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'80s nostalgia

Culture

Adults who lived through the 80s share 15 things pop culture gets wrong about that time

"Pop culture acts like the '80s were just a sea of nothing but neon for 10 years."

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A woman dressed in 80's styled workout clothes

Judging by Gen Z’s Y2K-inspired fashion trends, you’d think the 2000s were nothing but people walking around the mall in pleated miniskirts and bucket hats. We can mostly chalk this up to the depiction of the era in movies like “Clueless” and “13 Going on 30.” Anyone born before the 90s can tell you that life was definitely not like that. But hey, sometimes fantasy is more fun.

Same goes for other time periods as well. For those of us without a degree in history, much of how we picture other eras is influenced by pop culture. Like how we think of Victorian women being obsessed with waist cinching thanks to almost every Hollywood movie showing a woman getting bound by an excruciating tight corset. Yep, that was previously debunked.

And sure, some movies and TV series, like “Mad Men” or “Schindler’s List,” make painstaking efforts to achieve historical accuracy. But often, they are works of fiction, and creative liberties are taken. And those liberties create the world for those who did not live in it.

That can even be said of the 80s, rife with Cold War threats and colorful leggings. Or…was it? Recently, user Jerswar asked Reddit: "People who were adults in the 1980s: What does pop culture tend to leave out?" Here are the raddest, gnarliest, most tubular response people gave.


smoking, cigarettes, 1980s, 80s, health A man smokes while sitting on a boatImage via Canva

1."The insane amounts of smoking inside. Especially in restaurants."

"When I worked in a restaurant, the smokers (backroom dishwashers/cooks) got more chances to sit around and take breaks to smoke. Then, when I got an office job, people had ashtrays at their desks. Often, the ashtrays were hand-made by a young relative in an elementary school class."


- YouTube www.youtube.com

2." Anything we wore that wasn't neon. Pop culture acts like the '80s were just a sea of nothing but neon for 10 years."

“And as if every girl and woman was dressed up in tulle tutus with off-the-shoulder lace shirts and a giant bow tied atop our heads.Not all of us were lucky enough to have our parents buy us new outfits like that. My wardrobe was full of old hand-me-downs. No neon, lace or tulle in the bunch."

"I graduated high school in 1984, and never dressed like Madonna or wore neon anything. We were poor, so it was crappy jeans that never got soft and T-shirts until I got a job. Even after that, I wore cords and overalls and sweaters from Chess King."

1970s, 70s, 80s, 1980s, fashion, 70s style, 70s decor A woman lounges in a room full of 1970's decorImage via Canva

3. "How much decor from the '70s and '60s were still in houses and offices throughout the decade."

"This is something that I thought 'Stranger Things' REALLY got right. All the kids' houses look like they were built and decorated in the 1960s–'70s, which is how it really was. Nobody was living in fancy candy-colored Memphis-style apartments except California yuppies."

handicap, parking, 80s, 1980s, accessibility, disability A handicap parking spaceImage via Canva

4. "I was born in the early '80s. I've been totally blind since birth. In the '80s, accessibility was virtually non-existent.That new Nintendo that the kids had? Good luck. Scholastic Book Club? Not in braille or audio. Everything is in print. Nothing to see here for me or mine. Then computers finally got accessible and Windows came out and they had to start all over again. I wouldn't want to go back to the '80s. I now have my phone that I can use to access the world, read what is on my grocery labels, have pictures described to me, and basically know what's going on in the world. In the '80s, so much went by without any context, and that was in the formative years of my childhood."


cereal, cereal box, grocery shopping, groceries, grocery store, 80s, 1980s A woman reads a cereal box inside a grocery storeImage via Canva

5. "Reading everything — literally everything — I could get my hands on. Cereal boxes, newspapers, magazines. Luckily, my library was a bike ride away but carrying those back on my bike was fun."

"OMG, you are so right. That reminds me of things I hadn't thought about in ages.I used to feel so very bored that I'd read anything that had text on it, from cans of food to cereal boxes to whatever books (however insipid) I could lay my hands on. Even the obituary notices in the newspaper were worth a read. The internet really did away with the boredom, didn't it?!"

