To think the 70s/80s/90s were better?

[alienbaby]

Okay, so I was born in 1987 so missed the 70s. But I've always kind of fetishised this decade. It seems like it was a great time to be young. Same with the 80s and 90s. Freedom and opportunities but without the more rigid feel we have now.

It was 2006 when I went off and travelled and started living alone, and it was great because we had the internet of course, but it wasnt as pervasive. It meant there was still a kind of mystery about things, like you still had to engage and improvise whereas now you can just sort things out online ahead of time.

Am I just romanticising or do you think too that in a lot of ways the 70s/80s/90s were kind of a "sweet spot" where we had progress but not so much progress that we felt disconnected?

I liked the 80's. They were more anonymous and gritty.
You could have actual adventures.

@Saysama

If you were straight and white, sure. If you were black, brown or gay, you were pretty much fucked. It wasn’t a particularly good time to be a woman or disabled, either. Or have mental health issues.

So, I think I’ll pass. Not being spat on in the street (this actually happened to someone I know, in London, circa 1983) has a certain charm.

This.

Also, everyone thinks the decades they were born in and around are the best, so it's kinda biased viewpoint,

I was in boarding school in the 80's. My biggest fear was a nuclear bomb meaning that I would die slowly and painfully without being able to find my family 😭 so there were definitely legitimate fears. However discos were great fun and plentiful with any sense of fashion and make up optional. We would have never dreamed of looking as beautifully polished as my teenagers look going out these days. So there was a freedom in that.

I lived in London in the 90's where IRA bombs were a daily threat but it was still a safe city (or safer than many). Though Maybe I was just lucky in my experiences. I do remember growing up in a rural town seeing real poverty of a type you just do not see today.

A Plus was no internet so no recording, no one keeping tabs on where you were.

I'm going with YANBU OP.

There's such a thing about knowing too much about how everyone else is doing. A small social circle is healthier. Comparison is the thief of joy.

And yes we didn't have sat nav or online shopping or Uber Eats, Friends Reuinted or a mobile phone in the 70s/80s/90s. But everything mostly still functioned absolutely fine.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

I think the main difference is people heard less of the bad stuff. Now with 24hr news, social media etc we know the good, the bad and the ugly immediately.

I'm very glad my student year stupidly was not immortalised. Facebook launched during my university days, but we had to wait to we got home to upload stuff, so it we censored it when sober.

Absolutely this - ignorance is bliss.

@A580Hojas It happens, but considerably less and it’s at least illegal. I would much rather be Black and queer in 2021 than 1971, as would all the Black and/or queer people I know who were actually around in 1971. The things they went through were horrific.

I was born early 70s and was a teenager in the 80s. I look back on the 80s as a wonderful, happy and really fun time. Life was not without problems, I grew up in a single parent family, on a rough council estate, we didn’t have much money, but my mum worked hard and life was generally good. I had much less than I have now, but everything seemed better somehow, the pubs, family parties, school discos, Christmas Day, Saturday morning TV, the music. My kids have so much more than I had and everything at their fingertips in many ways, but I feel they are missing out somehow and that their life would be more fulfilled if it was more simple. I am possibly wearing my rose tinted specs but I really do feel life was better then.

I think this is just nostalgia speaking. Everyone romanticises the decades when they were young or the ones immediately before.

I was born in the early 70s and grew up in the 80s and 90s so they were "my" decades. But tbh while there was a lot of fun to be had there some pretty miserable bits too. In the 70s the economy was in the toilet: millions out of work and even for the wealthier people standards of living were much lower. The 80s had terrible unemployment, Thatcher and massive social division.

I think people always romanticise earlier periods and nowadays these decades are presented by the media with this rose-tinted lens (TV shows about pop from one decade or another etc). I think if you look t them objectively they weren't particularly special tbh.

I was born in the early 60’s.

I remember the 70’s as a decade of no money at all. Food was awful, and the Yorkshire Ripper was at large. I don’t remember much fun or freedom. Just blackouts and shortages.

I was a young adult in the 80’s. Thatcher aside who was an evil witch, the music and being a student in Manchester at the time of Joy Division, The Smiths, and The Hacienda was fantastic. Mainstream fashions were vile but ‘alternative’ fashion was great. No money though, and out student Union gave all our subs to The Miners Strike. Really high youth unemployment too.

YABU, and looking back through rose tinted glasses, or, in case of 70s, 80s and 1/2 of 90s, through lack of knowledge, or only the experience of a child.

tbh, the unions' grip on the country, the strikes, the rubbish piled in the streets, the power cuts, the not being able to get bread, or sugar etc etc weren't that much fun. Inflation running at up to 75%. Sex discrimination. No seatbelts. No paramedics. No safeguarding training or policies (or believing people) is not a time I think many of us would want to go back to.

There are positives and negatives of most decades / eras, but, generally, life improves decade upon decade.

I was born in 1987 too and I find it sort of mind-blowing when I hear people of our age doing this kind of nostalgia for what a simpler time it was, pace of life slower, everyone less materialistic, etc etc. I so vividly remember when people were saying all the things that people say about children/young people today about us - that we were a spoilt generation, had far too much stuff, spent too much time in front of screens, life was too busy, too many of our mothers worked, our parents were over-protective etc etc - and I find it fascinating to watch that being erased and replaced with the exact same contrasts being drawn with a new generation except that now we're the ones from the simple but noble past and they're the ones left helpless by modern life.

Born in 79. Parents split in 87 so by the time they divorced in 91 the children act came in thank god or I would have been stuck living with my dad.

