Were the 1980's really as wonderful as many who are now over 50 say it was?

[Venera314]

I have my doubts. Sure, there was no social media and no internet to endlessly distract people, but still, there would have been other issues to grumble about.

[DaveJord]

I think the 1980's were amazing personally. In those days we celebrated people's strengths and values that were upheld by the majority of people. There was expectation that life was rough and that in no way would the world change for you just because you were having a tough time.

When going got tough you just had to get tougher and if you couldn't manage that then you were weak and not strong. We celebrated strength and upheld our hero's and strove to achieve the things they achieved.

As a child of the 1970's you just knew nobody was ever going to do anything for you for free. If you wanted something, then you had to fight for it and go out there and get for yourself. We lived under the threat of the Iron Curtain in the Cold War with the potential of nuclear holocaust... so as young man you knew you had this window of opportunity to live life to the fullest because at any given time you could be called upon to go to war. You had this sense that you were destine to kill Russians, and you had to life live as fast and hard as possible because it could all end like that. So, you went out got drunk, partied like no tomorrow and nobody went to jail or got arrested that is just what kids did until they grew up and got smarter. In that process you learned a lot about life and yourself.

But then the tender hearts took over, and now make excuse for everyone, nobody takes ownership for their actions. Back in the day if you were an asshole, you were and asshole, and you only got away with that shit until you met the next better asshole that beat the shit out of you. And nobody cared, because you deserved that shit for being an asshole... so stop acting like an asshole. And you know what after a few ass beat downs you learned to stop that shit and act right.

Now days we say it's not the assholes' fault for being an asshole... it's his mother fault, dad's fault, or society's fault, or they are just products of their environment. it's not right to take their being ass hole out on them, so they get through school with no beat downs, they become ass hole adults, and then they turn active shooter, and we all wonder why that is. It because nobody taught this ass hole a lesson as a kid, so now they feel entitled to being an ass hole forever, and if you do not like that then you're the real asshole.

You had jobs that offered pensions, yeah you had to slave away in the factory for 20 years, but you earned a pension, and you might be able to retire at 55 or 62... now days you have 401K which is a scam... and you still working until 65 and depending completely on social security. Or you just say fuck it and collect welfare because the hassle of having a real job is too stressful.

In the 1980's the weather was better none of the drought stuff... shit was made in the USA and affordable... I mean the list goes on and on. Science was simple in the 1980's, if you were born with a penis, you were a fucking man. If you wanted to pretend you were not a man, even though you had a dick, then you were a freak. Pretty simple right? Nobody was confused about that fact... now we worship people for being confused about their very nature like they are brave heroes, while the really strong and truly brave are marginalized into not caring any more. You turn on TV today and you see these pansy ass whimps being celebrated, and you would think the whole world is turning gay, or there is a black person around every corner being persecuted.

In the 1980's you could have single income families at every level and get through hard times, and children had a parent in the home to care for them and actually raise their children... now these kids are in daycare or school and then after school programs for 80% of their waking hours, being raised by the program. Their emotional needs are not being meet, and they grow up not understanding why they feel the way they feel. but mom and date are both working two jobs just to survive and we are told that America is better off, or you just say fuck it and collect welfare because the hassle of having a real job is too stressful.

Should I keep going?

[Venera314]

Sounds very bleak. Glad I missed that decade!

[Jay3344]

I think it had a more personal touch. When you talked to people that was the socializing. When you were apart you wrote letters or called. People would talk on phones for hours to each other. Now people prefer to text and not even speak or listen. People would set times up for meeting each other because of limited phone access. So when you would say let’s meet at the bar at 9. You were more committed to that time and place and less able to improvise or adjust with people. I felt that when people sat and socialized there was something different than what we have now because there was no impulse to even be distracted. If you got bored you would probably think about a passion you had like art or cars or something and throw yourself into that when you could. Sure it was harder to find information but you usually only found what you really looked for so there was a focus and commitment to projects and ideas. Also when you were alone, there was less opportunity to socialize so you would seek it out naturally and find it. The times you were alone was more for being still and working on things you wanted with less distractions vs just getting sucked into a phone for hours. I only caught the tail end of it and experienced it through family and friends who were older but still that’s what I felt.

