What was life like in the 1980's?

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I always wonder what life was like for people who lived in the 1980's, the culture, society, politics, economy, music, literature, fashion, etc... So, for those who were alive during that decade, I ask you: What was it like during the 1980's?

With all curiousity,

-LegoMaster2149 (Written on January 24, 2018)

More individuality, less conformity.

With no cameras following you, no smartphones and texting one was not nearly, as connected parents and your boss could not keep track of you so if you made a mistake everybody did not know about it.

Work and home life were more seperate. Your boss did not care what you did when you were not at work as long as it did not effect your preformence or make the company look bad. Less emphisis on people skills unless the job specifically requred it. I was often told “This is a place of business, not a social club”. It was ok if you and your boss did not like each other as long as you were professional about it.

Besides you boss your parents and your teacher were authority figures not your friend.

Outside of inner city slums there was much less security. When looking for a job I walked from office to office and dropped off my resume in Manhattan. I just walked right in. No cops in school.

Bullying was considered just boys being boys or a normal part of growing up that you were expected to deal with and if you could not it was your fault for being a weak person. If you notice a lot of the sexual harrassment being outed now occurred back then. That behavoir was considered an earned privilege that people did not talk about.

If you were different people thought you were gay and you got bullied for that.

This reminds me of a video from Amy in Buffalo (US) talking about how things were in the 1990s. Well in the 1980s, there were no mobile phones, people had to use connected phones in houses, offices, or outside the phone-booths. Also, there was no internet (not publicly and not worldwide anyway). Home computers became increasingly popular in the 80s (Atari, Commodore 16, 64, and the great Commodere Amiga, also the first IBM PC) but not a common thing like it now is. The music back then was amazing. Life back then was more intimate. In the 80s were about passion, heart, energy, attitude, bright colors. Smoking was very common.

Most of what the previous poster's have said was very similar here in the mainland UK in the 80's too. A few other things that come to mind...

Cars were not ubiquitous like they are now. "Does your Dad have a car?" (notice, always "Dad") was a common question when meeting someone new at school; it wasn't considered unusual if your family didn't have one. I remember that the first step of instruction for crossing the road was "find a stretch of road with no parked cars"; you'd never be able to leave your own block if you stuck to that nowadays! Public transport was much more regular and relatively cheaper than it is now, and there wasn't the same stigma for people who used it. Walking to school was also much more common. I was expected to make my own way there within a few months of starting school, as were most of my peers.

Shopping was very different. Huge supermarkets and out-of-town shopping centres (malls) were only just beginning here in the 80's. Even small districts would have their own shops with separate greengrocers, butchers, off-licence (liquor store) etc. that you didn't need to drive to. Those are rare now; the big supermarkets have killed them off. I wish that hadn't happened - modern style shopping is far worse for my autistic traits.

The live music scene was much better than it is now. There were far more small venues prepared to have low cost gigs for new, unknown bands. It's way more difficult for bands to get started playing live now; there are far fewer venues, hardly any practice spaces, and DJs/karaoke have taken over as the main pub/club entertainment. Various safety and business regulations have also come in since the 80's which discourage venues from having live entertainment, or push them to only have established acts with a big following so that they can be sure to cover their costs.

The 80's were a time of big social upheaval and unrest here in the UK. The Tories (Conservative Party) led by Maggie Thatcher were in power for the whole decade, and their policies of reducing welfare spending, privatisation, and limiting the power of labour unions led to a lot of protests and industrial action. Unemployment was a huge problem, as it was a time when our large-scale manufacturing industries were dying off (or being deliberately killed off by Maggie Thatcher to spite the trades unions, depending on your political viewpoint). Youth unemployment was particularly bad, especially for minorities, contributing to many inner city riots (also fueled in part by very poor race relations with the police.) The conflict between the UK and the Irish Republican movement was also at a peak. Bombings of random civilian targets and attempted political assassinations were far more common than Islamic Extremist actions have been more recently, and it also led to a lot of discrimination against people from an Irish or Catholic background.

And, of course, autism without signs of learning or language difficulties was not known at all. Aspies who were around in that era didn't have the slightest idea why we found life so difficult compared to our peers. There weren't even unofficial places to get advice and support like WrongPlanet, so we didn't even know that there were other people in the world having similar problems to us. If someone told us that we were weak, useless, insane, freakish etc. we just had to believe them, because there wasn't any other explanation available.

