. it’s all about the 80s in movies , tv and music.

Armie can't dance for shit

I am old, but don’t feel old. I try to laugh and have fun as much as possible. I’m engaged and try to stay aware and optimistic. I’m still working and try to act my age. I don’t chase twinks, dress in clothing designed for twenty somethings, or behave like a caricature. I try to eat right, exercise, and save as much for retirement as I can. It’s corny, but I was wild in my youth, I survived the plague, when not all of my friends did. If I croak tomorrow, I will have had a very full life, for which I’m very grateful.

r68 how the fuck can you forget 9 to 5??!

The same way you forgot [italic]How to Beat the High Cost of Living[/italic], R72.

I can't believe I forgot two of my favorites, 9 to 5 and How to Beat the High Cost of Living. I LOVE those movies.

See, I told you 1980 was the best year for film.

[quote] See, I told you 1980 was the best year for film.

Not for us it wasn't.

R66, I'm sorry your friends died, but I'm even sorrier we're still stuck with Danny Pintauro. That's the thing about the 1980s: the good was totally awesome, but the bad was toxic beyond belief. With every subsequent decade, the good stayed the same but the bad got worse.

R43 and R51, the so-called Pax Americana, like the Pax Britannica for which it's named, doesn’t mean no wars for the relevant nation. It means that American power and influence has prevented widespread war or war between major powers from breaking out. Britain fought a number of small, mostly colonial, wars from 1815 to 1914, but her strength prevented a war between the major powers and maintained a broad international status quo, especially in Europe (which is what "Pax Britannica" mostly refers to).

American power first kept war with the Soviets at bay by maintaining a credible threat of catastrophic retaliation. After the collapse of the USSR, there was no other major power until the recent rise of China. During that period, while we have fought many small wars (small on an international scale), the worst being Korea and Vietnam there has been no war on anything like the scale of the World Wars.

The Pax Americana continues today, although how long it will endure is an open question.

R41, the decline began in the mid-60s, when adult culture was eclipsed by youth culture. Since then, it’s been nothing but a bunch of teenagers making noise. There’s a reason TV and movies keep returning to the late ‘50s and early ‘60s for their exercises in nostalgia. Culturally, that era is the American equivalent of Edwardian England – the last flowering of the old order before sudden collapse.

[quote]There’s a reason TV and movies keep returning to the late ‘50s and early ‘60s for their exercises in nostalgia. Culturally, that era is the American equivalent of Edwardian England – the last flowering of the old order before sudden collapse.

The last era when the adults were in charge, and when films such as [italic]Lawrence of Arabia[/italic], [italic]My Fair Lady[/italic], and [italic]A Man For All Seasons[/italic], the second of which was actually set in Edwardian England, were considered mainstream studio fare and rather than the niche art-house works they would be considered if released today.

r68 r72 r74 Buck would not have forgotten the only movie worth talking about in 1980.

Well come and talk to me when we hit 1984 - I was 20 years old back then. If I'd known then what I know now, well I wouldn't have been so damned prudish.

The 80s for me were my smothered childhood years, you couldn't pay me to revisit that shit, the 90s were OK but I didn't like most of my classmates in high school and actually think the 00s were a great decade, despite it all.

R45 nails it. Put a picture side by side of someone in 1963 cloths and 1987 clothes and there's a world of difference. Do that with someone from 2002 and 2016, there really ain't much difference. It's like if a movie production was doing a period piece set in 2004, the only thing they'd really need for authenticity is a flip phone

R80, I was 8 yrs old in 1980. WTF would I want to watch an older-adult movie like Ordinary People?

Right, R83! The only thing to add is that it's the 21st century that's anomalous. Before 1990 or so, even ten years made such a big difference in fashion (especially women's clothing and hairstyles, but also car design, for example), that you can immediately date almost any picture to within a few years, going back well into the 19th century.

Today, you could easily see a photograph taken of a bunch of young women any time in the last 20 years and have no idea when it taken except that's post-2000. There is no fashion in clothing anymore, at least not for ordinary people.

^^^ "... except that IT'S post-2000."

I just took a shit!

[QUOTE] Put a picture side by side of someone in 1963 cloths and 1987 clothes and there's a world of difference. Do that with someone from 2002 and 2016, there really ain't much difference.