[AmandaYVR]

It was a pretty superficial time. There was a lot of spending beyond one's means, and keeping up with the Joneses. (Though that certainly would not be the first or last time in history for that.) Fashion was gaudy. Music was poppy. It was a time of excess in many ways. Think of the song lyrics, "We're in the money..."

But money was flowing. Things seemed playful, exuberant, celebratory. It was a showy time, of self-expression, and having fun. But, it was mostly just a ruse. Underneath all that, was a deck of cards, and it would, again, collapse.

But you didn't know it when you were in it. You know what they say about slow cooked frogs...

[exitseven]

@AmandaYVR Yes, I remember all the people buying BMWs and Porches and I remember this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC2-4Z3r6Iw

[FreyaRed]

Depends where you come from. My parents grow up under decaying communism in 1980-ties and they don't look back with nostalgia at this time

[MrOracle]

Every era has it's problems, and the 80s definitely had its share. Cocaine had been largely ignored in the 70s, and its use had exploded, building up drug cartels to supply it, and by the late 70s was causing lots of deaths among young people (teens-30s). Coke was expensive, though, and out of reach to most people, but the cartels figured out that the rock form of it - "crack" - was even more addictive, and it was cheap, so they flooded the streets with it, targeting the lower class, who were numerous but didn't have a lot of money. People started dying in big numbers, and the cartels grew richer, bigger, and more powerful, leading Reagan to initiate the War On Drugs.

This was still the era of the Cold War, and proxy wars.

The 70s, especially the Carter years, was a time with little hope. There was a LONG recession, high inflation, an energy (oil) crisis (gasoline was in short supply - you could only buy gas every other day, and stations often ran out, with lines for blocks to fill up). Many big cities were dystopian nightmares of abandoned buildings, rubble, garbage, violence, prostitution, and drugs. There didn't seem to be any reason for optimism - even Carter called this "The Great Malaise" of America, and given that he was looking for "big government" solutions, he only made things worse. This led to Reagan winning huge in 1980, but it took him 2 years to push changes through the Democratic congress. Once that happened, though, the US economy quickly recovered and there was a huge economic expansion, and people were optimistic for the first time in a decade. And that optimism was global.

It was that optimism that resulted in all of the great art from the 80s - the music, the movies, the TV shows, the fashions - everything. People were HAPPY being happy, and wanted more. Years of depression was finally over, and there was an exuberance in the air.

Some people complained that this didn't reach the lower class, but it really did - the unemployment rates were at historic lows - but it did mean that people who had relied on factory jobs had to find other work as manufacturing was moved off-shore, and this forced people to move out of industrial cities like Detroit and Pittsburgh and Cleveland, so it was hard on some people. On the flip side, the Information Economy was just getting started, and this created a LOT of new jobs - comfortable office jobs rather than hard, dirty factory jobs.

Just look at most of the movies from the 70s - a decade of dystopian Sci-Fi (Star Wars being the rare exception), crime stories, horror, and disaster movies - very little that was happy or positive. There was more positivity in music, but still plenty of negative. This all changed in the 80s, with positive themes becoming the norm and negative the exception. That was a reflection of the times - the Reagan Era.

The 90s went back to depression and negativity. This was the era of grunge, the first Gulf War, the Clinton scandal, and the escalating War on Drugs (which had been grossly mismanaged, and almost certainly intended to make things worse rather than better). The movies and music reflect this as well - positivity and negativity flipped back to majority negative.

So, yeah, I'd say that the 80s were great overall. Not perfect by any means, but provably better and more positive and optimistic by a long way than either the 70s or the 90s.