I can tell you one thing. it was nothing like that goshawful That 80's show. That 70's Show was funny and successful because it had likable characters in a 70's backdrop. That 80's Show was nothing but 80's jokes, and really bad ones.

Anyway... I was a real 80's kid, so it really bugs me when YouTubers assume all their viewers are 90's kids or younger. When I was a kid a typical Saturday morning would be getting up early to watch The Smurfs while eating Pac-Man cereal, and later playing the Atari 2600 with my brother. Things were a bit less complicated with maybe the exception of the Cold War, which I never really understood back and still don't now. I had some of the coolest dolls and toys back then like Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony. Those were for girls, of course, but I also would play with my cousin's Masters Of The Universe figures and our parents had no problem with that. On the other hand, If they tried coming out with Monster High dolls back then a lot of people would have likely thought it would send little girls to hell, even though it was okay for boys to play with toys and even soft plush dolls of monsters. I also had at least two Cabbage Patch Kids. Recently I've heard a rumor that they were made homely-cute on purpose because nuclear war would end up making future parent's real children into hideous mutants, and the dolls would help them be prepared for it, but I don't think that's true. Another rumor that I used to hear as a kid was that after so many years you'd get a death certificate in the mail claiming your CPK had just died and you had to give them a funeral. Which is really hard to believe because first they're kids and not pets, and most real kids outlive their parents, and second that is just so morbid!

Life in the 80s was very difficult for me. Autism wasn't very well known and there were very little resources for parents of kids on the spectrum. I was given a harsh lecture by one of my parents, usually my mum if I got stuck on a special interest and I had a hard time changing the topic of conversation. I also spend half of my days in a segregated Sped class where I hardly learned anything that I didn't already know. Being a transgender child in the 80s was also very difficult. I was born female but I've felt male very strongly since the age of 4. All that being expected to be feminine lead to an eating disorder. The type of diet called the Schultz Diet where I eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I ate myself to the point that strangers can't tell my gender. I enjoy being called a man by half of the people that I see.

There were some things about the 80s that I liked. There were more Kinks songs on the radio old and new at the time, and I liked some of the popular music of that decade as well. If there was a new song that I didn't like, I had fun twisting the words.

I had my childhood in the 80s. It was a great life; many great memories.

Video games were not like what they are now. Graphics were 8 bit and we still had Atari and the Nintendo system was a new thing then. VCRs were very expensive and so were the tapes. No wonder my parents always recorded movies. I was a very small child so I didn't know any different, I remember I had stuffed animals and Little People and mega blocks and Legos and I had a plastic doll stroller and a wicker dolly bed.

Also doctors just thought children with disabilities were like that for life and would never get better so my parents would told I would never be normal and be able to talk and back then people thought you were crazy if you set high goals for your special needs child and expectations like you would for any child.

Autism was still being non verbal and ignoring people and lacking interest in people and not looking at them. So the high functioning ones got other diagnoses instead like ADHD or other learning disorders or just developmental delay or sensory integration dysfunction, language disorder, etc. Only one doctor thought I was autistic and educators but none of the other doctors thought I was and only said I had language. One social worker noted I had autistic like behavior but said I had a language disorder. I bet if I were born ten years later, more doctors would have said I was.

Very few people had computers so my dad was one of the few who had one because he used it for work. I remember the printer would make noise while printing and the paper had holes on the side.

There were malls everywhere and everyone went to the mall and teens hung out in the malls. There will still drive in theaters, more of them around. Malls were places people went to and shopped away from the weather and could go to different stores in the same location and all of them had a bookstore or a toy store. I remember my mom took me to them and she would always take us to the bookstore or to the library there and then we would leave. I remember how dark malls were then and then they made them lighter in the 90's. I could remember when the mall in the town I lived in got an update in 1993 and I loved it because the previous design was too dark and made the inside look dark. Now it was light on the inside and brighter. I remember the mall floors also had floor designs that looked like they had pebbles on them. Now people prefer strip malls so outdoor malls are coming back. I think one near my work is dying. I have seen stores becoming vacant. I think shrinking the ice rink did it. They also closed the theater there and Nordstrom closed and Sears, both closed by the cooperation.

