the unexplainable feel of the 80s

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I'm 30 right now and I really loved the 80s. Not only did I like they way the music was and how it sounded, but everything had a sort of similar feel...a sort of feeling that's hard to explain, the texture, style, shape of objects then, and how they felt and sounded when they were used. It was in the technology -the sleek straight edged design of radios, phones, tvs, and automobiles. Whenever I was a kid and i was in someone's car being driven somewhere, I found it relaxing -the way everthing in thr car looked and sounded. For exampled: how the rectangular shaped seat belt buckle would sound when it was snapped in place. Or the way a cassete would sound when being put in a tape player. I remember when i had to go to speech or get tested when I was a young kid, I would love hearing the sound of the plastic spiral binder opening up and the sound of the portable tape recorder rewinding. This along side of the soothing ladie's voice about start a lesson, made it almost the most relaxing experiences on earth. Its like today's technology, styles, and esthetics doesnt make you feel that way these days. Does anything else relate to what I'm talking about? The feeling of the 80s? I miss that decade.

the 80s to me were hard-edged, angular, a bit harsh. the 70s were the opposite.

I was a teenager in the 80s. I remember 80's being very flamboyant, gaudy, frilly and neon-colored. Also a lot of big shoulder pads and ridiculous feathered bangs.

I'm 33 and I have no idea how the eighties were.

I was born in 1974 but I'm an 80's kid, through and through. Things seemed less crazy and complicated back then with the exception of the Cold War. I was pretty obsessed with arcade games like Pac-Man as a little kid before I even had any clue how to play them. I remember Micheal Jackson winning maybe 20 awards, and thinking the VCR was the greatest new invention in the world because now I could tape all the Saturday morning cartoons and watch them again later. I owned and played with Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears and Cabbage Patch Kids and MLP. I loved Saturday evenings because that's when the paper with the weekly color comics would be delivered and Peanuts was printed on one whole page. On Sundays I would race my brother to the TV after supper to watch Fraggle Rock and we'd all gather to watch The Wonderful World of Disney. I remember wanting to wear loud, neon-splashed t-shirts and tops although my mother didn't care for them and seemed to only want to dress me in drab, boring browns and greys. I remember wearing acid washed jeans and a bunch of friendship bracelets, even though I had bought them all for myself.

I was born in 1961, so I was in my 20's in the 80's.

I was amazed at the sudden proliferation of video shops around 1983, where there had been none in 1982--places like Blockbusters.

I played my share of Ms PacMan, Donkey Kong, Centipede, etc. The last video game I played a lot was "Tron," whose levels were the names of computer programs.

TV's started getting better in the late 80's. We no longer had to use rabbit's ears because of cable. HDTV was far into the future. Analog TV's pictures were of good quality in the late 80's, though. The decade started with the usual crap associated with rabbit's ears TV: snow, pictures jumping up and down, people having to stomp on the floor to get a proper picture, etc.

We started being able to buy our own phones, instead of "renting" them from Ma Bell. No cell phones yet, though--however, stylish people had phones in their cars. Answering machines, which were always separate from the phone in those days, were becoming ubiquitous. I don't believe we had cordless phones yet, for the most part, during the 1980s.

The music became very syntho and New Wave in the early 80's. Arena Rock, as exemplified by groups like Van Halen, still had its place. During the late 80's, dance music became more popular. Alternative Rock started going mainstream.

Most people had cut their hair by about 1982; from about 1969 to 1981, the average man had hair below the ears; afterwards, for the most part, the length stayed above the ears.

There was, for all intents and purposes, no internet---but people started owning personal computers. There was a brief period, right before the advent of the personal computer, where word processors were quite popular. Typewriters were becoming obsolete--but wouldn't become totally obsolete until the 1990s. Nowadays, it is quite possible that a child would not even know what a typewriter is.

Cars in the "low" and "middle" end were very boxy and square/rectangular. They tended not to last a very long time, either. Cars last much longer nowadays.

Rap music started getting into the mainstream around the middle of the decade. Before then, it was selling--but was considered strictly "urban" music.

We still had "records," alongside cassettes. CD's became really popular around 1989 or so, thereby rendering "records" obsolete.
Walkmen, which played cassettes, and were also AM FM radios, were ubiquitous. Early in the decade, people used to carry 40 pound stereo systems on their shoulders. By the middle of the decade, the Walkman, and rules forbidding the playing of music within public transportation, rendered those monstrosities obsolete. Smaller boomboxes, however, remained until the 1990s.

80's were my favorite decade. Spent about half of it in Germany. Liked the music and attitude and although there were problems (I was in Germany because of the Cold War) like terrorism and spread of Crack, there was still some hope/optimism. The wall coming down in Berlin, and collaspse of the Soviet Empire ended the decade on a high note.

I really wish I coulda lived as a teen of the 1980s; I was born in 1987.

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I really liked the end of the eighties and begin of the nineties. Asperger and autism were relatively unknown (in the part of The Netherlands where I grew up) and I was not judged on my condition but on my mistakes, intelligence and efforts. Things were simpler back then and cooperation with other children was not a big necessity as it is nowadays.

As a kid we had more freedom then most kids have these days, but also some responsibilities that were good. A lot of playing in my hometown, the forests and lakes around it.

The advent of modern technology was really cool and the discovery of new technologies was really exciting. Finding out how things worked was a real challenge back then. Also the ways it was designed and could range from nice to functional to sturdy. Things like minitel (Videotex) and email were really 'new' back then.

Houses were also more 'homely' back then. It looked not as nice as nowadays, but they felt more like 'homes' that reflected the family.

The 80's look so cool. I love 80's music more than any other music (it's literally the only music that I'll listen to apart from Lene Marlin) and some of the best films I've seen were made then. I wish I could travel back in time to the 80's just for the music and films.

some very interesting audio equipment came out in the 80s, such as the AR Magic Speaker, the DBX Soundfield One, the DBX DX-5 CD player, the Dahlquist DQ-9, etc.

Just last night I was reminded of just how wide the generation gap is. I was watching a YTP of Kermit the Frog and Cookie Monster on Sesame Street and someone said they didn't know Kermit was on Sesame Street. Yes, he was on both The Muppet Show and Sesame Street as a regular character before Jim Henson died. But people not knowing that today is really... painful.

I was born in 1990, but I love the 80s. I think the first 5 or 6 years of the 90s had a lot of the same feel, albeit somewhat diluted. Sine the late 90s things have been pretty bland and uninteresting even if people on average have more money and there's less violence and crime.

1982 was when the first CD players and CDs came out. finally no more confounded phonographic surface noise! also from the ashes of quadraphonic came the first home dolby surround stereo systems. the 80s were a good time to be involved in home audio.

I remember the 80's I was in my 20's then, I was working doing a job I enjoyed it was a factory doing wirings for cars and putting together the harnesses.

TV programs were great in the 80's Here in Australia we had Sons and Daughters, A country practice, The Flying doctors, The Henderson Kids. to name a few.
We also had some good Mini Series too.

The first computer games I played were Atari games like Frogger, Space Invaders, Pacman and of course The donkey Kong games.