What were the 80s like?

[VG_Addict]

As someone who was born in 1992, what were the 80s were like for those of you who lived through it?

[samsonlonghair]

Well, I was pretty young at the time. I can only give you the viewpoint of a child in the 1980s. Here's what I remember of the 1980s in no particular order...

*Saturday morning cartoons were awesome.
*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were the biggest, strangest franchise in the world.
*The Simpsons and Married...with Children were two highly controversial TV shows
*Computers only lived in classrooms and libraries; I didn't know anyone who had a computer in their home.
*Nintendo was practically the only name in video games. In fact, we didn't even call them, "video games"; we called them, "Nintendo Games" because that was the only video game console that mattered.
*We went to Blockbuster to rent Back to the Future and Ghostbusters VHS tapes.
*A Space Shuttle exploded in mid air; that kinda disillusioned folks towards the space program.
*I was only vaguely aware who Ronald Reagan was; I DID understand who George Bush was.
*Slime was en vogue for some reason.
*Nickelodeon was just getting started. Programming included "Mr. Wizard" and "You cant do that on television" plus reruns of old stuff like Lassie, Flipper, and Underdog.

[Tanooki]

Well, I was pretty young at the time. I can only give you the viewpoint of a child in the 1980s. Here's what I remember of the 1980s in no particular order...

*Saturday morning cartoons were awesome.
*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were the biggest, strangest franchise in the world.
*The Simpsons and Married...with Children were two highly controversial TV shows
*Computers only lived in classrooms and libraries; I didn't know anyone who had a computer in their home.
*Nintendo was practically the only name in video games. In fact, we didn't even call them, "video games"; we called them, "Nintendo Games" because that was the only video game console that mattered.
*We went to Blockbuster to rent Back to the Future and Ghostbusters VHS tapes.
*A Space Shuttle exploded in mid air; that kinda disillusioned folks towards the space program.
*I was only vaguely aware who Ronald Reagan was; I DID understand who George Bush was.
*Slime was en vogue for some reason.
*Nickelodeon was just getting started. Programming included "Mr. Wizard" and "You cant do that on television" plus reruns of old stuff like Lassie, Flipper, and Underdog.

Solid list I would add some more.
- TV was more bold and varied. Adventure movies were common, and adventure, action, and better quality sitcoms existed none of that unreality tv drama crap.
- In gaming the idea of fun on the go (until late 89) were LCD handheld games usually just with 1-2 modes and people ate it up
- Action figures for kids had projectiles that would poke you in the eye and many were made of solid quality pieces of die cast metal standard to last
- For those with their MIDI keyboards and auto-tune now, then we had wicked synthesizer music.
- People then were not politically correct and if someone had a disagreement you dealt with it or walked, no whining like a baby and mob scaring people to do stuff through manufactured shame
- Coke vs Pepsi had a huge battle, even tried to sue over slapping each other around it got so bad then settled on agreeing to dump on each other to a point
- Disney almost roasted to death releasing turd after turd in much of the 1980s with animated flops, a little mermaid turned their fortunes around
- Back then people respected George Lucas (Lucasfilm) as a bonafide genius of story telling in both sci-fi space drama and adventure films (now a hated pariah to most fans)
- DVR didn't exist nor did TIVO. You had to manually set a VHS tape player to record a program and remember how long it ran, what time, and set the channel to the right tv.
- Afternoon/saturday morning cartoons were more directly violent (GI Joe soldiers shown gunned down with red/blue gun shots), and older stuff wasn't censored by crybabies for stuff (nickelodeon butchering out Looney Tunes violence)
- We had 3 video game based game show programs and a fourth based on showing off new games and tips
- In every town anywhere with food, laundry, bowling, gas/mini marts, even malls had at least one arcade game if not an entire dedicated room or building to the stuff, and everything was 25 cents a play outside of a few exceptions. These were the best things in gaming that whole decade stomping the quality of home stuff.

[flojocabron]

I was more of a 90's kid, but I got the tail end of the 80's.

I wasn't a rich kid, so I yearned for those sweet Nintendos, segas and the like.

Living was living. Just like now. Eat, sleep, dream and poop. And school in between.

I didn't have my own videogame consoles but I had lots of cousins that did. And many were generous enough to let me play with them or borrow it for a week or two.

And being poor meant you saw lots of cartoons. Lots of them. Saturday and Sunday cartoons and the afternoon block.

Going to the library and reading books and seeing fancy computers at the library and school.

And eavesdropping on schoolyard conversations

dreaming of how one day a poor latino kid would own some videogames

I got plenty now!

[Anapan]

I fully experienced them as a kid - Neon denim, high-tops, and wrap around shades were awesome.
I grew up with an Atari 2600. I played a lot of Frogger, Defender, Battlezone, Seaquest and River Raid with my dad and brother. When the NES came out, I spent a lot more time at my friend's houses until my parents got us one, tho that was late 80's.
Anime was a little less than half of the cartoons, but it was many of my favorite shows - Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, The Little Prince & Transformers. Still the #1 show was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when it came out. Also Fraggle Rock, My Pet Monster, The Snorks, Care Bears etc...
Mc Donalds was the best restaurant - Happy Meal toys! Giant fibreglass mannequin Ronald Mc Donand and Ball pit Slide. That was the only place I wanted to go to dinner.
Digital Watches and Calculators were "spage age" technology! Many calculators still had red Bubble LED Displays.
The Speak & Spell, Teddy Ruxpin, Boglins, and the View Master were the coolest toys in their respective years. We used to put my friend's pantera cassette tapes in the Teddy Ruxpin and Alf talking dolls to watch them freak out and swear at us.
In elementary school, the folders and binders had Mario, Goombas and Link from the Legend of Zelda sponsored - these weren't stickers, these were the media the school bought for us. The principal used to call us his "Little Goombas".
I had long hair, often cut in a mullet so it didn't hide my eyes, but it was because I wanted my hair like Link from Zelda 2's illustrations. I never did get the sideburns right - I mostly just had messy long hair and wouldn't let anyone cut it short.
I always thought the TV's depictions of Miami Florida were tropical fluorescent and "synth music" cool. I never picked up on any drug references.

My live action heroes were Hulk Hogan, Tom Selleck, and David Hasselhoff as the Night Rider with his talking car Kit. My favorite movie was Short Circuit - Johnny 5 is still the coolest robot ever built.

The TV's picture was often really bad - many channels were very staticky and blurry with bad noise. You had to move the antennas around to get different channels, and some you had to hold the antenna while watching to make out what words the characters said - sometimes Tin Foil was involved. VHS tapes were magic, and every weekend we went out to rent two movies - this could be an hour-long trip. The good ones often took a couple months to be available to watch - that's how you knew they weren't boring.

I found this to reflect my parent's view on the 80's when I showed it to them (well, my dad said he doesn't remember - he was drunk).
Kevin Bacon explains the 80's to Millenials
I have that jacket - it's really comfortable.

[noiseredux]

it's true about the slime. It was everywhere.

[Melek-Ric]

it's true about the slime. It was everywhere.

Yes! I was born mid 80's and remember playing with Nickelodeon gunk, Ghostbusters slime and Turtles ooze around '90-'91. Also the Double Dare show was all about that stuff. I was careful with slime cuz if left on toys it would stay on them and also my parents would yell at me if I made a mess with it.

[noiseredux]

OMG TURTLES OOZE! I can smell right it now. Wow.

[Ack]

Also, there was a lot of cocaine.

Like a LOT of cocaine.

[isiolia]

Picture the barren hellscape that life would be if the internet disappeared entirely. It was like that, but with terrible fashion.