Speaking of reading…

toilet, bathroom reading, 80s, 1980s A frustrated man sits on the toiletImage via Canva

6. "Trying to find something to read in the bathroom to pass the time. I remember shampoo bottles and the contents of my wallet were my go-to's when a magazine or book was unavailable." "Yes! Shampoo bottles for desperate moments of boredom."

7. "Might be my own bias but being a kid in the '80s there was a lot of casual bullying and conformism. Not that bullying and conformism ever went away, but the '90s was more about counter-culture a bit."


Cyndi Lauper Party GIF Giphy

8. "I was a child in the '80s, but something that I don't think I've ever seen in modern pop culture retellings of '80s life, which I recall witnessing, is this: people think of the weird, wacky, fun colors and hair, etc., of the 1980s — like Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Boy George styles. BUT for many people and mainstream communities, that was considered a 'weird' or 'rock and roll character' kind of presentation. People would often openly stare, laugh at, or disparage people who looked openly unique. It took a lot of courage to go out styled like that. It was acceptable to have a more 'subtle' take on the fun color trends."

"I believe the best real-time representation/evidence of this is in Cyndi Lauper's 'Time After Time' music video, there’s a scene where she sits down in a diner with her boyfriend and his friends. She pulls off her cap to reveal her new hairstyle - half-shaved and dyed bright colors. Her boyfriend's friends start hysterically laughing, the boyfriend is quietly embarrassed, and she runs out of the diner in tears."

tv, 1980s, 80's, 80's TV, sitcoms A retro family watches TV in their living roomImage via Canva

9. "TV was just adult shows for most of the week, especially during summer break. Just soap operas and other boring things." "Staying home sick from school and all there was to watch were game shows and soap operas until the Gilligan's Island reruns came on."


savage reagan GIF Giphy

10. "The sheer sense of doom and pervasive low-key terror of nuclear war. The Soviets' nuclear arsenal pointing at us, and their nihilistic posturing in some ways remind me of the climate change dread we now have. Living with an existential threat is not something new."

"This is so completely underestimated or misunderstood. All through high school, I was convinced that the world would just end one day, and I'd have to figure out how to survive in a post-apocalyptic world afterwards. Yeah, we thought that people would survive an all-out nuclear war."


11. "The homophobia."

"It was casual, rampant, and virtually unquestioned. If you were gay or lesbian, and not living in a major city like New York or San Francisco, you were probably in the closet, at least to everyone but some close friends and (maybe) family. If you were trans, forget about it. Enjoy your life of dysphoria and misery. You don't really see that depicted so much in pop culture now."

"AIDS and '80s homophobia went hand in hand, and it's hard to overstate how much AIDS destroyed the gay community and how the dominant culture thought that was a good thing."

latchkey kids, 80s, 1980s, children, child safety A child opens a door to their homeImage via Canva

12. "Being a latchkey kid it was no frequent communication with your parents. I can't tell you how many times I stayed out all night as an 18-year-old and no one but who I was with knew where I was or what I was doing. My parents didn't know what I was doing all day as a 12–17-year-old, either! You only called your parents at work only if it was an emergency."

"Yes. It's almost like a 'parents didn't care' attitude that would be ascribed to that behavior now (but that wasn't right). Ma needed to work and that she didn't get home until 7 p.m. was just a reality. Oftentimes, she was gone when I got up and we had zero communication until she got home. I was just responsible for the whole shpiel of keeping myself alive."

1950s, 1980s, 80s, 50s, nostalgia A 1950s familyImage via Canva

13.The obsession people/media had about the '50s and '60s.”

“Part of it was stuff like 'Back to the Future,' '50s-themed diners and baseball jackets being popular, then there was the 20th anniversary of things, like various Beatles albums. I think the boomers at that point were in positions of influence and were looking back on their teens and twenties with rose-tinted glasses, so the rest of us had to suffer these cultural echoes from the generation before."

