What were the 80s like?

[Sukey]

What a fun thread and bringing back so many memories!  I was born in 1981 so some of these memories might be blurring into the early 90's, too.

Computers- I remember my friend had a computer and we played games on it with actually floppy disks.  They were large and were floppy unlike later floppy disks.  I think we played a game called Pengo and Pitfall- loved that game! The internet hadn't even been heard of at this time.  In school we would have computer class on Macs and we would play Oregon Trail and Number Munchers.  Kids would pick out the rainbow colored apples.  I always wanted one, but I would never do that.  I did end up with one eventually, maybe in high school- I think someone gave it to me.

Fashion/Fads- Crimped hair, neon- kids called me the neon queen or something like that.  Tight jeans at ankles, much like skinny jeans today, but usually stonewashed and no spandex involved.  Stretchy jeans didn't exist.  I hated those tight ankled jeans...  There were the plastic charms with the bells- I had a plastic rainbow belt for mine.  Popular shoes were L.A. Gear and British Knight.  L.A. Gear had to have their laces braided.  Jean jackets were in.  And those plastic things the tied your shirt on one side- can't think of their name.

Music- We listened to music on records and cassettes.  Michael Jackson and Madonna were huge.  One of my favorite Christmas presents was my stereo with a record player, cassette decks and radio.  Often on Friday nights I would record popular music and make my own mixed tapes.  When I wasn't at home the popular place to be on Friday was the Starlite skating rink.  It still exists, but the music they play sucks now and they close it during the summer Walkmans were the big "in" thing although I never had one- I did have another brand of portable tape player.  I used to put it in a hip pack on my bike and listen to music when I rode around.

Video games- I can't remember the first time I played PacMan, but I think it was a handheld game that my cousin had.  I feel in love with it!  Another very memorable Christmas was when I got a Nintendo!  So many fun times with friends playing the good ole NES.  Gameboy was a big deal. I only had 2 games for it Super Mario and Tetris- was really into Tetris.  I remember the arcade in the mall- the Dream Machine, it was always packed.  My dad used to go to this little pizza place to visit his friend that owned it.  They had a pinball machine and I was addicted to that thing!

Technology- We got our VCR in maybe 85 or 86.  We recorded so many kid's TV shows on and I would watch them over and over again.  I can remember the first time I watched Nickelodeon.  It was some show about a fish, still to this day I have no idea what it was.  For school reports, you had to look up your information in an encyclopedia and either hand write it or type it.  We had an electronic typewriter and it had this tiny little screen where your words would come up and you could type it all in(but you couldn't see it all once it went off that screen).  Then you hit print or something and sat back and watched it type it all out-  was pretty neat.  We had rotary phones and didn't get a cordless phone until 1992 I think.  I don't think I even heard of the internet until 1996- I remember my friends and I would go to the library which only had 2 or 3 computers and we would go into chat rooms.  We got a home computer and internet in 1997.

Free time- When it was nice out, I was usually outside playing with neighborhood kids or in the yard.  I never took my toys outside. I remember when I was at my friends house and she took her Jem car and dolls outside and I thought that was the strangest thing ever- "you mean you take your toys outside?!??!!"  I can't remember if mom wouldn't let me or I just didn't have any desire to do that.  There were so many fun things outside to explore.  We made forts and paths in the woods.  We hung out at the creek and looked for salamanders and minnows.  We drank creek water.  In summer on Saturday nights the whole neighborhood gathered for the "town meeting" and we played tag and hide and seek in the dark.  We rode bikes a lot and I came home every night covered in mud.  I played in the yard a lot with my dog.  We would run around the house with a red wagon and I would ride my big wheel down our hilly yard from the top.

School- We had Valentine and Halloween parties.  The Halloween party included everyone dressing up and parading outside of the school.  Sometimes we would have our party in the cafeteria and we would get snacks and glass Coke bottles.  Parents were allowed to bring in homemade foods for the class to share.  Students were taught cursive.

I vividly remember going with my MamMaw and Pappy through a McDonald's drive thru and getting a plastic pumpkin with food in it   Pound puppies and Purries at Hardees and green slime ice cream when Ghostbusters came out!  Fast food places had some cool toys back in the day. 

When you went somewhere, you designated a meeting spot and time- like the mall or amusement park or anywhere, because no one had cell phones.