Being a teen in the 90's was great. Waiting to hear what was number 1, totp, tfi and getting network rail into london to go to gigs all the time. Much less brand pressure than now apart from Levi's and converse and puma trainers. You could get tickets to Glastonbury easily too.

The Labour landslide in 97 felt full of optimism like things could change for the better.

Not so sure about that. Women’s rights have come a LONG way since then. For instance, it wasn't until 1990 that married women could file tax independently of their husbands.

Fun fact: Maggie Thatcher couldn't file her own return and was listed on her husband's.

See also how the country has changed for the better with regards to acceptance, inclusion and equality for other folks from minority groups (eg LGBTQ, Asians, Blacks, etc).

The 'good ol days' weren't good for everyone.

Funny you should say that but I am close friends/related to very many older queer people (say 40+) who feel extremely marginalised in our new world order.

I was born in the early 70s, it was always sunny and happy. I think it was the best decade ever. I was a bit of a moody teenager in the 80s and the music was mostly bad, but life was still good. The 90s were amazing. It's all been downhill since about the year 2002, especially the last 2 years. I miss my first 30 years. I never appreciated it enough at time but now I would give anything to go back.

I had much less than I have now, but everything seemed better somehow, the pubs, family parties, school discos, Christmas Day, Saturday morning TV, the music.

That's just being a child/teenager rather than an adult, though? Life is more fun when you have no responsibility. And a bit of the fading affect bias: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fading_affect_bias

Nope, it’s just that lots of us were younger then with more fun going on in life in many cases , all the fun stuff like relationships, weddings, kids , all still to come in many cases before cynicism sets in —and without the tedious stuff like bills, house payments. Also the last 2 years have been bloody awful in large chunks for many people too, so it’s easy for the rose tinted glasses to kick in.

What a lot of old bollocks! Anyone growing up in the 70s and the 80s will remember the older generation pining for the war, rationing and a woman's place being in the home.

Being convinced that the world used to be lovely, but turned to shit when you turned 35 is nothing new.

Born in the late 60s with stereotypically Irish looks and name.

The 70s were shit. Women were paid less, were excluded from some professions and suffered horribly.

Erin Pizzey set up Chiswick Women's Aid near to us and it was revolutionary.

Say what you like about her later years (MRA? 🤨), but she is revered by many of the women she helped in the early years.

There were strikes, power cuts, short working weeks and it threw families for six - in any one week, children had to stay home because schools were in areas scheduled to suffer power cuts, wages were short, everybody was skint and racism was perfectly acceptable.

I wasn't allowed to play out with friends because they played with the 'wrong' kids, whose families were 'friends' with the police, who had strange (male) relatives (and miserable daughters who 'played up') or who went out playing on the bomb sites.

Corruption and inertia meant bomb sites were still around in the 1970s.

www.bushtheatre.co.uk/bushgreen/life-in-1970s-britain/

The 1980s were also shit if you were young and disadvantaged.

It truly was an age of the haves and the have nots

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/remembering-the-80s-6101125.html

School students above the age of 16, who were going on to VI Forms were unable to claim UB for the summer, effectively becoming financial burdens to their families, it became harder to afford an education as grants were replaced with student loans and racism, homophobia and sexism, although officially frowned upon, was still rife.

The attitude that the poor were only poor because they didn't work hard enough really started to shine through and has stayed 'til today.

The mining industry was decimated, as were the industries that depended on them and whole regions are still struggling after that sudden loss of any kind of work and income.

High income was practically worshipped and a lot of the policies that favoured short term, 'cheap', options over long term 'visions' that has decimated life were put in place.

Conservative London boroughs gerrymandering and re-housing tenants that would probably vote Labour out of 'marginal wards' into sub-standard housing, the 'Right to Buy' to encourage tenants to vote Conservative and the wholesale selling of utilities, public transport and health services to the private sector was rife.

The 90s, where the Conservatives finally imploded with sleaze was also hard.

The Labour win was a bright spot, but it all turned to shit when Labour failed to revise the Tory policies.

There was no 'Golden Age'.

I was born in 1959. Growing up in the 60s was exciting, being a teen in the 70s was fantastic, with the music we had - and then it got even better in the 80s! The future seemed so positive - I remember the arrival of the internet - and before that, foreign travel for 'ordinary' people, new exotic foods, it just seemed we were on an upwards trajectory.

Nowadays the future is frightening, with climate change, coronavirus etc. I truly believe my generation had the best years, and am grateful for that.

I agree with your comments about the 80’s. It was a bad time. But it gave us Indie music, and for that I’ll always be thankful.

And the hope and optimism when Labour won in the 90’s. Like a different world….

@A580Hojas You know queer people who were adults in the 70’s (mere years after male homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967), no discrimination protections had existed for LGBT people (those turned up in 1999) and sane sex marriage was illegal - and they feel more marginalised now?

I AM both Black and queer, and I find that pretty unlikely.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I agree with your comments about the 80’s. It was a bad time. But it gave us Indie music, and for that I’ll always be thankful.

And the hope and optimism when Labour won in the 90’s. Like a different world….

The music was ace. I’ll agree with that.

@mudpiesfortea

Not so sure about that. Women’s rights have come a LONG way since then. For instance, it wasn't until 1990 that married women could file tax independently of their husbands.

Fun fact: Maggie Thatcher couldn't file her own return and was listed on her husband's.

See also how the country has changed for the better with regards to acceptance, inclusion and equality for other folks from minority groups (eg LGBTQ, Asians, Blacks, etc).

The 'good ol days' weren't good for everyone.

‘Blacks’. Dear Lord.

The 80’s was amazing for music and clothes, so glad I was there.