14."Cruising. Before social media, we would drive up and down the street, see and be seen. Stop at different businesses, the cool kids hung out at the Walgreens parking lot, the jocks at the McDonald's. But it was a small town so we would stop at all of them during the evening. That was our social world along with keggers in the desert all through high school and for folks that stayed in town for years after high school.

"It was like a social network but with your car."

And lastly…

15. "What a mess it was to get cleaned up!”

“That sparkle-blue eye shadow didn't come off easily and if it got in your eyes it was torture! That red lip gloss ran all over. And shampooing your hair three times to get out all the hairspray and the mousse. I loved the '80s and I had a marvelous time. But it was messy... but way worth it!"

This article originally appeared last year.

Canva

An 80s woman holds up a boom box. A 90s woman break dances.

As a proud Gen X-er, I'm probably a little biased as to how totally sick our dope slang was. A person is considered part of the X generation if they're born between 1965 and around 1980, so we have words and phrases that were big in both the 80s and 90s. In the 80s, it was stuff inspired by Californians, (particularly those who lived in the Valley) like "rad," :stoked," "tubular," and "grody to the max." The 90s Gen X-er elevated to more intelligent-sounding terms like "dope," "wiggity whack," and "illin'."

- YouTube, RUN DMC, Certified www.youtube.com

Luckily, we have movies like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, plus bands like Run DMC, the Beastie Boys, and Kris Kross to keep these words forever in our vernacular. But most, if not all, of them deserve to make a true comeback.

Joe Boyd (@deconstructedpastor on TikTok) shares what he believes are the top five Gen X slang terms of all time. In the number five slot, he lists, "Psych," which he explains is the odd concept we had of saying one thing and then immediately admitting it was a joke. Like, for example, this Gen X slang article was published in a Harvard science journal. Psych!

@deconstructedpastor

Top 5 gen x slang words of all time. #genx #genxtiktokers #genxcrew #genxkid #awesome

At number four, Joe tells us it's "Duh" and any variation on it. "No Duh!" Or "No Der." Or "Der." Or "Doy!" In very typical Gen X fashion, he explains this term by just using it. "It just means, ya know, DUH."

Number three on the list is "Totally." Again, easiest to explain it by using it in a random sentence. "Things are just, totally. It just meant obviously, yes we agree." I'll add to that "totally" was used as an intensifier for an adjective. "Totally rad. Totally gross. Totally whack."

Number two, he says with authority, is "Dude." To put it in younger generational terms, he clarifies that "Dude was our 'Bruh.'" He explains you can use it many ways like "What's going on? Or dude. Or THAT dude. Or THIS dude. Lots of dudes."

Sean Penn, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Awesome, Gen X Sean Penn as Spicoli says "Awesome." Giphy Sean Penn GIF

Coming in at number one on his list is hard to argue against: "Awesome." Now that's one of those Gen X words that never really went away, because how else would you describe a sunset or a sandwich? In fact, it's noted in the comments that both "awesome" and "dude" are still used daily.

On the subreddit r/GenX, a person posted, "Curious to know what Gen X slang everyone used or still uses?" This question resonated because over 400 people chimed in and came up with a few even I had forgotten.

Many people echo Joe's sentiment about the word "dude," though one points out the magical hybridization of the words "dude" and "man," which is now just "dude-man."

Another claims they came up with an entire phrase: "My husband swears he invented the phrase 'cool beans.' It’s an ongoing argument in our household." Another Redditor adds, "I've uttered cool beans in front of my kids. They looked at me like I had grown a second head."

To that end, lots of Gen X parents and teachers get a kick out of making younger generations guess the meaning of our slang. In this fun TikTok, @ghostmama tries to teach her daughter the meaning of a handful of terms.

@ghostmama

She cracks me up #genz #genx #mothersanddaughters #slang #SpotlightAPI #fypシ #80sbaby #80sslang

Her daughter gets a couple of them right (like "Big Time" and "Bodacious"), but adorably fails on "Space Cadet." (She asks, "That's a profession, right?")