The music from the 80's is awesome, I didn't listen to music as a small child but I have heard the songs when I was older that were from the 80's.

Kids could fight in school and only get detention or sit inside through recess or sit in another classroom and having to write a letter of what they did wrong. No police were called and no arrested were made. A kid could get violent and the kid would only get detention or get suspended but no police called. Parents were also called home to be informed about their child's behavior. Parnets also sided with teachers about their kid's behavior and their grades, no special snowflakes.

Less kids were diagnosed with disorders.

Cell phones were only used by business people.

People could smoke in buildings and at work inside. Restaurants had smoking areas and hotels had smoking rooms. I remember "Smoking or non smoking?" being asked before getting seated each time. For hotels it was the same before being given the room.

People actually talked on the phone than putting it on social media. Parents actually read the book or the paper than being glued to their phones.

Bullying was considered normal and part of being a kid. No one took it seriously.

People used video cameras to record nice events or moments and people brought cameras to take photos of good events and moments. You had to buy these tiny tapes for your video camera or rent a camera and use blank VHS tapes to record. You could rent a VCR from your local dealer and rent a movie with it.

Special ed kids and normal kids were segregated. Kids in early childhood who were in a special program due to developmental delays or a disability were also segregated and went to a school for those kids and rode short buses. There was no inclusion. It was either be in that class and be segregated or be in a normal class. Kids with disabilities were still able to be in normal classes if their parents new their rights and knew what the laws were for kids with disabilities. They had the IEP back then too which started in the 70's when they started to allow kids with disabilities to attend public schools.

They had TV shows like Pound Puppies, My Little Pony, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters and they had toys like rainbow Brite and Strawberry Shortcake. I remember when the McDonalds cups had Ms all over their cups and the big one in the middle. I remember some of their happy meal toys. I remember when Toys R us still had those colored lines on their buildings and brown roof in the front and the giraffe. Every Burger King had a play area for kids and so did every McDonalds. I remember the hamburger jail and the slide.

I remember when the floor isles in the mall anchor stores were not tile.

Baby diapers were thick and didn't have prints on them, they were just plain white and very few had prints on them in the late 80's. I remember I had some diapers with prints but most of them were plain white. And they were thick you could easily tell which kid had a diaper on.

An average weekday for a kid in the 80s would be to get up, go to school...they would probably have their lunch packed in a metal lunch box from some show they liked, or a brown paper bag, or they would buy lunch at school.

When they got home, they would usually do homework, watch TV or hang out with friends or play. Malls were popular places to hang out for teen agers but so was the neighborhood, friends houses, or the local hang out spot. There were after school TV shows, particularly if one had cable, in which case they would get Nickelodeon and MTV and if they paid a little more HBO and Showtime, and some people had Ataris or later Nintendos, but a lot more kids played outside or hung out with friends after school, before dinner, or were in sports or other activities. In my neighborhood, kids often played games outside like "hide n seek" or "ghost in the graveyard" until their parents called them in for dinner a little after sunset. Sit coms were popular as well as evening soap operas like "Dallas" and "Dynasty" and the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Cable stations often broadcasted for 24 hours but the standard programming TV stations (roughly channels 2 to 13) would often sign off at midnight...NBC played the national anthem before signing off, and then there would be static until about 4 or 5 am at which point the news or cartoons would come on. Later they started selling airtime to infomercials.

Morning TV programming often consisted of morning news shows, as it does today, and cartoons. The weekends had Saturday morning cartoons, which was essentially a cartoon marathon.

For most kids, weekends had a lot more playing outdoors. Kids "hung out" together a lot and people often saw movies, which were only a few dollars. I think kids were generally allowed to ride their bicycles around town a lot more, though a missing children milk carton campaign had been launched and parents were more wary than parents in the 70s. Economy import cars like the Toyota Corolla were becoming popular because there was a recession. It wasn't uncommon for families to have a station wagon, which the mother would drive, and the family would take on outings, and a Toyota, which the father would drive to work.

Magazines were popular and a lot of them were marketed towards teen aged girls, and kids often decorated their rooms with posters.

Growing up in Sweden during the 80s, here are my observations:

* Constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Like today There was a brief relaxation during the 90's to mid 2000's.

* There was no Coca Cola Zero and diet coke tasted like s**t.