[FunkyMonkee]

Really? From what I saw, coke was raging away in the `70's and hardly heard from at all in the `80's! And I was in a band through all of the `80's and `90's!! Sure, there was SOME coke going around but, most often, it was grass booze and/or pills. In the `70's, damn near EVERY COP SHOW on the tube was about coke at least 20% of the time!!

[MrOracle]

@FunkyMonkee The music business isn't very representative of the overall society though. It's absolutely true that coke was everywhere in the music business in the 70s, but it spread into the upper class (mostly the younger upper class) and into Hollywood in the 80s. Coke became expensive, so you had to have money to get it. In the 70s, a record deal would have drug/booze money built in ("promotional expenses"), but the record industry learned the hard way that this was a bad idea, and were phasing that out at the end of the 70s, so bands were on their own. Meanwhile, Hollywood copied the music business, and in the 80s, movies and TV shows often had drug budgets. Coke was less common in the middle class because of its high price, but there were definitely some "aspirational" middle class users - people who used it occasionally as they could afford it, or people who stole or scammed money to buy it.

Crack started to hit in Miami and NYC in the early 80s, and exploded in all major cities in the mid/late 80s. Again, this was a much cheaper drug, but more addictive and with much worse side effects, and so it was marketed to the lower class.

[FunkyMonkee]

As far as I'm concerned, it was! At least the mid `80's were almost like the later half of the`60's, part 2! Because of personal shit going on in my life, it WAS a bleak point in my life but, the movies and music were fucking GREAT!!! It was the second most creative period we'd ever had, after the late `60's!! And I DON'T mean all that disco and rap shit that was flooding the radios back then!! I'm talking about the stuff radio wouldn't touch!! I hear so many people put down the early `80's, based on the t. v. shows and the AM radio shit that was played to death but, I'm talking about the stuff that even MTV hardly ever touched, if at all! Laurie Anderson, King Crimson, The Fixx, Rupert Hine, Art Of Noise, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Yello, Adam Ant, Madness, XTC, Kissing The Pink, Bad Manners, The Motors, Elvis Costello, Bow Wow Wow, The Mystic Knights Of The Oingo Boingo, Fischer-Z, FM, The Movies, Wall Of Voodoo, Big Country, Fishbone, Joe Jackson, Gary Numan, Split Enz, etc.. And, a plus for me was that I was finally in a band and making albums and finally getting some pussy!!
As for t. v., I pretty much stopped watching it in the late `70's when most of it turned to a huge pile of shit!! The `70's was the lowest cultural point in the history of the planet!! Most people that loved the `70's (the dumbing down era) hated the `80's (the era where intelligence began to peak again). I guess they were so dumbed down, by then, thinking actually hurt!

[hypojoe]

Ahh 1986 was big cool ranch doritos came out, lets see oh the bestie boys first album, i think crack cocaine was a new thing back then, no internet or caller id or cell phones, no google maps, horrable hair i swear girl had a contest to see who could get there bangs the highest and where i lived the green river murderer was pretty busy and a occasional ted bundy sighting , cars were garbage pretty much , i remember when we got our first microwave oven a vcr , i remember shotime and hbo coming out and cable tv the atari..
Thank god for slayer keeping it real otherwise probably would not of made it

[WindAtMyBack]

Who says that? I suppose the good thing about the 80s was that it was a recovery time from the late 70s, which were pretty messed up. The early 80s was the beginning of a huge economic recovery which lasted until the late 90s. People were basically just living their lives and not grumbling about everything like they do now. I think people were too busy working hard to have time to grumble.

People always feel food during good economic times. When it's also a recovery from bad economic times it feels even better.

Plus all the partying from the 70s mostly ended, and people got their heads on straight. The mid-late 70s was a huge party, and not the good kind of party. It was way over the top and totally out of control. So the 80s was a recovery in that regard also.

[bolverk]

Too true the 80's were better, none of the social media, dating sites BS they did not exist. Flying was easier, no TSA/security BS that slowed down airports/air travel, I just finished my apprenticeship and was starting to travel the world. what money you had stretched further,

And there was not the racial conflict of today pushed by the Race Grifters. All of them that came out of the woodwork over the last 20 something years the vast majority of whom are academics who have never done a serious days work in their lives.

