[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
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Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
Watching Stranger things, and Wow, the 80's, so colourful! What a
time to be alive! I was born in 1995, but I wish I'd experienced
the 80's. I'd like to know was it like for HN'ers who were there at
the time.
Author : ElectronShak
Score : 14 points
Date : 2022-03-29 19:41 UTC (3 hours ago)
| maremmano wrote:
| scarcity, naivety, ignorance and creativity
| amichail wrote:
| It's only obvious in retrospect does one realize just how special
| the 80s were. Home computers were a new and very exciting thing.
| Students wanted to learn as much about them as possible -- not
| just learning to program in Basic but also in 6502. Besides
| computers, music and movies at the time were amazing.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| I see. There is a reference to BASIC in mid Season 2, where
| they had to use a computer to unlock certain doors. The UI was
| Text only :-)
| cmollis wrote:
| I was born in 1967.. so I remember the 80's very well. First, let
| me say that it wasn't all great: AIDS was pretty scary (as
| someone else noted).. no one knew what the hell that was and it
| was killing a lot of people. There was also the ever-present
| spectre of nuclear war with Russia...Iran-Contra, 1987 stock
| market crash.. However, to your point, there was no exhausting
| news cycle, no exhausting bullshit social media, no in-your-face,
| constant idiocy from the political class (well, there probably
| was.. but we didn't hear about it), no 20 years of terrorism and
| associated wars, no worldwide pandemics that killed millions, no
| global warming; all of which has scared the living shit out of
| every person alive (ya know, if you're not completely insane). I
| grew up in the 80's.. went to high school, and college in the
| 80's. I remember always being optimistic about the future. Now
| I'm not so sure.. I have three kids all under 23.. I do not envy
| what the future holds for them. (which is probably what my
| parents said about me;)
| riidom wrote:
| Also not to forget the worries about the ozone hole.
| daltont wrote:
| Born in December '66. The fear of nuclear holocaust was
| prevalent (The Day After, Threads, etc), but every thing else
| was pretty good and optimistic. The Ukraine invasion and
| instability of Russian leadership has brought the nuclear fears
| back. The danger never really went away, but the present seems
| actually more dangerous.
| busyant wrote:
| > I remember always being optimistic about the future. Now I'm
| not so sure.
|
| 1968 here...
|
| I was somewhat pessimistic about the world throughout most of
| the '80s, primarily because of the cold war, Libya, etc.
|
| But when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and during the subsequent
| years in the 1990s, when it _felt_ like Russia was becoming a
| democracy (in combination with the explosion of the WWW), I
| became optimistic about society.
|
| I look back on my optimism and it makes me feel naive. :-(
| earleybird wrote:
| A few extra years here :-)
|
| Post the wall coming down there was a sense of optimism and
| then came the breakup of Yugoslavia with ethnic cleansing and
| the siege of Sarajevo. In the same time period - the Rwandan
| genocide.
|
| So, yes the never-ending nuclear fear mongering (not saying
| the threat wasn't/isn't real - it is) gave way to a small
| window of time that looked promising.
|
| plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose
| cmollis wrote:
| I should add that, of course, there actually was terrorism..
| just not in the US on the scale of 9/11.. (which I had the
| misfortune of experiencing firsthand in Manhattan).
| ElectronShak wrote:
| Thanks for the detailed response. Great points for me to note!
| I think hope and optimism are what keep us going, even when
| everything around us is mostly negative.
| cmollis wrote:
| I should also qualify my jaundiced view of the future, with an
| actual belief that we'll eventually solve some of these
| problems.. particularly global warming, and energy creation. I
| have exactly zero faith that we are finished trying to kill one
| another for money.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| In which country?
|
| Japan in the 1980s was booming and would've been magical.
|
| In the US, the 1980s was a sort of economic rebounding from
| stagflation and high oil prices of the 1970s.
|
| The crack epidemic, the renewed "war on drugs", nuclear war ("the
| day after" was a big deal), blatant racism, terrible American
| cars, and high interest rates?
|
| I don't miss those at all.
| olliej wrote:
| You're seeing an idealized fantasy version of the 80s. What a lot
| of people remember of the 80s was childhood so they lacked
| awareness of the things that would cause adults stress, and so
| that's the view shows set in the 80s reflect.
|
| For many people the 80s were not good - the CIA was introducing
| crack to finance itself (and arguably targeting destabilizing
| black america), AIDS was killing thousands while significant
| portions of the world were celebrating the "gay plague" or GRID
| (Gay Related Immune Disorder), Police still routinely targeted
| LGBT clubs, being fired for being gay or trans was legal, etc
| yazmeya wrote:
| I grew up in the 1980's USSR and it was anything but colorful.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Technology-wise, "growth and engagement" wasn't a thing yet. Tech
| was mostly about making the world better instead of being a
| cancer trying to consume all of humanity's attention for
| advertising and marketing purposes.
| [deleted]
| vavrek wrote:
| Was born in 1973 and grew up in the Redwoods of Northern
| California, near what would eventually become Silicon Valley.
|
| In that place and time, the 80's were mostly a very fun and
| exciting bunch of years to be a child, with the crazy hippie
| 60's/70's mentality of the adults crossing over into a new
| "cleaner" era of exploding fresh technology and intelligent comic
| vision.
|
| Records became cassettes. Being able to record our own sounds and
| listen to music on mobile devices for the very first time was
| totally amazing. The first personal computers arrived, which were
| equally incredible, although quite mysterious and complex.