You folks must be completely out of tune with fashion if you can’t tell much difference between a pic from 2002 and 2016. The cut of pant legs, the fit of shirts, the type of shoes—all completely different. Watch earlier seasons of The Sopranos and look at how Meadow and AJ are dressed compared to the way kids dress today. Nothing alike.

I loved the early 80's up until 1984 then the Reagan shit took over and the gaudy excess.

R88, Meadow and AJ were teenagers. I'm talking about the way grown women dress.

Anyway, the differences you describe are subtle. There is nowhere near the change that one would have seen from, say, 1956 to 1970 (also a period of 14 years). Even the most fashion-ignorant person can tell the difference between a calf-length skirt and a miniskirt, between dark and pale lipstick, between a tightly fitted dress or suit jacket and loose or body-skimming silhouettes. And do I even need to point out how different hair styles were? The difference is extreme. A woman in 1970 who wore clothes from the mid-50s wouldn't just have looked outdated. She would have looked bizarre and crazy.

You can cut that time period in half and still see very obvious changes in skirt length, silhouette, makeup and hair between 1956 and 1963 and 1963 and 1970. Even women who didn't care much about fashion looked different because they had to buy new clothes sometimes, and the new clothes looked radically different from the styles of several years earlier.

Today, a well-dressed but not fashion-forward woman could easily wear the same clothes she wore 5 or even 10 years ago, and no one would think she looked weird. If she's over 30, her hairstyle probably hasn't changed at all.

Excellent points all, r90.

I guess I am out of tune. Ronnie Spector and Whitney Houston's clothes looked WAY different than Christina Aguilera and Camila Cabello.

I know people were saying that clothes don't look much different than they did in the early 2000s, but if I saw young people dressed like this today, I'd be a little taken aback.

R93 Aback!! Oh mother really!

Honestly I think I've been wearing the same kind of clothes the last 10 to 15 years. I've never been fashionable, though.

The only thing that's really changed in fashion since the early 2000's is the 80's fashion trends that are being revived by teens today. Other than that everything looks the same. Watch an episode of The O.C. or One Tree Hill or Gossip Girl. Everybody dresses the same today.

No, the 90s were the peak of American power. The First Iraq war was a total success, the economy expanded exponentially, unemployment was low, welfare was reduced to pre depression levels. America was able to project its power in Europe and there were absolutely no countries military or economically even close to US levels. Crime and murder rates plummeted, cities like NY, SF, DC begin gaining people for the first time in decades.

It was only after 9-11 that the US begin decline. The 80s had the Soviets as a credible threat, North Korea was still economically on par with South Korea, China was able to crush the protesters. You need to learn some history dude.

Peak of American power was post WWII.

You see that little pad of fat under Armie’s chin in OP’s gif. Uh oh.

No, r97 is correct -- post WWII was the Cold War, where the US and USSR competed for domination; after the Soviet Union fell apart, it left the US as the only superpower in the world. From a numbers perspective, we're still #1, but have been declining since the ill-advised Iraq War. So you could say the Pax Americana lasted from December 26, 1991 to March 20, 2003.

I think the modern era has been about homegenization - global capitalism and the internet means very one does the same thing. No one is too far “out there” in fashion. Versace was the last gasp of over the top fashion. Indeed, fashion in general is fading in relevance it seems. Our online avatars/personalities/images matter more than our actual appearance.

WTF! I was born in 1949 -- I need to quit this site.

The kids in the sweatshops overseas only know how to make the same types of clothes we’ve been wearing for the last 20 years.

Wow. I must be the oldest one here. Born in 1952. High school for me was Led Zep, Blind Faith, and Cream, my best buddy's original muscle car (with cassette players being the new thing), smoking weed and popping acid on the weekends with my friends. local disco where they poured cooking oil and food coloring into a glass pie plate, put another pie plate on it and moved it around using an overhead projector! Dayglo posters, and Christopher Street in the Village, the trucks the Stud, and Bette Midler releasing her first album.

Uh, what does that have to do with the 80s?

[quote] So you could say the Pax Americana lasted from December 26, 1991 to March 20, 2003.