[Guy13]

There is nothing new under the sun so I imagine it was the same story as now. Pretty much the 70 year historical time period is a rerun but maybe different players. People are fallen and had not improved through education or any other form of enlightenment.

[KostasKouvalis]

I don't think so. We had Chernobyl, the AIDS crisis, the Iran/Contra scandal. Several Civil wars in Latin America. Still had the Cold War going on. Disco music.

The only thing the 80s had going for it was the movies. Aside from that, it was one of the worst decades actually

[Venera314]

Disco music? That was the 70's wasn't it?

[KostasKouvalis]

"80s music" then. Whatever you wanna call this garbage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

[Venera314]

Ugh! Rick Astley! Yuck! :D

[KostasKouvalis]

LOL.

[FunkyMonkee]

Sure was! But, it still bled over into the `80's and is still going on today. They just don't call it disco, today. Now, it's trance and who knows what other names they give it!

[Bricealan]

Probably not. Every generation thinks the time they grew up in was better than the present.

[Venera314]

Exactly. It's just nostalgia playing it's tricks upon people's minds again.

[FunkyMonkee]

The `60's WERE better than the `80's but, if I could go back to the `80's, I'd go in a heartbeat!!

[Nikki1989]

The early 80s sounds like a good time, but the decade become progressively worse as time went on. However, it blows away anything that happened in the 90s.

[FunkyMonkee]

Yeah, it started to get shitty around `86. The `90's weren't TOO bad but, I'd much rather go back to the early `80's!!

[magiusX26]

most of thec"other issues" you reffer to would be conflicts along the lines of the constant drama now plaguing social media. these issues usually were quickly resolved instead of festering into today's drama because we wentbout and actually handled our business instead of sitting behind a screen talking shit.

[loveslongnails]

Every era has its issues. Most have some good points. My parents said the late 60's and 70's were the best for music, relatively safe drugs and dating! They didn't like the 80's as much for anything, and then I came along. After that, everything went to hell. LOL

[JJ092003]

My grandparents loved the 80s. My parents loved the 90s. I loved the 2000s. I think nostalgia hits hardest when you're young

[WanderingLoveWizard]

From what I hear, the economy was booming and everyone was having fun, dancing to disco, snorting drugs and buying the shit out of everything they could get their hands on.
That sounds pretty fun to me!

[Old_Golden]

I'd rather be there than now. The "war on drugs" was only beginning to ramp up, credit scores were in their infancy, sure interest was around 15% but on a house then that cost $96k vs the same house now that costs $400k at 6% I'll take it. Global warming wasn't wiping shit out yet... plus a lot of mad decent movies, not remakes. I'll take the 80's

[FunkyMonkee]

"Global warming" STILL isn't doing anything! It doesn't exist! Back then, it was global cooling! We were expecting a new ice age any day now! We're still waiting for it!

[Old_Golden]

You haven't experienced a 73*f Christmas have you

[FunkyMonkee]

Back in the late `90's, we played a gig in Youngstown, Dec. 7th, I'm petty sure. It was in the mid to upper 70's!! after the show, we went to someone's house in the boonies and threw Frisbee, ran around in shorts and had a blast until about 5:00 a. m. when it started to cool off. By morning, it was in the 40's!! By the time we got back home 90:00 later, it was in the 30's!! Flukes like that happen once in a while. 3 years before, we had one of the coldest winters we've had in a long time!!
Back in 2013, I worked at a print shop about 6 blocks from my house. I could walk to work in about 7:00. The temp was down in the low 20's and with the wind howling away that morning, I got as far as a block away from work and was so frozen, I nearly collapsed in the snow and froze to death!! I just couldn't take the cold!! I had to force myself to walk the last :90 of my trip!!

[Old_Golden]

You replaced temperatures with decades?

