I often sit in the dark, dank recesses of my workplace contemplating just why it is that I feel such nostalgia for an era so long gone and so finite.  I'm not one for the 70's, and the 90's was a little....blah.  But the 80's, the 80's was Europe, it was winter, it was the last great childhood and the smoothest adolescence.  It was purity fashioned from detente, it was red communism, and gay capitalism.  The 80's were a meld of 1920's Berlin, 1960's London, 1990's Tokyo, and 1950s California, and boys were sometimes girls, and girls were sometimes pretty boys.  The music had hooks, and the sometimes even those hooks had hooks.  The 80's was seven cities Los Angeles, New York, Melbourne, London, Sheffield, Dublin and Hong Kong.  The hair from the 80's borrowed from the 1930s, the 1940s, and the 1970s and then processed those decadinal coiffs like spun sugar.  The 80s were slow dancing at socials, square dancing at school, and break dancing....well that was reserved for the street kids on TV.  The 80s were so modern, so high tech, so digital, so futuristic, so revolutionary, and so 'brave new world'.  And yet they were conservative, buttoned down, preppyish, and Thatchereaganistic.  In the 80s disciplined Brits fought civilized Argies, and scrappy Iraqis duked it out with slightly more rag tagged Iranians, and tribal Pashtuns bloodied the nose of the Soviet Union.  Pastel blues, greens, and pinks festooned fashion, and their seemed, at least at the time to be so much money, and oodles of choice, and bountiful variety. The 80's for me can be encapsulated in a single insignificant scene from the 1984 film 'Class',  the scene is of a Red Porshe racing through New England countryside, it's destination a stately Edwardian home....and that's it.

For those of you who missed the party that was the 80's, this has to be just about the most complete and accurate summary of the decade I have ever read.

Brilliant post - now have a shedload of rep in return!! 8)


I often sit in the dark, dank recesses of my workplace contemplating just why it is that I feel such nostalgia for an era so long gone and so finite.  I'm not one for the 70's, and the 90's was a little....blah.  But the 80's, the 80's was Europe, it was winter, it was the last great childhood and the smoothest adolescence.  It was purity fashioned from detente, it was red communism, and gay capitalism.  The 80's were a meld of 1920's Berlin, 1960's London, 1990's Tokyo, and 1950s California, and boys were sometimes girls, and girls were sometimes pretty boys.  The music had hooks, and the sometimes even those hooks had hooks.  The 80's was seven cities Los Angeles, New York, Melbourne, London, Sheffield, Dublin and Hong Kong.  The hair from the 80's borrowed from the 1930s, the 1940s, and the 1970s and then processed those decadinal coiffs like spun sugar.  The 80s were slow dancing at socials, square dancing at school, and break dancing....well that was reserved for the street kids on TV.  The 80s were so modern, so high tech, so digital, so futuristic, so revolutionary, and so 'brave new world'.  And yet they were conservative, buttoned down, preppyish, and Thatchereaganistic.  In the 80s disciplined Brits fought civilized Argies, and scrappy Iraqis duked it out with slightly more rag tagged Iranians, and tribal Pashtuns bloodied the nose of the Soviet Union.  Pastel blues, greens, and pinks festooned fashion, and their seemed, at least at the time to be so much money, and oodles of choice, and bountiful variety. The 80's for me can be encapsulated in a single insignificant scene from the 1984 film 'Class',  the scene is of a Red Porshe racing through New England countryside, it's destination a stately Edwardian home....and that's it.

Wow.  That was beautiful.

Yes, your description was amazing...very well written, it totally took me back! ;)