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.
Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
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Re: Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
#2Bloody awful in the UK, living under Thatcher and the streets awash with yuppies -- you're welcome to it.
Re: Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
#3It 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.
Re: Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
#4Stranger 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
Re: Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
#5It 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.
> 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
Re: Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
#6Bloody awful in the UK, living under Thatcher and the streets awash with yuppies -- you're welcome to it.
Thanks for this perspective. Had to google what yuppies were..learnt something new today.
Re: Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
#7Stranger 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…
> 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 :-)
Re: Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
#8It'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.
Re: Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
#9I 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;)
Re: Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?
#10I 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 medi…
> 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. :-(