|
| Atari 2600 and the video game revolution hit, with all of us
| hooking up our new joystick machines to parents big Zenith
| televisions, while dumping quarters into arcades.
|
| The arrival of the VCR was a breakthrough in being able to watch
| movies at home, GOOD movies such as Star Wars, Breakfast Club,
| Blade Runner, Dark Crystal and countless other great films from
| the time, many of which we saw in theater.
|
| Really cool new music was coming out regularly, from bands like
| Depeche Mode and Oingo Boingo. MTV arrived and was extremely
| bizarre and brilliant, at first.
|
| The environment was less toxic and people were far less paranoid
| in general. We spent endless sunny days riding bikes, swimming in
| rivers, climbing trees, building forts, go-carts, and causing
| silly mischief, without any threat of watching cameras. We could
| make prank phone calls in the middle of the night without any
| worry about "Caller ID." ;)
|
| We were afraid of the "nuclear war" propaganda constantly pouring
| out of the 3 mainstream TV channels (PBS was relaxing) and some
| young friends committed suicide. Yet, the Space Shuttle launches
| were inspiring and we felt that America was genuinely dedicated
| to freedom, democracy, and justice. This illusion was eventually
| crushed, for me.
|
| The 80's officially died in a wave of hip-hop, rap, awful "butt
| rock," bad films, and a sudden appreciation for general
| stupidity. The inspiring momentum of what felt like a positive
| movement seemed to fall apart suddenly with corporate
| consolidation of media, commercialization of everything, and a
| darker, harsher, lifeless cultural attitude.
|
| Been missing that bright 80's era, ever since.
| dogline wrote:
| Did you say, awful "Cop Rock"?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_Rock
| jshaqaw wrote:
| Given this is Hacker News... it was a magical time for
| technology. Yes it helped I was ages 5-15 for that period.
| Computers were just coming into the general population and that
| was a mind blowing thing. At the same time, the pre-mass internet
| era meant that our brains were our own. Concentration and space
| to think weren't yet deprecated features.
|
| Other than that it had the same ups and downs as any other time.
| khedoros1 wrote:
| I was born in '84, and so was very young in the 80s, but it was
| normal for me around kindergarten age to walk alone to a friend's
| house in the neighborhood, find out that they weren't home, go
| somewhere else, and call home from there to update Mom on my
| location. Even just a few years after that, they were worried
| about kidnappings and such, and I wasn't allowed as much freedom
| anymore.
|
| I've also always been interested in technology. I remember using
| some variant of Apple II in school (Oregon Trail, Number
| Munchers, and such), an IBM PCJr at home (a pack of Sesame Street
| games, Alleycat, and some others I don't remember well enough to
| identify). This was obviously before the internet was typically
| available in homes, and before the first web browser...I _do_
| remember using Prodigy on my grandfather 's computer around the
| time (text-only, over a 2.4kbps modem). To me, one of the stark
| differences is that computers weren't so embedded and essential
| in people's lives.
| jjgreen wrote:
| Bloody awful in the UK, living under Thatcher and the streets
| awash with yuppies -- you're welcome to it.
| earleybird wrote:
| just a little side note - The riot/protest scenes from "V for
| Vendetta" were apparently footage from the Thatcher era
| protests.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| Thanks for this perspective. Had to google what yuppies
| were..learnt something new today.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Funny that by 80's definition, most non-trades adults living
| at median income levels today would be considered yuppies in
| the 80's.
|
| The future is here and the yuppies won.
| joezydeco wrote:
| It wasn't all pleasant. You're seeing the past through a heavy
| filter.
|
| The 80s did have lots of interesting things going on: new music,
| video games, crazy fashion.
|
| We also had a mysterious epidemic (AIDS) and overhanging threat
| of nuclear war. Oh wait, we still have that.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| > You're seeing the past through a heavy filter
|
| I agree. I guess it's what movies do. Unfortunately, or
| fortunately for me, its all I have as a reference, including a
| few books here and there. But I like that there seemed to be a
| clear cut distinction between life and technology, today,
| technology is so intertwined into our daily lives
| echlebek wrote:
| Stranger Things is not a documentary. Life sucked in the 80s and
| things are better now.
|
| Source: I was born in the 80s
| smordistan wrote:
| anamax wrote:
| As the documentary Demolition Man shows, we communicated using
| jingles.
| mattl wrote:
| Stranger Things and other modern movies like Wonder Woman: 1984
| present an inconsistent idea of what the 1980s was like.
|
| Case in point, there's a scene in a supermarket with a bunch of
| breakfast cereals from various pop franchises. That never
| happened in reality. In reality, the same cereal would be
| repackaged for whatever was the hot movie/brand at the time.
|
| This is somewhat sent up in this video from UK's The Adam and Joe
| Show. https://vimeo.com/347912488
| starwind wrote:
| Didn't know that. I googled _1980s cereal_ and sure enough:
| https://www.pinterest.com/pin/70437468476516/
| ElectronShak wrote:
| > Case in point, there's a scene in a supermarket with a bunch
| of breakfast cereals from various pop franchises
|
| Yep, Season 3 Episode 1. Also seems like everyone went to the
| mall to hangout :-)
| jhbadger wrote:
| The mall hangout thing was pretty spot on though in the 1980s
| (I was born in 1970). So much so that eventually a lot of
| mall security started making a point of harassing teens that
| weren't actually actively shopping though.
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