I am interested to know what life was like from the words of people who were still children then or they were from 16-30 years old.
Late 80’s early 90’s
It seems, looking back, it was quieter. People didn’t move around as much as they do now. The town was basically shut down by 6pm. Most of the men worked within two miles of home, and most women stayed home.
We would play outside in the afternoons and listen for the church bells. Six bells and it was time for dinner. Everyone sat down every night for dinner with their families.
And just quieter in general. Less vehicle traffic. Less airplanes. Led lights hadn’t been invented yet so you could still see the stars. No cell phones obviously.
More structure, less noise
1970s and 1980s in rural Virginia, most people didn’t lock their doors and kids ran around outside until dark. Our phone was a party line, meaning if I picked up the phone I might hear a nearby neighbor already on the line having a conversation, so I would just hang up until the line was free. We were comfortable but not wealthy. By the end of the 1970s and early 1980s we had a microwave and a VCR. Video rental stores were starting to be popular. Going out to eat at Pizza Hut was a big deal.
Mid/late 1980s and onward, technology started making a bigger difference. I got a Commodore 64 computer, we moved to a small town and got cable television and MTV, I got a modem for the Commodore 64 and started logging into BBS systems. Those two things definitely expanded my horizons a lot. In the early 1990s a year or two before the Internet got big I played one-on-one Doom with a guy from Norway via modem, that seemed like magic at the time.
1990s and onward more internet, more television, more corporations, more technology, it just got faster and faster. Once we had our magic pocket computers that did phone calls, email, text messages, navagation, etc everything has just been evolutions of that with more storage and faster processors.
Hmm. As a kid it was mostly nice, but how much of that is the time it was, or the fact I was a kid and so had less struggles to think about?
People smoked a lot more. Our neighbors behind us smoked 24/7 but not outside. And yet, in the summer, we could smell their house from our yard. It was torn down and when you walked past the lot you still smelled it lol. I’m so glad cigarettes are out. It sucked as a kid.
There was so much more wildlife! Birds! Insects! Windshields filled with insect bits. It’s scary so much has died.
Nolawns We stopped mowing our farm and it’s bug heaven now. In the early morning spring time, you can go to some of the fields and the sound of bees and insects is just so loud, it’s really amazing how, not doing work has helped recover just this area.
Township will fine us if we don’t cut it, unfortunately. We don’t have to have it look good, but it does have to be cut. We don’t rake leaves though, and that’s helped with the fireflies at least!
You should petition the township and see if you can get the law changed.
Since everyone else is talking about “the good old days,” I’ll throw down that there was a lot more racism and sexism, that mental health was simply never spoken about, and that people died in car accidents all the time.
It was also a whole lot easier to do crimes, because there weren’t cameras everywhere and you didn’t have a tracking device in your pocket all the time.
Telephone calls outside your area code were exorbitantly expensive. Including UHF, there were maybe six TV channels, and if you weren’t in front of the TV, you missed it, and there was no hope of ever seeing it again. Ever.
And good luck being LGBTQ+ back then.
True, although it started getting better in the late 80s.
I would argue that misogyny and racisim are ascendant in our time.
Sure, open racism was much worse, but they also were in the aftermath of 2nd wave feminism and the Civil Rights movement; things were getting better.
It’s those very strides that have aggravated the backlash we see now; things are getting worse.
So I’m not saying 1970 was better than today, but I’d argue that the early 2000s were.
Go back to 80’s movies and look at the casual sexism.
Don’t tell Mom the babysitters dead. The oldest sister is 17, gets an office job. She has a late thirties-mid forties man creeping on her for half the movie. It’s played for laughs. This was a kids movie.
Early 2000s it was less overt, but still widespread. I watched girls get harassed on the school bus, nobody spoke up. I watched women get harassed and groped during my first fast food job. I didn’t have the courage to speak up.
I dodged it by virtue of not having transitioned or even knowing I was trans yet.
I tried watching Dukes of Hazzard out of nostalgia…
Sheesh it’s a LOT worse than I recalled
There at least existed a sense of … decorum. Yes racism was ubiquitous, but people were forced to go about it obliquely. Because of that, there were a bunch of white people who identified with minorities when minorities were under attack. Welfare moms meant black single mothers, but plenty of white people looked at the verbiage and said, “wait a second, I need welfare.”
