Ignore that AI fascist propaganda vid. I was a kid in the 80s. Everything stank of old cigarette smoke. Cinemas, planes- even mcDonalds had ashtrays. If you missed a tv show when it aired, you missed it. There was four TV stations to pick from. You had to queue at the bank to get money out.
Most of the clothes were beige. All the houses where cork tiles and wood panels and everything was beige or orange. Most people smelled of Brut and Chanel Number 5. You had to guess where the next song on the record was and move it manually. Dentists didn't have UV epoxy.
Calling overseas costs a tonne of cash, you were charged by the minute. Doctors thought ulcers were caused by stress, not Helicobacter Pylori. Computers took like a year to load a video game.
Racism and homophobia was even worse, like holy shit you think it is bad now, we had kids at our school hospitalised on the regular. And that was considered normal or to be applauded.
But that's the bit they really want, isn't it? AI only serves the oppressors.
Here is the thing... the cool style we remember as 80s? That was REBELLION in the 80s, not the norm. You had a constant stream of abuse and mockery for not fitting into society... so if you were goth or new romantic or had an ear ring as a boy... holy shit you copped it.
I got beaten up once because I wore a wind breaker inspired my Marty McFly. This 80s icon. This one.
The good stuff of the 80s was wrapped in the looming threat of nuclear war, constant union strikes against unfair labour laws, whole towns shutting down because industry moved overseas, mass unemployment and so forth. Medicine and surgery was nowhere near as good as we have it today.
There was lots of good stuff... but there is more good stuff now, and a wider range of it. More options, more freedoms, healthier choices, more information, more education, more... more... more. We just need to exorcise the creeping evil.
In 80s and early 90s my dad regularly used to say, "People talk about the good old days... *These* are the good old days, here and now!" Then he'd talk about all the sucky stuff that we'd improved on majorly. Lasting change takes decades, and there are always creeps trying to drag us backwards.
Now is a big improvement on the 80s and 90s. The 80s and 90s were a big improvement on the 40s and 50s. 40s and 50s were a big improvement... You get it... But one common thread through all those improvements were the people trying to drag us backwards, the people saying the world used to be better
Love this thread! 👏
My fondest memory as a kid growing up in making paper airplanes out of punch cards (I didn't know what they were) while my Dad worked in his office.
And remember the “war on drugs” and “just say no”? And Reagan telling everyone the communists were spreading north from Nicaragua, and AIDS being a death sentence, and….
And if you want big floofy hair in the 21st century, you can do that on your own time.
I mean I think this seems to ignore that the anti-ai movement is just as much pro this kind of 80s nostalgia. It isnt something exclusive to the AI movement. Like to be blunt, the people I know who hate ai the most are those who want to live in the 80s because they think it was a better time
but it is all just crazy nostalgia for like you said a time that was horrible for many groups like ours
Friday night bank lines were THE WORST.
i lived at poverty and both my parents worked full time jobs. i was a latchkey kid and it was very lonely.
Ashtrays everywhere is true. Smoking everywhere. My high school had a smoking room…. For the students!!! Actually late 70’s for that I think. More than 4 stations if you had the right antenna. UHF had 3 additional stations so the Brady’s Gilligans island & Hogans Heroes were readily available…lol.
Sexual harassment in the workplace was normal and expected, and gay people were not tolerated at all. Courts accepted fear of being hit on by gay or trans people as a defence for assault or murder.
Four stations? Luxury!
In my days we had one! And the whole town fought to the death over who got to watch it that day!
Yep, they are doing the Golden Age of Things that never was. Every fascist/nationalist regime does this to hoodwink the population into thinking that they can have that if we give up our collective souls to the regime.
There was SO MUCH BROWN
I may have moments of nostalgia from those days, but they're really times best left in the past. Fun at times to revisit the old places and look at what's changed, but definitely not wanting a return to those days.
The 80s started ok for me, then relocated to a different place and changed schools, and I never quite fit in no matter how I tried since then, especially when I was a year younger than those in class. Was tough for a number of years, until I realised, why do I want to even bother fitting in
Got termed as the 'rebel' in school, but after sometime, I started wearing that label as my trademark instead. I started learning that it's ok to be anti social. but it's also important to really know who your close friends are. Few good friends are better than many superficial ones.
Yeah. Young people can't believe how much people smoked, and how omnipresent the reek of stale smoke was. It *sucked*.
Yeah and you had to physically go round to your mates houses to see if they wanted to go out, or the phone box down the street if they were posh and had a house phone!😂
and the tv "remote" was tethered by a cable. and mtv played music videos. and the atari 2600 was wood-paneled
Hrmm, We did have VCRs.
everyone i knew couldn't afford one....
There were two VCR formats. Beta and vhs. The video store had to stock both so there was usually a wait and booking for new releases.
I know, I had both, but started with a forgotten format called Philips VCR which used cassettes that looked like this. Yes in this case, VCR was a format on its own.
Honestly there were a bunch of weird formats early on, but they all pretty much died out.
Petrol stations in Brisbane shut on Sundays. Had to check the paper to find the one rostered open for the north/southside