Stickers were huge- prism, puffy, glow-in-the-dark, scratch and sniff and Garbage Pail Kids!  I had some sticker albums.  Remember slap bracelets and how they were banded from schools?  I remember making friendship bracelets on the playground with my friends.  Light as a feather stiff as a board when you would levitate your friend with two fingers.  And kickball- I loved kickball!

So many fun memories. Sorry, I may have repeated a lot things...

[Pokeyonekenobie]

Thriller.  We must not forget Thriller.

[Lucky_Ladybug]

What a fun thread! Very informative and some of it nostalgic. I don't remember a lot about the '80's firsthand, as I was born in the latter part of the decade, but I concur with one poster who said that a lot of '80's stuff carried into the early '90's. Some of these things sound very much like my childhood, particularly some of the fashion, the going to people's houses to play or specific people's houses to use certain things like trampolines, playing outdoors, etc. I remember things like metal slides in the playground too, but I did not find getting burned (or injured in any other way) the least bit fun or as any sort of rite of passage. I always tried to figure out how to slide down in a way that would be the least destructive to my hands and legs. I loved climbing trees, riding my trike, and taking special plushies outside to play. But I also loved being indoors, playing with paper dolls (which usually had '80's fashions), watching TV and movies, and reading.

I remember huge cordless phones, Atari computers, and printers with the perforated things you had to tear off the pages. I remember this awesome coloring program disc for the Atari that I loved to play over and over again. Coloring the same pictures never got old, since I could do it differently every time.

Many of the things I loved then (and love now) were '80's things: Ponies, Care Bears, Mario, Turtles, DuckTales, Gummi Bears, the latter two Star Wars original trilogy films.... I loved Alf back in the day, but I don't know if it would hold the same charm for me now. We had two old Wish Books that I loved to pore over again and again. When I visit antique malls, it's generally the '80's toys that send me into the deepest nostalgia, and some early '90's stuff.

Ah, good times....

[Rainbow Dash]

A lot's already been mentioned, far better than I could say.  My memory's not so great and I was very young for most of the '80s, but I do remember a few things.

I was fortunate to grow up in a major media market.  We had lots of channels to choose from (and we had cable - you had to get up and slide the cable box's channel selector by hand to get to the channel you wanted).  And if you didn't pay for a premium channel (like Disney or HBO) they scrambled it, giving you occasional glimpses of what you were missing.  Here's a picture I found online of a similar cable box:

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3375/3298454963_068a3b8b20.jpg

That was state of the art technology.  Speaking of technology, cars looked like this:

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That's a Ford Mustang, believe it or not (a far cry from what they were previously or what they've become in the years since).  Convertibles had fallen out of favor in the '70s (the advent of air conditioning and the rumor of pending rollover crash testing put an end to American convertibles until 1982) so this car is equipped with removable roof panels known as T-tops (the Trans Ams in both Smokey And The Bandit and Knight Rider helped make T-tops popular).  The Mustang hiding behind it even has a vinyl roof (red at that!), a very popular option on cars from the '60s through the '80s.

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And this is a station wagon.  While still popular in Europe and Asia, the wagon has all but gone extinct in North America.  Replaced by the first minivans (well, the first to be called such, the VW Bus, among others, had existed for years prior) that debuted in 1984.  Up until then the full-size station wagon was the king of the suburbs.  But they were the opposite of 'cool' and movies like National Lampoon's Vacation certainly didn't help their image problem.  The simulated wood side panels were meant to evoke the classic wood-bodied station wagons prior to the early '50s and were reserved for only the highest trim levels (in this case, the Ford Crown Victoria Country Squire).  SUVs were just beginning their rise to popularity, and were most commonly purchased in Rust Belt states where snow was a legitimate concern or by people who actually took them off-road.

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As mentioned by Sumire above, Japanese cars hadn't come to dominate the North American market yet.  They had made tremendous gains in market share throughout the '70s thanks to offering economy cars, but they were trying hard to move upscale.  This is a Toyota Supra, featuring another '80s styling hallmark, pop-up headlights.  These have fallen out of favor for a number of reasons: more expensive than conventional lights, advancing technology (and the repeal of archaic headlight laws) has resulted in cars that can have both aerodynamics and functional headlights, and finally pedestrian safety laws preventing protrusions on the car.