It perpetuated a near-universal understanding that racism is shameful. Now it’s a joke and the racists have more power.
A few interesting things I can remember:
Cars and gas were cheap in the 70’s. When my folks were bored but didn’t have money we would just go for a drive. We’d wind up at a park or take a tour of back roads or go looking for deer. I mean, yeah, there was the oil crisis, but outside of that, travel was free, but things felt further apart because the speed limit was 55.
Kids hung out outside everywhere. We played football, rode bikes, talked about Star Wars and He-Man and GI Joe, we’d go to movie theaters by ourselves — sometimes sneaking into rated R movies. You could catch a movie for $5 at a matinee. There was a huge theater in town that had second-run movies you could see for $2 even into the early 90’s. The place was scuzzy as fuck, but you could waste an afternoon for cheap. I think I remember the Rocky Horror Picture Show ran every single weekend for years. Though I had no idea what it was.
Safety was non-existent. The number of times I took a road trip in the back of a covered pickup or station wagon was crazy. And cars were held together by bondo and sometimes you had wood on the floor because the floorboards had rusted through and you could see the pavement underneath as you drove down the road. Motherfucking windows didn’t work and no one had A/C. It was suffocating.
Sex was everywhere. From big strip clubs to the Pussycat Theater arcades. Porn magazines were sold on the upper rack of convenience stores and bookstores. PG movies could have a bit of nudity in them, and we had no PG-13. I guess what I’m saying is kids were less sheltered and more exposed to adult things. Sex is the part that stood out to me, but even kids movies had a lot of adult things going on whether it was sex or not.
I can remember some kids at least claimed to be more sexually experienced than they really were, but even so I think most people got laid by the time they graduated high school or at least the moment they got to college. I was 14 and my girlfriend at the time was 13, and that was maybe ahead of the curve a bit, but not wildly so. Now I hear a lot of kids are virgins into their 20’s. And that’s fine, you all make the best choices for you. Having sex young isn’t necessarily great. But damn, I thought with all of this body-positivity and acceptance of casual sex and the reduced prominence of religion would result in a less puritanical view of sex. I don’t necessarily want my kids to go out and have sex just to have it, but by the time they get married I want them to be experienced enough to know whether they are compatible with someone.
Living under the shadow of nuclear war was a big thing. It wasn’t something that you thought about every day, but you went to the polling booth with the idea in your head that the bombs could start dropping and you wanted someone who was going to be a good leader at the end of civilization. Similarly, Nazis were universally despised. You see it in comedies like Blues Brothers. The Empire was just space Nazis. It was a time of clear morality (at least common folk were able to exist under that illusion while politicians wrecked foreign countries in the name of peace and prosperity).
There was an optimism about the 80’s and 90’s. Someone else mentioned the fall of the Berlin Wall to 9/11 as being wild and cheerful, and that is basically about right. It was a moment where everything in the world seemed to be getting better. I think in 2008 when Obama was elected there was a resurgence of that feeling for a bit. Maybe the first two years. And it has been downhill ever since.
Music was fucking amazing from the 70’s to the 90’s. Songs were poetry and political. They still are, but they have become blunt and cynical. The music back then was hopeful and visionary and experimental. It told stories. You had concept albums like Tommy and The Wall where even if you didn’t love every track, they told a bigger story you could get into.
I don’t know. That’s probably enough. This is long as fuck.
Funny thing about sex was everywhere.
That’s all true, but now it’s moved to the Internet.
Instead of being in the back room of the rental place or the top shelf of magazine racks, it’s in every phone and computer. We knew it existed, but looking at it required an ID. Now, every kid with Internet can see MUCH more then we could ever hope for.
It was not strange to see unattended children walking the streets when school was not in session.
This freedom is the most powerful memory for me. Starting when I was 5 years old, I was wandering alone in the streets, parks, gullies, and hills of Seattle and Boise, pretending to be an indigenous explorer in the pre-colonial era. My parents had no idea where I was, which was fine as long as I came home before dark.