Her most inventive answer involves the word "DINK," which means "Dual income, no kids." She's told it's an acronym and guesses "Don't invent Nutella Kids," which is a perfectly rad and awesome guess. She's all that and a back of chips, you might say.


kids playing in the woods

Those of us who grew up in the age before the internet have memories that today's young people will likely never have. Boomer and Gen X childhoods were simpler in many ways, not having access to endless entertainment or the pitfalls of the online world to contend with on a daily basis.

The internet has arguably made human life better in many ways, but it has also fundamentally changed what growing up looks like. Where the older generations had a handful of TV shows at set times on limited channels, younger folks can binge watch streaming shows and YouTube channels 24/7. Boomers used manual typewriters while millennials had laptops. Gen X carried Walkmans while Gen Z carries smartphones.

And that's just technology. The world has changed in other ways, too, including greater safety awareness that's changed the way people parent and kids having less access to untouched nature. Change isn't inherently good or bad, but there are definitely some nostalgic elements of boomer and Gen X upbringings that those older generations wish today's young people could enjoy.

Here are some top answers to the question, "What is something you grew up with that you wish younger generations to experience?" from people born before 1980 on Reddit.

Being unreachable

80s kids, 80s nostalgia, gen x, gen x kids, nostalgia, boomers, boomers vs gen x, generational differences Two young boys leaving homePhoto credit: Canva

"The freedom to be unreachable and unaware of what everyone on earth is doing at any given time, meaning ... life pre-iphone and pre-social media."

"Pre CELL phone. Pre pager. (I mean, I know early cell phones were around but virtually no one had them pre-1993 and certainly no one expected or even considered them except high paid business folk)."

"Yes, I came here to say anonymity but being unreachable was so nice."

"I remember leaving my phone home and not thinking anything of it. Now it’s not even ‘optional’. Phone is firmly a part of the ‘keys, wallet’ checklist before leaving the house."

"Yes, having people be able to reach out to you 24/7 is not a good thing."

Unrestricted, unsupervised outside exploration

80s kids, 80s nostalgia, gen x, gen x kids, nostalgia, boomers, boomers vs gen x, generational differences Kids exploring in the woodsPhoto credit: Canva

"Running wild outside in the country for entire day without even considering anything that could go wrong."

"We used to just run around the woods by my friends house, and had tree forts and rode bikes around to the neighborhood kids houses. No concept of time outside of sunset. I think that might get lost in the shuffle more today."

"This would be mine as well. Hop on your bike with a friend or two and head out. Maybe to the creek or the woods or the dime store downtown. Just an amazing aimless wandering with no fear of being accosted by anyone. A quick ten cent phone call home to let mom know where you were. Just be home for dinner. Our era had the best childhood ever."

"This is true. I would wander for miles. But the thing is, looking back I can now see more than a handful of incidents that I was very lucky to escape by the skin of my teeth. I’m talking about hitchhiking or telling my parents I was sleeping over someone’s house, them telling their parents they were sleeping at mine and then staying out all night. Stuff like that. It was fun- good times but when I think of MY kid or grandkids doing the same thing I want to throw up."

The joy of wonder without answers

80s kids, 80s nostalgia, gen x, gen x kids, nostalgia, boomers, boomers vs gen x, generational differences A child wonderingPhoto credit: Canva

"Wonder. Sometimes we would just wonder about something. Watching a movie with friends. Someone says 'I wonder if William Holden is still alive?' Everybody would shrug and say 'I don’t know' and you go on with your lives."

"Something humbling and wonderful about not knowing. Now with so much knowledge literally in our hands, we have this anxious 'need to know' everything. And everyone has become a Tik Tok expert."

"Or allowing mysterious, wondrous stuff exist without explanations that are instantly available to remove the sense of awe about how odd, crazy, wonderful, talented, insane, or whatever our world can be."

"The world was more of a mystery back then. That has both its upsides and downsides, but I can't help but feel that some of the wonder has dissipated."

The gift of boredom

80s kids, 80s nostalgia, gen x, gen x kids, nostalgia, boomers, boomers vs gen x, generational differences A bored little boyPhoto credit: Canva

"Boredom. Boredom breeds creativity. Boredom has been removed from their lives."

