Am I old?

[Tdp123]

I've just binge watched Homeland Series 1, which was made about 26 years ago and other than buttons on their phones, and maybe the cut of Carrie's trousers it looked to me like it could have been made today (obviously the global political situation has evolved).

It got me thinking that if you were watching something in 1980 that was made in 1964, or something in 2000 from 1984, it would be clearly dated from the clothes, hairstyles, interiors, cars, etc.

So, my question is - have these things stopped changing, or am I so old and culturally unaware that I am not noticing? Would a 20 year old watching Homelands think they were watching a period piece?

16 years - not 26 years!

You can usually tell by the quality of the film (this was certainly the case between 1964 & 1980).

I must say I blinked at 26 years ago, but it feels as if it could have been ! An amazing series, esp the first. Writing and acting superb. Damien Lewis 🤯
I remember being in to watch every weekly episode without fail (I recall that you couldn't binge watch but maybe I am in error - also old 😝) On a Homeland adjacent tangent, there is a comedian on You Tube, Beth Hoyt, who does a brilliant take on Carrie/Clare Danes in full Carrie meltdown mode. Her Mother's Day short was hilarious (I sent it to my son 😉) I feel I might go back to it for a visit too.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYBYvtdOVn1/?igsh=bTF4cHAyMTVqcjk0

Axtually Instagram

I still binge watch murder she wrote.

@boundarysponge is right. In the old days the production values and quality of filming would be a give away. Mind you, those big all star Agatha Christie films and Hammer Horrors had lots of 70s/80s hair and make up regardless of when they were set

Yeah - there's that as well, and the change in picture ratio, but I guess it's part of the same phenomenon of aesthetics becoming stale ( to my eyes at least).

I was thinking about this the other day. I’m 58, a teen in the 80s.

My 20s kids listen to a fair bit of 80s music now. That’s the equivalent of me listening to music from the 1940s. Which obviously I would never have done.

I often wonder this myself! When I was a teen in the 90s we were huge fans of vintage clothing and listened to the Velvet Underground, but it all seemed like a totally lost, distant world. If we'd really dressed like people in the 70s we would have looked like clowns. People used to go to 70s nights, and 80s nights! In like 1998 people were putting on fancy dress to dance to music of barely 15 years prior.

There are ways in which the 90s do seem impossibly distant now, but 2011 does not. What would we even wear to a naughties party. Skinny jeans, I suppose, and a Breton top and ballerinas. But you'd have to also carry around a picture of Kate Middleton or something.

I was thinking about this the other day. In 1984 I was 16 and had a friend whose mother wore a bee-hive hairstyle like she had worn in the 60s. We thought she looked hilariously outdated and my friend was a bit embarrassed, but it was only 20 years after she had originally worn it.

I'm currently watching "Believe me", which is set in the- what- noughties?, and am struck by how dated and different the clothes seem compared to nowadays.

(Although I remember wearing a lot of those styles)

I said exactly the same thing to DH recently. It's not just tv or fashion it's music too. The trends in the mid 80s were so completely different to the mid 70s or mid 90s you couldn't get it mixed up. I don't think I can distinguish from the last 15-20 years and wasn't sure at first is it my age but I think everything is less extreme now. Little micro trends come and go but most things especially main stream fashion and music seem constant to me.

Claire Danes is my girl crush, so gorgeous. I want her to play me in a biopic. The most boring biopic of all times and she'll have to gain a tonne of weight but she is still my choice.

Mine too @BitOutOfPractice they also like 90s stuff too. DS 18 was absolutely gobsmacked to find out Depeches Mode's Just can't get enough is 1981. He didn't think it sounded that dated at all, he thought it was a dance track from 00s or later

I think so much changed from the 50's to 60's, 60's to 70's, 70's to 80's and 80's to 90's.

But since the year 2000 everything has stayed much of a muchness IMO.

When Chappell Roan's 'Good Luck Babe' was released a couple of years ago I loved it but couldn't believe how 80's it sounded! To me synthesisers and drum machines are as 80's as it gets!

I think it's not just about change it's about access.

When I was a teen, I never heard Depeche Mode. They were from the 80s, it was the 90s. They weren't on Top of the Pops and they weren't in NME, and later, when I went out to clubs, they weren't played there either, it was all techno and jungle at that time. So literally I just never encountered them. I operated in a narrow slice of culture. My parents weren't listening to Depeche Mode -- they were listening to the Stones, from their own teens. So when would it come up?

But then in the 2000s, when Napster and Limewire came out, and then later Youtube and so on, we no longer operated in this narrow timebound slice. All music was available the same. Everything everywhere all at once. It was bound to change things.

Early 2000s style is back in and when you see it you realise how long ago it was.
2 teen girls got on the bus the other day. Hair thinned out and straightened to almost nothing, jeans and strappy camisole type tops with visible contrasting bra straps, tracksuit tops, adidas trainers, mini shoulder bags. Exactly like when I was a teenager except their skin was way better and their makeup was applied too well and they just looked generally healthier.
Ive also seen teens in baggy jeans and oversized hoodies, but they’ve got it wrong because instead of Slipknot, Korn etc, the hoodies have Buffy the vampire slayer or something else that just wouldn’t have ever happened back in the day. Or it’s the same style only featuring a modern artist like Billie Eilish.
I thought I felt old when the nineties were in, but now I realise that wasn’t even my time. This is way worse because I find myself doing a double take and getting a very weird nostalgic feeling. Then at a glance I can see every single anachronistic detail. I think it just takes me back to a time when I paid a lot more attention to people’s clothes. Both my own and other people’s.