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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

What were the 1980s like?

Discussion in 'Archive: Your Jedi Council Community' started by nostalgia, Jan 15, 2012.

  1. Darth_Invidious

    Darth_Invidious Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 21, 1999
    Wall Street?

    Gordon Gecko would probably agree.
     
  2. darthdrago

    darthdrago Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 31, 2003
    The cynics would say Wall Street, but I'm with Eeth. Any John Hughes movie is a perfect encapsulation of the 80s.

    And also Heathers.
     
  3. EHT

    EHT Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 13, 2007
    Where are they now?
     
  4. DantheJedi

    DantheJedi Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 23, 2009
    Valley Girl and Fast Times at Ridgemont High are also good examples of the 80s, if for just the soundtracks and the look at mall culture of the time.
     
  5. JoinTheSchwarz

    JoinTheSchwarz Former Head Admin star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2002
    Red Dawn.
     
  6. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    Sixteen Candles is more 80s paradigmatic than Ferris or Breakfast Club. Or maybe Risky Business, since Porsche 928 > Porsche 944
     
  7. Katya Jade

    Katya Jade Administrator Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jan 19, 2002
    WOLVERINES!

    I don't think there can be a single movie. There are so many that just represent the 80's perfectly. Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club are great. Valley Girl is another favorite.
     
  8. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    MTV actually was music television.
     
  9. Obey Wann

    Obey Wann Former RMFF CR & SW Region RSA star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jan 14, 2000
    I was 6-16 in the 80s. I loved that decade. :)

    I could ride my bike all over --even at age 6 --all day long. For miles. Without worrying about my safety. My parents didn't worry. If you took a spill, a local mom would help you clean up the "boo-boo" with hydrogen peroxide and a band-aid and you'd ride yourself home. Nowadays, I barely let my kids out of my sight for 5 minutes when they are playing outside. Too many whackos, even in good parts of town.

    I walked to the bus stop or school, or rode my bike --even if school was a couple of miles away. And yes, in this part of the country, that did mean uphill both ways. ;)

    Kids in school were VERY cliqueish. Being a nerd/geek was the very bottom of the social order. Jocks, Preps and Cheerleeders ruled the halls. Skaters and stoners had their own place, but were more outsiders. Band geeks were only slightly less picked on than anyone who did good in school, or wore glasses, or both. If you got good grades and wore glasses --worse if you had braces --it could be pretty miserable.

    Speaking of glasses... they were usually oversized aviator style or other styles that don't really look cool years later. But Ray Bans and later Oakleys were all the rage.

    Hair: For girls: Aqua Net. You killed the ozone layer. It's all your fault. Seriously, they could use half a can a day. I'm amazed that more girls didn't combust if there was a spark or lit flame nearby.

    Hair: For boys: There were bad styles like rat tails and mullets. Teased hair and "feathered" hair were in --especially in the early 80s.

    Typewriters: God help you if you needed to type a report for school. If you had a typewriter, you really had to know how to type. Or you wrote it by hand and had your mom type it for you. If you were a bad typer (like me), or dyslexic, fixing typos was a pain in the posterior.

    Gaming: The Apple IIe and the Atari 2600 were awesome. I played Pac Man and Combat and loved River Raid.

    On the AIIe, there was this funny programming language that used a "turtle." A program went like this (from what I recall):

    FWD 10
    RT 90
    FWD 10
    RT 90
    FWD 10
    RT 90
    FWD 10
    RT 90

    This would make the turtle draw a box with legs that were 10 pixels long. You spent hours making it do odd things with random commands and repeat commands, changing colors, backgrounds, etc.

    You saw ESB and ROTJ in the theaters. On the first run. Then, a year or two later, they did a second run and you watched it again. It was a big deal if a favorite movie was on TV.

    You learned how to program your VCR if you wanted to a) get rid of the blinking 12:00 and b) if you wanted to see a show and you were not home to hit record. My old VCR even had a (wired) remote to pause it so you could manually skip commercials.

    When you wanted to rent a movie, you called the video store to see if they had it. They asked if you wanted it in VHS or Beta. Movies took forever to hit the rental stores. They were not for sale early on, and if they were, they cost ~$100 each.