* Stagnant economy from an almost communist state, at the time i didn't think of it as such, but looking back i shiver.

* High taxes on pretty much all work. No one was able to be rich unless they owned a large multinational company. Living standards were modest, but some made a good living.

* Horrible haircuts, mullets or "Hockeyfrilla" as we called them over here. People wore ugly clothes, many walked around in sweatsuits.

* There were 2 types of music: Electronic Pop or Heavy Metal.

* We had 2 channels on the TV. Yes, two. Satellite dishes were expensive but not out of reach for joe average.

* We had a defence worth it's name. Now it's pathetic after the dismantling in the 90s.

* The range of different foods were not as many, going to a Chinese restaurant was something special and not everyday food.

* People were leaving the cities to take loans and build houses, rural areas had a boom.

* Ugly wallpapers in apartments left from the 70, we moved into an apartment that looked like it was decorated by someone who smoked weed, eventually we moved and built a house in a rural area with more modest wallpaper.

* In he rural area, we had street parties where people brought food and drinks to a cull-de-sac where we put up tables and listened to music. At night people got severely drunk and wandered into the wrong houses and slept and were really embarrassed the next day.

* First Swedish McDonnalds opened up in the town i grew up in, loved it.

* Everyone tried to live like Americans do. The community shown in ET was the ideal, and many moved out of the cities to build their own houses.

* Teachers were on some sort of religious crusade against heavy metal and violent computer games. If they were alive to see the games we play today...

* I used to frequent libraries more and borrow books on computers and related tech stuff. I haven't placed my foot in a library for years. Prefer not going and read online about subjects or ordering books i find interesting.

* It was safe to wander around in the forest as a child, bears were far north with some exceptions and there were no wild boars that had been released yet.

* Radio was still a thing, i used to listen to various European stations like Radio Luxembourg to hear some new music and listen in on number stations (which i had no clue what it was at the time).

* After our prime minister (Palme) got shot, the country slowly opened up towards less protectionist socialism and wages started to normalise, businesses popped up and the rich society with a blend of socialism and capitalism as we live in today took form.

* Almost every kid wanted to start a band and the rural town i lived in had a specific house you could rent a room in to play as loud as you wanted. I think there was 80% Death Metal bands (kids) and 20% Blues bands (grown ups).

* There were no malls. Just city centres with stores. You had to go to a large town if you wanted to buy something special. You could order things, but it was slow.

* Importing things from the other side of the planet wasn't as easy as it is today where you just need a credit card and push a button on a webpage and it pops into your mail slot, you had to fill out forms and stuff.

* Branding was big, i remember every kid wore "moonboots" and as soon as someone got them, everyone had to have them. Individualism wasn't as big as the trend culture. Eventually it stopped.

* Computers were insanely slow, and loading games from tape could be done over dinner.

* Everyone copied VHS tapes and computergames like crazy. There was no steam with summer sales, just expensive importers who took insane prices for games, so we learned to crack games and if you couldn't afford two VHS machines, you could borrow one from your neighbour. Today games and movies are cheaper than ever before in relation to income.

* There was no internet, only way to get information was through the "dumb box" (TV). Telephony was hideously overpriced and buying a modem was not even an option. There was one phone company and no competition. Mobile phones cost like a billion and were as large as a Sony Playstation.

* Living outside of the city was nice, i could see the milky way, northern lights and lots of animals. I always rode my bike to school and i loved exploring on my bike going miles and miles every week.


In short it was a nice time to be alive, I'd love to go back if i could bring the internet

I was in the army for a good chunk of it. cars were very boxy until the new '86 ford Taurus came on the scene and caused a style shift towards jellybean-shaped cars. cars were starting to get more powerful as computers came on the scene to optimize emissions and power delivery. boxy big screen TV sets became popular. the first home video surround sound systems came to market. American TV censorship finally loosened up a bit, 2 decades after Europe did. electronic BBS became widespread. nobody had sideburns or mustaches, the opposite of the 70s, short quasi-military haircuts on men and women became stylish. far fewer people were obese. more people smoked. with the junking of the FCC's "Fairness Doctrine" by Ronnie Raygun, hate radio started to become a thing.

^^^granted, it was widespread among the PC literate, which itself bloomed in the 80s.