[Slingblade1126]

The mid eighties, as well as the nineties were a great time. Politics wasn't so polarized, the economy was strong and most had a love or at least a common respect for the U. S.

[Slingblade1126]

The music was good too!

[FunkyMonkee]

Second only to the psychedelic era of the `60's!! A VERY close second!!

[Slingblade1126]

@FunkyMonkee The only songs I know from the 60's, are Roy Orbison, some Neil Diamond and Johnny Horton. Lol... that's what my parents liked. Oh, and the Beach Boys. Now, my two older brothers listened to, The Dead, Floyd, Zeppelin, among others but I don't know if they are sixties. I do know that I DID love the music. They'd sit in the basement, working on model cars, smoke dope and listen to music, all while I watched. Good times! Oh, and Peter Frampton! He's still one of my favorites.

[FunkyMonkee]

All 3 of those bands started out in the `60's but they were more `70's bands, per se.
Dead started out around `64 or `65 as The Warlocks and changed their name by around `66, I think.
Pink Floyd started around `65 and went by a number of different names until `67 when they became The Pink Floyd Sound and shortened it to Pink Floyd and released their first album. Only their first 4 were from the `60's.
Led Zep started out in `68 from the ashes of The Yardbirds, who started around `63 or `64. Eventually, Jimmy Page took over on guitar and, by `69, The Yardbirds broke up and Jimmy wanted to continue, got the other 3 members of Led Zep, started calling the band, The New Yardbirds until Keith Moon heard them and said they'd go over like a led zeppelin. Only the first two LZ albums were in the `60's.
Frampton started out in a `60's band called, The Herd, and then went solo in the late `60''s but didn't hit it big `til the mid `70''s.

[Massageman]

Every decade will have its good and bad points. MrOracle pretty much said anything that worth talking about in this regard, especially having (nearly ) a decade of hope after one of hopelessness. Now, we are back to hopelessness.

[abc3643]

Ah, I remember when I was...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/x1U1Ue_5kq8

[smølf]

No the 1980's sucked in many ways. I liked the 1990's far better.

[weysally]

I was in my teens during the eighties, not a bad time, but though I didn't them there were a lot of drug abuse

[HaveNoName]

Every generation says their time was better. The way I see it, the world and the wholesomeness of life only gets worse, it never improves with time.

So yes, I would do anything to go back in time.

[coachTanthony]

best movies, best music best era. After about 1995 things went down hill lol

[PainusNdeeAnus]

Gonna have to disagree on you with that best music part

[coachTanthony]

It’s the most memorable for me …what’s your favorite music era?

[coachTanthony]

@painusndeeanus

[PainusNdeeAnus]

Mid 20th century and 50s era
I like Perry como , Dean, Billie holiday, Doris Day, Sinatra, etc.

[PainusNdeeAnus]

I’m a 90s baby though and I’d say mid to late 90s was better too “This is how we do it” “Everybody (Backstreets back)” “Under the bridge” “Smells like teen spirit” “All Star” “End of the Road” that was Wu-tang era man C’mon the 90s kicked ass

[coachTanthony]

Gotcha

[Exterminatore]

Fully agree coach.

[exitseven]

It was good except for disco and the yuppies.

[Venera314]

Wasn't disco from the 70's though?

[exitseven]

Iy was still around in the 80s.

[FunkyMonkee]

And today, they just have other names for it.

[Dargil]

Hard to detect from the internet now, but my sense is that it was. Far fewer problems than today.

[Guardian45]

The 1980's or "Me" Decade had GREAT music, movies fashion and politics! "Greed is good!"

https://youtu. be/6bbzwJ0Sx48

[Venera314]

What was good about the politics? How is greed ever good?

[Guardian45]

Greed is NOT good, but it prevalent and flaunted in the 1980's.

[Venera314]

So... that's one of the things that made the 80's not-so-good then.

[Guardian45]

"Greed is good" was the 1980's mantra after
the 1981-82 recession, the worst economic downturn in the United States since the Great Depression.