    After VHS became standard, the Laserdisc came out. They were DVDs the size of LP records. Sound and audio quality were awesome, but they were still expensive, and not too many people had them. My dad did, and it was common to have movie parties on the weekends where friends and family came over to watch together. Top Gun was awesome with 6' Infinity speakers.

    For music, there was good and bad, all depending on your point of view. There were a LOT of one hit wonders, many of those songs being iconic for the era. Metal ROCKED. Big hair, tight leather, great music videos. And as has been said, MTV really did play music videos. It was a big deal when "Thriller" was on. If you liked alternative, there were options. You never knew the name of the song unless the DJ told you what it was or if you saw it on MTV.

    If you had cable, you were cool. Not everyone had it. The Playboy channel used a jamming signal that was loud --in case you "accidentally" chennel surfed across it. You learned to turn the volume down before "surfing" across that channel
     
  10. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    I remember when AIDS was called GRID.
     
  11. jp-30

    jp-30 Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2000
    The language was called LOGO, and it wasn't limited to the AppleIIe, nor to drawing pictures with the turtle.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_%28programming_language%29
     
  12. DarthTunick

    DarthTunick SFTC VII + Deadpool BOFF star 10 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 26, 2000

    I am curious as to why you thought I was older.


    Los Angeles Lakers: Drama, guaranteed.
     
  13. jp-30

    jp-30 Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2000
    Because of your grumpy demeanor.
     
  14. The2ndQuest

    The2ndQuest Tri-Mod With a Mouth star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    As far as an early gradeschool age experience goes, you had awesome afterschool and sat morning cartoons (+associated toys). If you were home midday, you had reruns of old shows on Nick or the mixed-quality Nick jr programming. At night you had the Cosby Show, Family Ties and several awesome action shows (A-Team, Knight Rider, Airwolf, etc) and then stuff your parents watched that you probably left the room for (Dallas, MASH, etc).

    Blockbuster was a big thing. Rented the crap outta Star Wars and Godzilla movies. Renting video games came in a generic case and, if you were lucky, they actually had a photocopied print out iof plain text telling you the controls).

    Early on you had Atari 2600, then the golden age of the NES where everyone had one (and there was always one kid on the block who had a Master System- but you only really ever played Rambo on that), so there was communal sense of gaming experiences and secrets traded with friends and classmates that has been kind of impossible to ever replicate in the gaming ages afterwards as multiple systems became the standard (and though many titles are cross-platform, there's no longer the near-guarantee someone has played (or owns/can borrow and play) a title).

    A lot more playing outdoors- neighborhood sessions of Ghost in the Graveyard were pretty regular. Didn't really have much awareness of the cold war stuff other than what you saw in movies and TV shows, so none of that "fear of nuclear annihilation" stuff (that's what Terminator 2 was for ;)).
     
  15. yankee8255

    yankee8255 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 31, 2005
    A bit much to be only exceptions. I would argue that each decades music is generally crap (yes, even the 60s), it's the exceptions that really make the decade musically in retrospect.

    I have to admit though, that having seen a Cure concert from mid-naughties on TV a few months ago, Robert Smith's famed porcupine hairdo has essentially turned into the post-punk/goth equivalent of a comb- over.

    Nevertheless, would still love to have this poster hanging in my room

    [image=http://hotstuffdropship.com/store/images/HS_posters/3955TheCureBoysDonTCry.jpg]
     
  16. EBSaints

    EBSaints Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    May 29, 2002
    Anybody else remember taking a Halley's Comet picture at school? You stood in front of a space back drop and held a telescope.
     
  17. G-FETT

    G-FETT Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2001
    I'd love to tell you what the 80's were like, but I'm too young to remember.[face_liarliar] [face_liarliar] [face_liarliar]
     
  18. Obey Wann

    Obey Wann Former RMFF CR & SW Region RSA star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jan 14, 2000
    Thanks for the info! it might have been used for more, but in 4th grade, that's what we had and did with it. *And it was a big deal to make sure you grounded yourself to the desk before playing on the computer.*

    I was one of the oddballs and had the Sega Master System instead of the NES. I played Space Harrier, Zillion and Choplifter on that all the time.
     
  19. BLACKJEBUS

    BLACKJEBUS Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 9, 2002
    The only things the 80s did right were action movies and heavy metal.
     