I’m curious as to why you chose December 26, 1991, as your start date. I don’t particularly remember anything significant happening on that date.

Born in the 90s. But my parents don’t feel or look old.

One thing about those days was that older people were so OLD. My paternal grandparents were in their 70s back then and Jesus Christ it was like they were both 100. Today, people in their 70s go to the gym, they're active, and can keep up with people half their age. The whole notion of "elderly" has changed so much.

"I want the 1980s back."

You must be nuts. Three things defined the 80s: Ronald Reagan, greed, and AIDS. That decade may have been the very worst of all.

Oh look, yet another post assuming everyone on here was in their 20s and 30s in the dark dreary 80s. For some it was running down the aisles at Toys R Us for Transformers, Kids Incorporated and riding bikes out in the street.

Child of the 80s here and it really was a great time to be a kid.

Born in 1963. I look clapped out but I don’t feel it. Learning lots of new things at work (first time manager at an advanced age) and working out harder than I have for years. In fact I can’t afford to be “old” as I need to keep working for another 10 years for financial reasons.

Also, I don’t let things like modern pop culture make me feel past it. Apart from TV, most pop culture peaked in the 60s and 70s and I’m happy to just keep reconsuming it. If millennials or whatever want to obsess about the Kardashians or think Taylor Swift is a renowned Artiste that’s there problem.

But on the topic at hand, actually the eighties were kind of shit.

I was in 3rd grade. I was really into space stuff thanks to the original Cosmos and The Empire Strikes Back. Remember reading Harriet the Spy (which I loved) and Judy Blume.

Also loved 9 to 5 and wished all three of them were my aunts.

The babies being born right now will think in 15-20 years that Millenials and Generation Z's are clueless and will create their own version of "OK Boomer". Us Boomers and Generation X's will be like Sophia on "Golden Girls" and not give a shit anymore and speak our minds about bullshit while the millenials and Z's will be the ones complaining about what this generation is into. The closer we get to God, the less we care, and I can't wait until I can be the cranky funny senior rolling my eyes as I sit in God's waiting room sipping a Bacardi & Coke and recalling when I used to dance to the Pet Shop Boys and Gloria Estefan at my local disco.

The minimum wage was 3.10/hr

The average interest on a savings account was 13.35%

The average CD rate plummeted from a high of 17.74% in March 1980 to 8.33% in June 1980

The average mortgage rate was 18.63%

I want to hang out with r114 in my old age.

[quote]The babies being born right now will think in 15-20 years that Millenials and Generation Z's are clueless and will create their own version of "OK Boomer".

It already exists: "OK Zoomer."

I was in college in the early to mid-80's. It was such a fun time. Drinking, drugging, tanning to excess. The music was great until about 1988. I love the 80's. I was closeted and didn't really have much sex but I had a great time anyway and I lived to tell about it.

You could go pretty much anywhere on Santa Monica Blvd. any night of the week and find a good crowd anywhere during the 80's. Studio One was better on the weekends, but Mother Lode, Rage, Four Star (before Mickey's took over) and the Revolver were very busy, especially Revolver on their Showtunes Tuesday night. The only other bars were a few of the restaurants and the Rail which were fairly slow other than the regulars. We really didn't have the frau invasion either so when straight women did come in, it was a bit of a novelty. The lesbians had the back bar at the Revolver and the Palms, and further down, Peanuts. What a memory of a long gone era! The Blue Parrot, which became the Revolver, was before my time.

R115, $3.10 in 1980 dollars. That's $9.74 in current dollars, but the current Federal minimum wage is only $7.25. We've gone backward in that regard.

On the other hand, the inflation rate in 1980 was 13.5%. The inflation rate in 2019 was 1.7%. So there's that.

I turn 40 this year.

As a 'Zero' baby, each of my decades coincides with calendar decade. Makes it easier too to remember my age.

[quote] Makes it easier too to remember my age.

But evidently not basic grammar.

[quote] On the other hand, the inflation rate in 1980 was 13.5%. The inflation rate in 2019 was 1.7%. So there's that.

So it’s been slowed to a crawl but not eliminated or reversed.

Thanks OP, I think about this almost every day.

I want the guy dancing in OP's pic. Totally my type.