To absolutely long for the 80's again

[bertybertyberty]

I was around 16 during the peak of this era. I was just coming into pop music, walkmans & fashion.

Young, care-free, no responsibilities, slim. It was such an easy-going era. No smart tech. You could phone a company and actually speak to someone without waiting in an endless queue or going through a list of around 10 different options. Shops had extra stock 'out the back' so you could always ask them to check 'out back' for more sizes etc. Less cars on the road. Less rules/regulations/H&S in general, much more easy going (although I recognise that some of the rules nowadays are essential and should have existed back then) Less tech meant less opportunity for scams/thieves/hacking.

Life was generally so much more laid back, casual & easy going. I LONG for these days again so much. I don't actually like modern day and the stresses that come with it. I wanted to make a booking for a day out with the DC the other day, I was on hold for 1 hour 45 minutes. I gave up and hung up.

Anyone else resonate ?

You've clearly forgotten Jackie magazine, and how we all had to do makeup to please the boys.

Honey I lived it, had bought our first house

I get very nostalgic for the mid to late 70s and early/mid 80s, less the late 80s. I turned 14 in 1980. The fashions passed me by, though. I only had odd items of clothing that were fashionable. I had my DM/ DGM hand me downs. Money was fairly tight. I could only look on enviously. Loved the music, loved the freedom to roam. From the mid-70s, I was out biking at weekends and holidays.
I was catching with friends a train to London to go to shops Oxford St, Carnaby Street etc. One and a half hours on a train each way by the age of 16/17.
I wish I had a time machine to go back, knowing what I know now.

Not at all. Teen mags were full of crap but there was nowhere near the pressure on girls that there is now.

Nope.

Open racism, homophobia, and poverty.

Fashion, music, TV , loved it.

Society was hard for those not white, straight, and middle class.

I had an ‘80s childhood (turned 13 in 1990). I remember it as an amazing decade, but I would have probably said that whatever decade I grew up in, as I had a lovely and happy home.

Kind of wish I had been a few years older to have experienced going out a bit more, rather than to Athena and the Body Shop!

I really hope my kids will have some good childhood/teen memories, but the Internet has changed the world so much. I couldn’t be without it, but it has certainly complicated things rather than make life easier.

As I said, interest rates were at that level in the late 80s and early 90s. I didn’t say they weren’t high in the 70s. This thread is about the 80s.

No need to be so chippy, honey. 🙄

Of course there was.

"I must, I must, I must improve my bust
The bigger the better, the tighter the sweater,
The boys depend on us"

Yes totally resonate. Not for the music which is what I would imagine a lot of people would perhaps say. I didn't particularly like that era and preferred punk. It was just the economy, there was hope, you could be upwardly mobile, I could afford a flat on my crappy secretary's wage. I loved the local businesses like newsagents, greengrocers, bakeries, record shops, toy shops etc.. and mostly, after the Falkland's war, there seemed to be peace. And politicians were serious, not the immature shit show we have on both sides of the house these days.

Girls were not bombarded by airbrushed and filtered images from every direction. Social media as it is now did not exist.

Are you always so unpleasantly negative as you are throughout this thread?

Well, I was born in 1966, so I was in my late teens and twenties in the eighties. There were only about three mags for girls in those days. All full of smiley, perfect girls. Very airbrushed. With problem pages full of "How can I find a boy?" "How can I please my boyfriend?" "Which eyeliner makes my eyes look better?" There was never any hint that a girl wouldn't want to please boys.

These days we have body positivity and inclusion. Much better, imo.

The only thing that doesn’t exist now is the no smoking which has been replaced by vaping and weed, granted not generally at work. People listing the terrible things of the 80’s strikes,wars, unemployment, racism, homophobia talk as if these things have been wiped out in our enlightened times, some things have got better but some things have got a great deal worse.

To say it compares to the pressure women are under today is laughable.

I was a secretary in the eighties. The things I had to deal with from men in the office, would be sackable offences now.

But I'm sure you know better.

In your own words “Only three mags for girls” so very much less pressure and not surrounded by images of apparent perfection.

No one had to read them. Not everyone did and it was far less influential than social media.

1986 Manchester to Faro flight £100 each, self catering studio £30 in Carvoiro . We hired a motorbike which was fun.

I think I just liked being so young in the 1980s.

Obviously not entirely carefree with exams and feeling self conscious about being too skinny but I felt optimistic and energetic and just quite enjoyed life.

Now I am just miserable and desperately worried all the time. I don't think I was meant to be an adult!

And the sense of desperation I feel all around us is really harsh and depressing. I mean the 1980s were hard on my family but nothing like the horror stories I hear now.

Do you have trouble with comprehension? I said some things have got better some things are worse.

You didn't say one thing that had got better. Do you have trouble with comprehension?

Yes - I can remember at least three different day trips to France on either the ferry or hovercraft in the 80s, and my family weren’t well off. Every couple of years we could take a two-week camping holiday in France - on one medium salary! Just looked at Eurostar prices today, and we’d struggle to afford 3 days in France for the equivalent amount of money, on two decent salaries. (Obvs Brexit was then undreamt of…)

I would still hesitate to go back to the 80s, though: I enjoyed being a kid in the 80s, but the town we lived in in the north was still visibly poverty-stricken, run down and full of litter, graffiti, crime and everyone was constantly smoking. I remember in particular that toilets were always dirty and grim, damp and broken, whether at school, church, the village hall, in cafes and pubs, or anywhere apart from people’s homes. Some parts of northern cities visibly looked like prewar slums, well into the end of the 80s, and you would drive through or past visible poverty that would shock most people today.

I wouldn’t mind going back to the 90s or early 2000s, though. More modern, still a bit more free and fun, but before everything went weird politically and the internet took over our lives. Sometimes I think we slipped into a wormhole somewhere between 2008 and 2014, and in the “right” universe things are still sane, normal, and Trump and Brexit never happened.

There was always a division of money but people accepted it more, no one who worked on a low paid job expected to have the lifestyle of a high earner. We've all become a bit envious and entitled.

@Alalalalalongalalalalalonglonglilong

Probably because in the 90s low paid workers could still afford a house! Inequality has got much, much worse since then. It's been steadily increasing since the 80s

She literally said some things were better.

You’re the one with comprehension issues, trying to pick fights.

I bet you can start a fight in an empty room.

She didn't say what things are better. While stating that some things are.

Do you think you can understand that?

I wasn’t providing a list of things that had got better since the 80’s if you read my post, I was saying certain things haven’t got better, you are clearly struggling with understanding my posts so do us both a favour and stop engaging with me.

You said that some things have got better, in countering my post. Still waiting to hear what things!