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Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?

by ElectronShak on 3/29/22, 7:41 PM with 66 comments

• by cmollis on 3/29/22, 8:13 PM

  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;)

• by mattl on 3/29/22, 7:46 PM

  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

• by khedoros1 on 3/29/22, 9:36 PM

  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.

• by joezydeco on 3/29/22, 7:44 PM

  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.

• by olliej on 3/29/22, 10:18 PM

  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

• by vavrek on 3/29/22, 9:31 PM

  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.

• by jshaqaw on 3/29/22, 9:32 PM

  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.

• by jjgreen on 3/29/22, 7:42 PM

  Bloody awful in the UK, living under Thatcher and the streets awash with yuppies -- you're welcome to it.

• by Blackstrat on 3/31/22, 1:20 AM

  As a guy born in the 50s, I can state unequivocally that nearly every decade will have something you’ll like and a lot you won’t. Thus far, since 2020, it’s mostly been bad. The 80s started rough, coming out of the Carter malaise, the Iran hostage crisis, the misery index, gas lines, etc. By 1984, things in the States were improving rapidly. The PC and networking helped launch a revolution and an economic boom that is still expanding. Unfortunately, the caliber of our political class has decayed precipitously. Hopefully, we’ve reached the absolute bottom of the barrel. My advice is to not lament times past but seek better days in times present. Turn off the news. Quit buying into the crisis of the day. Ignore the inane memes like gender identity, pronouns, etc. Carve out your own identity. If you are defined by the group to which you think you belong, you aren’t living. Trust me you’ll be much happier.

• by echlebek on 3/29/22, 10:36 PM

  Stranger Things is not a documentary. Life sucked in the 80s and things are better now.

  Source: I was born in the 80s

• by amichail on 3/29/22, 8:12 PM

  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.

• by p0d on 3/30/22, 6:38 AM

  I was 10 in 81. I would travel several miles from home playing with my friends. Bikes were a big thing. I had no computer and played D&D. I read books like Stig of the Dump, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Your favourite tv show was on once a week. I recorded music from the television or radio on a little cassette player. I had a record player. I slept in tents in friend's back gardens in the summer. I played soccer with friends until it was dark. I went swimming with friends in the sea and the swimming pool. I grew up in Belfast and encountered several nearby bombings. Children seem more afraid and unhappy now than then.

• by Nextgrid on 3/29/22, 8:18 PM

  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.

• by gladiatr72 on 3/30/22, 2:57 AM

  Hrm. As a nerd growing up in the rural midwest (b.1972) (hundreds of miles from a significant population center, there were some entertainment concepts that were born (Tron, Max Headroom, Knight Rider) that were pretty neat to a 12-17 year-old. 8-bit computer mags were fun to collect--the 8-bit market had some distinctive architectures (z80, 65xx, 8088) that made it fun to try to create similar programs for different systems; some mags would publish the source code for a game or utility for multiple systems in the same issue--it was fun to try with our own code.

  Other than that, the 80's were shit. The economy tanked. Rural America embraced Reaganomics during the campaign. Didn't turn out to be such a good deal for most of us, BUT...

  We Gen-X rats were fed Superior Bullshit.

  The 80's had the Star Wars Project. It is worth looking up--basically, we (the US) ran a (supposedly) successful con on the Soviet Union. Around $61 billion dollars was spent to incite a false tech race with the hope of siphoning Soviet resources into research that neither country had a hope of viably creating. The Reagan admin's winning card was having the money to cover the bluff (that money was doled out on legal contracts with not-altogether-clear film footage of some pieces of in-flight ICBM interdiction tech being dropped every few years).

  How much that project contributed to the end of the USSR? Dunno. But it was cool!

  Oh, and the Internet was wee. Most nerd comms were done by way of "borrowing time" on one of the corporate X25 networks (chat with a few primitive bulletin-board type systems) or by BBS. I don't know if that actually contributed to the 80's un/pleasantness, but they were fun (as long as you could dodge the bill).

  The 80's might also have been the last complete decade that no one was arrested for letting their kids play outside by themselves.

• by yazmeya on 3/29/22, 10:51 PM

  I grew up in the 1980's USSR and it was anything but colorful.

• by 8jef on 3/31/22, 2:14 PM

  Born in 1968, I used to really deeply hate the 80's. Especially politics (Reagan, Thatcher, Cold War), the music scene (disco, danse music, new age), and economics (shit job market, high interest rates, raise of kleptocracy). At the time, I only listened to 70's music, was an adept of the No Future - FTW credo, and wondered why humans were enduring so much nonesense and stupidities. Movies were good.

• by codingdave on 3/30/22, 2:28 PM

  You know the fear of nuclear war that the younger folk have been experiencing for the first time the last few weeks. It was like that. Constantly.

  Sure, video games and MTV were new and fun. Computers were new. But aside from that, it was different decade with different styles, but the day-to-day life was the same. Go to school, hang out with friends, have dinner with family, maybe watch a little mork & mindy on channel 57, and go to bed.

• by Randolf_Scott on 3/30/22, 3:19 PM

  Joke:

  Well, back in the 80's all you had to do to worship Satan was play your record backwards. Now it is so much more of a ritual.

  Back in the 80's I felt like the year 2000 would be the epitome of tech, but now I have no hope for floating skate-boards.

  Back in the 80's I had protection for my hair-do, but now my hair stands vulnerable to all forces of nature.

• by nobodyandproud on 3/29/22, 10:47 PM

  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.

• by anamax on 3/29/22, 9:15 PM

  As the documentary Demolition Man shows, we communicated using jingles.

• by ed-209 on 3/29/22, 11:28 PM

  People weren't afraid of eachother.

• by akeck on 3/30/22, 12:49 AM

  For me, only 87-89 was the personally pleasant part. The early 80s recession was a difficult time.

• by stuaxo on 3/29/22, 11:26 PM

  Stranger Things is a pastiche of the 80s.

  Growing up in the 80s in the UK I remember a lot of grey and beige TBH.

• by tamaharbor on 3/30/22, 1:52 AM

  We were younger, and mostly remember only the good things.

• by maremmano on 3/29/22, 9:21 PM

  scarcity, naivety, ignorance and creativity