"The skills you gain from the experience of being bored, every now and then. Principally, how you can develop that inner voice, which has been my friend on many occasions and saved my bacon many more. If you always rely on external sources for information or support you’ll surely get stuck when things go wrong or you have to make a decision quickly."

"Boredom leads to reading plus learning to play instruments."

"While I’m happy my kids made friends online the desperation of boredom and creating your own things was really important for me."

"Boredom. The number of times I whined to my parents I was bored and their answer was just 'then go find something to do' led to all kinds of fun."

The freedom to make mistakes

80s kids, 80s nostalgia, gen x, gen x kids, nostalgia, boomers, boomers vs gen x, generational differences A young girl embarrassedPhoto credit: Canva

"Being able to make a mistake without it going viral online."

"Experiencing awkward coming of age scenarios without being documented in a server farm somewhere with world wide access."

"I'm sorry kids don't have the chance to make mistakes and correct them without it being memorialized online to follow them forever."

"Being able to break things and make mistakes... the cost is way too high now."

Tactile pleasures

80s kids, 80s nostalgia, gen x, gen x kids, nostalgia, boomers, boomers vs gen x, generational differences A little girl readingPhoto credit: Canva

"The satisfaction that comes with slamming down a landline phone receiver."

"Encyclopedias."

"Paper maps. I’d love to see someone in this day and age successfully use (and fold back to its original form) a paper map."

"Reading a book instead of playing video games (most useless invention possible). I'm actually old enough to remember no TV in the house and no radio either (my parents read newspapers and magazines instead for their news but it's a much slower feed and more local)."

"The thrill of buying a vinyl album. I know you can still do that, but it just doesn't seem the same. Back in the '60s and '70s they were absolute TREASURES."

"Sleeping on sheets that had been dried out on a clothesline in spring. The scent on those sheets was intoxicating."

Travel feeling more adventurous

80s kids, 80s nostalgia, gen x, gen x kids, nostalgia, boomers, boomers vs gen x, generational differences Friends going on a road tripPhoto credit: Canva

"Going on a road trip with your friends to somewhere you've never been, navigating your way there with a road atlas, and then exploring it without consulting any online reviews or suggestions from Google Maps."

"Experience world travel the way it used to be. There was a time when traveling to another country was a big deal and it was adventurous.

Now, we can buy a last minute ticket on a flash sale, read about the destination on the way to the airport, watch Hollywood movies on the plane, rent a car from a familiar brand, stay at a known hotel chain, eat familiar food and use your GPS to guide you around while you chat in real time with your friends.

Travel is still fun but the magic and romance are mostly gone. That feeling of being far away and completely submerged in a strange culture almost doesn't exist anymore. It's too easy and homogenized now."

"So true. Even back in the early 2000s I remember being on a bus in South America with an American 19 year old who was really captivated by the idea that I travelled in the 1970s "before email." You had to wait two weeks to receive any kind of letter at the General Delivery post office of whatever country you were in. There was so much freedom in that, and a real submersion into the local culture, an ability to let go of your cultural touchstones and become someone new."

"The old way of traveling meant there was a lot of serendipity happening. You’d head to some town you knew nothing about and get chatting with someone on the bus who would then invite you to stay at their house. They would feed you and show you around, help you navigate whatever you needed to head on your way. A lovely way to meet people and learn about nearby treasures to see that you knew nothing about. Now , everything can be researched and plotted out beforehand. I still travel in an unplanned way, with no agenda, no lodgings figured out, but when I mention it, other people shudder and say their anxiety wouldn’t allow it. Did we not have anxiety in the old days? Yes, we did, but it was all part of taking risks in life."

There's a lot that's better, easier, faster and more convenient about life in the 21st century, but there really was something special about growing up in the pre-internet days, wasn't there?

This article originally appeared last year.

Motherhood

Millennial mom is stunned when grandma compares parenting in the 80s to now

Taylor Wolfe couldn't believe her mom slept soundly without any kind of baby monitor.