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Speaking of foreign (to the USA, anyway) auto manufacturers, there were more options available in the 1980s.  France's Renault owned American Motors (AMC) until 1987 and Peugeot maintained a presence in the USA until 1991.  Great Britain still had a domestic auto industry and Rover sold cars here under the name Sterling.  Even Yugoslavia was sending cars here (the much-maligned Yugo).  The first Korean cars were sold here in the mid '80s (my elementary school teacher got one of the first Hyundais sold in the USA - to say their quality was lacking is like saying water is wet... thankfully they're much better now).

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Bill Elliott's 1987 Ford Thunderbird (this exact car) remains the all-time NASCAR speed record holder.   NASCAR reduced the speeds due to safety issues arising from a 1987 race where Bobby Allison ended up tearing down the catch fence between the track and the grandstand when his car got airborne.  Elliott dominated NASCAR for much of the '80s and won the 1988 Cup championship.  His racecar also resembles the street version of the Ford Thunderbird (unlike today's purpose-built racers), which was a popular 'personal luxury coupe' (stylish full-size with only two doors and luxurious interiors & features), a type of car that is now completely extinct, though they were extremely popular from the late '50s into the early '90s.

One thing the music scene had that I didn't see mentioned is the era's focus on adult contemporary/easy listening.  For example, Kool & The Gang's Cherish and Christopher Cross' Arthur's Theme aren't likely to be played on any radio station now, but were both huge hits in the '80s.  But they're not 'classic rock' so they're forgotten now.  If you're lucky you might hear an oldies station playing Celebration or Sailing by those same artists.

Speaking of '80s music, the song We Built This City was innovative as radio stations were urged to make their own unique traffic report for the bridge of the song.  Unsurprisingly, the most popular version was about the Golden Gate Bridge and this is the version played on the radio today.  However, growing up in the New York metro area I vaguely remember a version that was about the George Washington Bridge.  I've not been able to find a version of this available anywhere (not on YouTube and Google searches have yielded nothing except for confirmation that it exists and that I'm not delusional), so if anyone can help me reminisce I'd be grateful.

I also want to note that not only was Astro Boy around before the '80s, so were Speed Racer & Kimba The White Lion.  All three of these were quite successful on this side of the Pacific in the late '60s.  So anime existed in the USA well before the '90s.

[Darker]

I'm a 90s kid, but I love the 80s.
It's an era full of great shows and movies. Like My Little Pony :-D

[halicabi]

I'm show my age here, but I was born in the early 1970s.  Most of what the 80s were like has already been mentioned.  Obviously, we all had different experiences based on when we were born, and where we lived.

I grew up in Miami, Florida. 

The first Major event was the Mairel Boatlifts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariel_boatlift

This caused a major change in our lives with the constant influx of immigrants.  Some good, and some not so good.

Then came the McDuffie Riots:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Miami_riots

I remember my parents freaking out, and school being cancelled.

Living in Florida, there were always threats of Hurricanes and Tropical Storms:
In 1979, Hurricane David was forecasted to hit.  Tape on the windows, bathtub filled with water, fence cut to park car in back of house...then it passed by.  Soon after came Hurricane Frederic, again, nothing serious happened.  While in High School, we were dismissed early due to the threat of a Tropical Storm (late 1980s). Nothing serious came of that either.  Big surprise when Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992!

I do remember the made for TV movie called, "Adam" that really started scaring parents about letting kids roam.  That movie, started the missing kids on milk cartons trend and also a movement for giving kids more rights and keeping them safer.  But maybe they've gone too far... I never see kids running around the neighborhood now.

Try being a child living about 20 miles from where the kidnapping occurred! What were carefree summer days spent outdoors became constant nagging by parents of where were going, when you were coming back, and who you were with.  Now as a adult with children of my own, I understand, but back then, I didn't.

Our first computer was DOS based, and could do simple functions.  If you wanted to play a game, you had to type in lines and lines of code.  There was a castle game that we loved to play, and there were over 2000 lines of code.  Also, we didn't have the ability to save it, so it seemed we (mostly Mom) were always typing in the code.  Good luck if you made a typo.  More time was spent typing the code then actually playing the game!  We didn't have a computer that could connect to the internet until 1991! Even then, it had a 14.4 modem!

Fun (and some not so fun) memories!

halicabi