[Guardian45]

1980's were Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Fall of The USSR

[Venera314]

More bad things!

[Guardian45]

Are you saying Fall of The USSR & end of The Cold War is a BAD thing?

[Avicenna]

The early 80s were not, but from 1983 on it was better

[Pudsmucker]

I honestly don't think the '80s were that dreamy. I agree we didn't have the internet. Inflation was quite high.

[Likes2drive]

In my opinion yes it was , good movies , music and things were cheaper too, we had drive in movie theaters everywhere too

[PainusNdeeAnus]

The eighties was probably pretty cool I feel like people had way more fun back then and didn’t just look at screens all day

[FunkyMonkee]

Yeah, we did! Check out movies like "Back To The Beach", "Surf II", "Valley Girl", "Spring Break", "Up The Creek", "Hardbodies", "Fast Times At Ridgemont High", "One Crazy Summer", "Better Off Dead", etc.. Not only were the `80's pretty cool but we also had a lot of `60's nostalgia in that era.

[PainusNdeeAnus]

@FunkyMonkee my mom grew up in the 80s she made we watch a lot of those movies but her most favorite was Grease 🙄

And I saw an old video of when my neighbors were in highschool first off I can’t believe people in the 80s actually dressed like that🤣 and second it looked like so much fun people actually danced at parties not just vaping , getting high and hooking up

[FunkyMonkee]

There was a couple movies about Mad Max and, it was speculated, back then, that we were about to head into WWIII and the atom bomb would decimate most of the planet and people would dress in whatever rags they could find so, a lot of people in the `80's dressed a lot like those in the Mad Max movies. Others, mostly girls, were big into wearing underwear as outer wear partly because of Prince, Madonna, Apollonia, etc. so, those that didn't wear rags dressed in underwear. It was also a MUCH freer time back then and people were VERY creative with their clothes and their looks and were also more accepted. Today, we've almost gone back to the puritan ethos!! It's hard to believe that most of the stuff we could wear in the `80's will NOT fly today, when we're SUPPOSED to be even more accepting than we were back then! I used to wear very short cut-off shorts and nobody but my parents gave much of a shit about it! Today, you HAVE to wear "shorts" that nearly come to the tops of your shoes!! Those aren't shorts!! Those are flood pants!!!

[PainusNdeeAnus]

@FunkyMonkee nah today it’s skinny jeans and deep V-necks you can blame the early 2000s ed hardy douchebag era
And girls today dress like straight up prostitutes

[AviatorTom]

The 80s were an interesting time. Less stress than now, no social media, news that was truly fair and balanced, and excellent entertainment choice.

[Venera314]

Are you sure about the "fair and balanced" bit, because at least as far as I can recall, the mainstream media has never been that at all.

[FunkyMonkee]

It was, more so, then than it is today and even more in the `60's.

[Iron_Man]

It depends if you like the music and all the dress styles plus working out was real big

[boobliker]

better when you were thear like me!!! loved it all

[AngryCarl2]

Yes, the 80s were the greatest time in history. If you don't agree, you weren't there.

[shortster]

The last half was; I am not sure about the first half.

[Tonyblony5150]

Most definitely almost as good as the 80's and 70's

[Adam1978]

I can't think of any that isn't still around.

[lottiebannotie]

I don't know I wasn't around but I hope so

[krin_m]

Yes, they were!

[nawtee_me]

60's were better...

[FunkyMonkee]

Sure were!! But, the early `80's were a very close second!! After the major drag that was the `70's, the `80's were a godsend!! Things were groovy again and a lot of `60's nostalgia was really hot! Even The Monkees made a come back!!

[nawtee_me]

@FunkyMonkee yes but disco sucked…. lol

[FunkyMonkee]

Yes, but, disco mostly died by the early `80's! Besides, I never listened to that shit, anyway! There was MUCH better music being made and NOT played on the radio!!

[Exterminatore]

Absolutely.

[In_Trance]

Yeah