@thedailytay/TikTok
"My anxiety could not have handled the 80s."

Raising kids is tough no matter what generation you fall into, but it’s hard to deny that there was something much simpler about the childrearing days of yesteryear, before the internet offered a million and one ways that parents could be—and probably are—doing it all very, very wrong.

What's especially fascinating is that our data and best-practices have gotten so much better over time. Parents in the 80s had no idea that crib bumpers were dangerous, just like their parents didn't know that using whiskey as a sleep aid probably wasn't the best idea! We know better, and yet, we're burdened by the overwhelming amount of knowledge and potential dangers around us.

Taylor Wolfe, a millennial mom, nails this conundrum perfectly this as she asks her own mother a series of rapid-fire questions about raising her during the 80s and the stark contrast in attitudes becomes blatantly apparent.


80s, parenting, millennial mom, motherhood, millennial parens, boomer grandparents, moms, dads, parents, kidsParenting in 2025 is a lot different than in the 1980s. Photo by Alexander Dummer on Unsplash

In a clip posted on TikTok, Wolfe and her mom sit side by side on the couch and have a fascinating discussion.

First off, Wolfe can’t comprehend how her mom survived without being able to Google everything. (Not even a parent, but I feel this.)

“What did we have to Google?” her mom asks while shaking her head incredulously.

“Everything! For starters, poop!” Wolfe says. “Cause you have to know if the color is an okay color, if it's healthy!”

“I was a nursing mom, so if the poop came out green, it was because I ate broccoli,” her mom responds.

…Okay, fair point. But what about handy gadgets like baby monitors? How did Wolfe’s mom keep her kid alive without one?

“I was the monitor, going in and feeling you,” she says. Wolfe asked her mom how she slept without a baby monitor and knowing for certain, at every instant, that she was safe? "We just slept" her mom deadpanned.

@thedailytay

My anxiety would have hated the 80s. Or maybe loved it? IDK! #fyp #millennialsontiktok #parenttok #momsoftiktok #comedyvid

Could it really be that easy? It was for Wolfe’s mom, apparently. Rather than relying on technology, she simply felt her child and adjusted accordingly.

“If you were hot, you slept in a diaper. If you were cold, you had a blanket around you.” Done and done.

Wolfe then got into more existential questions, asking her mom if she ever felt the stress of “only having 18 summers” with her child, and how to make the most of it.

Without missing a beat, Wolfe's mother says, “It's summer, I still have you.”

Cue the tears!

Going by Wolfe’s mom, the 80s seems like a time with much less pressure on parents.


@thedailytay

She had some big feelings. #parentsoftiktok #gentleparenting #satire #fyp #foryoupage #momlife #parents #millennialsoftiktok

From feeding her kids McDonald’s fries guilt-free to being spared the judgment of internet trolls, she just sort of did the thing without worrying so much if she was doing it correctly.

That’s nearly impossible in today’s world, as many viewers commented.

“Google just gives us too much information and it scares us,” one person quipped.

Another seconded, “I swear social media has made me wayyyy more of an anxious mom."

"it's almost like all the technology, and it's advertising, leads to so much unnecessary anxiety" someone added.

Even a professional noted: “As someone who has worked in pediatrics since the 80s, the parents are way more anxious now.”

It's no wonder that parents' mental health is, collectively, in the toilet. We're more stressed today about money, work-life balance, getting into good schools, signing up for activities that gobble up all our time... everything.

Experts say there are ways parents can manage the stresses of modern life, though. Reducing phone and social media use, for starters, is a good way to avoid ruminating on all the potential dangers of the world. Parents are also challenged to push themselves out of their comfort zone by allowing their child more freedom and independence than they'd normally be comfortable with. For example, letting your kids walk to school or go buy something from a store without your help.

I don’t think anyone truly wants to go back in time, per se. But many of us are yearning to bring more of this bygone mindset into the modern day. And the big takeaway here: No matter how many improvements we make to life, if the cost is our mental state, then perhaps it’s time to swing the pendulum back a bit.

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.