As an adolescent, my friends and I ran amok in large office buildings, playing a wild version of elevator tag, or turning the state capitol building into a raucous playground until we were chased out. We snuck into school gymnasiums, followed fire trucks for miles on our bikes, and made prank phone calls.
My parents threw parties with live jazz bands, and I would let all the drunk dancers give me “just one sip” of wine from each glass until I was dizzy. Most adults sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher to me.
School felt like a prison of repetition, and I often abruptly got up and walked out. I forged my mom’s signature on permission slips, but after awhile teachers just stopped asking. I always returned to class for tests, so that I wouldn’t need to repeat anything.
I think kids had more latitude back then, because we occupied a space of insignificance. I felt largely invisible in the world, so I could push boundaries without consequence.
Yes, at 10, just leaving on my bike for the next little suburban area three miles away was an amount of freedom we had that is considered neglect in this atmosphere. Things really started tightening up as we hit the digital age and suddenly every news outlet continuously warned of our murder and molestation.
This is such a salient point about how life has, and hasn’t, changed. Your kids could still very well go out on an adventure nowadays and be fine, as most adults still benevolently keep half an eye on kids. But we’re so damn scared of what could happen that we don’t trust the unknown neighbour.
Take away the phone and you see the world hasn’t changed as much as we fear it has (and in some ways it has, not totally discounting the modern world)
there were kids EVERYWHERE.
We used to book computer time at the local library and I would walk by myself at the age of 8 to go play Oregon trail on a green monochrome monitor.
I was born when Carter was POTUS and recall the Regan presidency.
For my perspective the biggest shift isn’t technology or TV always being in color or even that the bigots went from smiling politeness to objects of derision to unapologetic hypocrites. Rather, it was the absence of the constant threat of nuclear Armageddon.
When I was in kindergarten we had air raid drills – what to do if the bombs started falling. Up until the very first Gulf War we lived with a constant awareness that any day could literally end us all, and most of us became extremely cynical because of it. Irony and punk ruled, and it wasn’t until the USSR fell apart that we all collectively realized that life would actually go on without a nuclear apocalypse.
The 90s were essentially one massive party. The cold war has been won, our long wartime compromises were unnecessary, and this fancy new Internet would bring us a future where we were all rich and happy and at peace.
2001 is just outside of your scope, but the terrorist attacks that year were the end of the 90s just like the fall of the Soviet Union was the end of the multi-decade horror that I was born into.
There are a bunch of other weird little things we could go into, like banking by phone or going to an ATM first and then shopping with the cash, or how cigarettes were everywhere and we thought everyone was cis and straight or “weird”, but that constant slow-burning fear is the thing I remember most.
It was so bad, and we were so convinced that doomsday was coming, that on the day of the 9/11 attacks I remember thinking “what took them so long.”
I was a teen in the early 90s. We had the best music. Lot’s of diversity among my friends but that was just normal so I didn’t really notice until the US got super racist and bigoted. Then I was like, “wow! were we all woke the whole time?” It was a better time. Also the local shrubbery was amazing, not like this new gas station garbage we have today. Most of us felt like we had a future. I feel so sorry for kids today, like, we failed you kiddos.
we failed you kiddos.
they failed you. Dw OP I trust you’re not to blame
Lot’s of diversity among my friends but that was just normal so I didn’t really notice until the US got super racist and bigoted. Then I was like, “wow! were we all woke the whole time?” It was a better time.
This is very interesting and I like to hear it. I didn’t know the USA got more bigoted
Might be they just didn’t see it because they were a kid.
I grew up with casual racism from my dad and grandfather.
My family was always multi racial but you would also hear hard Rs at family get togethers.
Depends on the part of the country too I’m sure.
Well, idk if I would say “more”. The median has gotten less bigoted (people care a little more when you say certain slurs), but I also think that the more conservative people have gotten significantly more bigoted.
It was always bigoted. they were lynching black men until 1981.