  20. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2008
    I was 10 - 19 in the 80s, and I concur with everything else everyone already said...

    ... except for that "Commies are gonna nuke us" thing. That was a tale my mother told us about living in the 50s, that "duck and cover" idea that seemed so silly and passe to us in the 80s. No one I knew was afraid of global thermonuclear war! It was a neat idea for a teen-melodrama starring Matthew Broderick, but as I recall no one thought it was a genuine threat. The Cold War had long since gone... well, cold.

    Other than that, yeah, blue jeans that actually fit one's legs and did not hang so low as to show off the underwear. Those were the days! :D
     
  21. JoinTheSchwarz

    JoinTheSchwarz Former Head Admin star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2002
    ALF. Growing Pains. Full House. Charles in Charge. Webster. Small Wonder.
    Over the Top. The Garbage Pail Kids movie. Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. Top Gun.
    A Flock of Seagulls. Starship. Rick Astley. Toni Basil. Falco. New Kids on the Block.
    Mullets. Perms. Rat tails. Big hair. Neon makeup.
    Slap bracelets. Sunglasses with Venetian blind lenses. Fanny packs.
    Acid wash jeans. Shoulder pads. Leg warmers. Stirrup pants. Jams. Parachute pants. Shell suits. Hypercolor shirts.

    The E.T. videogame...


    Don't let these old people's nostalgia fool you: the 1980s were a hellish time and deserve to be forgotten, if not outright deleted via some cosmic artifact or the other.
     
  22. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    In the 80's xenomorphs were still scary.
     
  23. Everton

    Everton Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Jul 18, 2003
    [image=http://www.bluealert.co.uk/images/ghajk.jpg]
     
  24. DantheJedi

    DantheJedi Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 23, 2009
    I'm sure a lot of guys had this poster on their bedroom walls in the 80s:

    [image=http://i3.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/-1/lens9688191_1282209775heather-thomas-header.jpg]
     
  25. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2008
    The Empire Strikes Back. Excalibur. Conan the Barbarian. An American Werewolf in London.
    The Road Warrior. Star Trek II. The Thing. Raider of the Lost Ark.
    The Evil Dead. The Dark Crystal. Time Bandits. The Terminator.
    Ghostbusters. Spinal Tap. Back to the Future. Labyrinth. Aliens. Brazil. The Princess Bride.
    Evil Dead II. The Abyss. Batman. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
    The Dark Knight Returns. Batman: Year One. The Killing Joke. Son of the Demon.
    Table-top AD&D, 1st edition in its peak. A flowering of fantasy novels unequalled in any age before or since, including reprints of Conan the Cimmerian, Elric of Melnibone, the entire Tarzan collection. The Xanth novels by Piers Anthony (the first 7 of which are fantastic!). Another Fine Myth by Robert Aspirin. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its sequels. Stephen King's Pet Sematary and IT. The Vampire Lestat.
    Michael Jackson's Thriller. Jane's Addiction's Live First Record. The Who's Face Dances and It's Hard. Robert Plant solo and with The Honeydrippers. Stray Cats. The Cars. Tom Petty. The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Rush, Iron Maiden, Ozzy and Dio still goin' strong. Red Hot Chili Peppers!
    MTV's first 10 years. The heyday of cable TV. Star Trek: TNG. David Letterman's entire early career. SNL with Eddie Murphy, later with Christopher Guest and Martin Short, later with Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman. The premiere of The Simpsons.
    Tempest. Ms. Pac Man. Defender and Star Gate. Elevator Action. Those animated arcade games like Dragon's Lair, the best of which was a western drawn by Japanese artists called Badlands.
    Blue jeans that fit your body. The advent of mousse and gel to shape your hair. The rise of Goth subculture and the beginnings of societal acceptance of geekdom.
    My entire high school career! My first year of college! My first kiss, my first girlfriend! My best friends Sam and Lester and John and Shane! Eating blackberries off the bush on Fountain View Drive! Falling in love!

    Don't let these young whippersnapper's short memories fool you: the 1980s were a brilliant, vibrant time and deserve to be cherished, if not outright mandated to be re-lived via some cosmic artifact or the other.

    :D