Yeah most people tend to srgue thst the usa has been in a continous racism decay, being max racist upon its conception as a country (1600s). I’m still interested in OP’s opinion from their frame of reference - sort of suggests the truth is more nuanced and might be tied to prosperity of the country
The death of the music industry was, in some ways, a lot like the death of reverse-fox-news.
Now it’s just fox news.
I remember the US in the 70s as incredibly violent.
1,600 murders a year in NY, Chicago, Baltimore, DC., EACH. People were scared shitless to go out after dark.
in 1975, 15,000 people were murdered in the US. When the population was 215 million.
Now it’s 14,000/yr, population 340 million. Still stupid high.
Canada: 788, 42 million people.
I remember even in the 90s europe america was notorious for being incredibly unsafe to the point where it would be the butt of some really nasty jokes that I’d rather not repeat. The funny thing is that I mostly heard these in eastern european hoods where you don’t leave after dark and have brass knuckles (or equivalent) on you at all times.
Guns are just such a game changer when it comes to mass violence that even the most violent europe city hoods were afraid of the idea of guns being everywhere. I don’t think most americans can even understand how different society without guns is.
i grew up in a rural area in the 80s and 90s and it sucked balls.
we had to drive 30m+ each way to do anything like shopping or going out. all anyone did was watch TV and we took a trip into the city like 1-2 times a year, as it was a 2hr+ drive each way.
it was really really boring and i ended up doing drugs and drinking because it was the only way to cope with how insanely boring and awful my community was. almost everyone was virulently racist, sexist, and anti-education and it was highly conservative apart from a few hippie dippy teachers who didn’t live there.
thankfully once I got to college it was a lot more fun, because I was around smart and interesting people for the first time in my entire life.
hate communists
Since I haven’t seen it mentioned, I will point out that smoking was extremely common and everything vaguely smelled of cigerettes until public smoking bans started coming into effect in different areas.
I grew up at the tail end of this period and have a core memory of going to a restaurant in an area that hadn’t yet fully banned public smoking. The hostess of course asks if you want to be seated in the smoking or non-smoking section, and in the non-smoking section everything still vaguely reeked of cigarettes. Then to go to the bathroom you walk through the smoking section which reeks even more of cigerettes (the sections are just different sides of the restaurant with standard restaurant dividers that are only chest height and intended mostly as sound blocks) and just everything had some amount of cigerette smell to it
I recall eating at fast food restaurants and sitting in the smoking section. Just lighting up in a freaking Wendy’s. McDonald’s had branded ashtrays.
My grandmother grew increasingly angry as smoking sections disappeared, then laws came into effect banning smoking in certain public areas. She grew up with everyone smoking everywhere. It was normalized in society during the prime of her life, and if you didn’t have smokes, then you probably either were weird or didn’t have it together.
I was working at Wendy’s when they had those little metal disposable ash trays. I had to take a few to use at home. Crazy to think just how much smoking cigarettes was just everywhere.
Without the Internet, you had to find other ways of entertaining yourself. Regular toys and board games and stuff were played with a lot. As an only child, I would sometimes play my board games by myself, acting as 2 players (yeah, sad I know). I remember getting lots of activity books and coloring books when I was really young. Then as I got older I read a lot of magazines and books. The Readers Digest was kept in the bathroom, and I would read jokes or stories from it while on the toilet. Things like Legos could keep you busy for hours. I got a Nintendo and it consumed most of my time. The games were simple, but tended to be difficult, and you would just play it over and over and over again. On Fridays after school you could go to the video store to rent a movie or game as some weekend entertainment. Going to the movie theater seemed to be reasonably priced back then. There were arcade games all over the place, like at the movie theater, inside convenience stores, even in the pizza hut. We used to actually go to the pizza hut and sit down at a table to eat, it was fun. Before cable or satellite TV, there were only like 3 channels, and they went off at night.
I miss the non chain coffee shops that were open 24/7, I miss the non chain stores that were still around, I miss the mall parking lot improvised car shows.
I enjoyed being able to safely ride my bike the 8 miles to school, I enjoyed our little party island, I miss having hundreds of miles of canals to run my little boat on.
I do also remember the race fights in the middle of school during the Rodney King trials, I remember the AIDS scare where we stopped using water fountains just in case.
