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21 Reasons Why The '80s Were The Worst Time To Be A Kid
BuzzFeed ^ | 4/23/18 | Mike Spohr

Posted on 12/12/2023 4:40:23 PM PST by DallasBiff

It was basically 1984 every year.

It was basically 1984 every year.

1. Running errands with your parents — or going to your sibling's events — was boring AF because you had no cell phone or Game Boy to pass the time with.

(Excerpt) Read more at buzzfeed.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: 000001completebs; 00001garbagethread; 80s; anothercrapthread; crapposter; crapthread; reagan; wboopie
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To: DallasBiff

Didn’t you just get done knocking the 1970’s as the worst decade?


21 posted on 12/12/2023 5:32:46 PM PST by caver
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To: TexasM1A

GenXer here. I loved the 1980s.


22 posted on 12/12/2023 5:34:22 PM PST by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: DallasBiff

I was going to say this article has to be sarcasm but it’s Buzzfeed so it’s probably serious.


23 posted on 12/12/2023 5:35:41 PM PST by Drew68 (Ron DeSantis for President. A conservative who fights and wins..)
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To: one guy in new jersey

Was there a decent pool room/emporium near where you lived? At the end of the 1980s, I lived in Sherbrooke, QC going to university and there was place that was open 24/7 and it was great to just get a table and play (also had billiards).


24 posted on 12/12/2023 5:36:29 PM PST by OttawaFreeper ("The Gardens was founded by men-sportsmen-who fought for their country" Conn Smythe, 1966 )
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To: Libloather
The Atari 2600 first came out in about 1975, which by the way, you hooked up to your furniture style TV. I mean kids were absolutely gob smacked. I know I was. We had one and in today's dollars it cost a little over $1k which was crazy money to spend on a "game". But it was absolutely the coolest thing ever.

This game came out in 1978:

So kids had some really cool stuff in the 80s.

Now, sadly nothing today wows a kid the way stuff like that did in those cutting edge years. Pretty much everything now seems banal when you have a titanium iPhone super computer in your pocket at age 10.

25 posted on 12/12/2023 5:37:27 PM PST by Obadiah
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To: DallasBiff

Went to Basic Training in 83, and the fondest memories of my misspent youth were 80-83.

There were some hand held simple LED games to waste time with. Walkman cassette players were everywhere.

This whiner seems to be a spoiled brat type who bitches about everything and anything.


26 posted on 12/12/2023 5:39:15 PM PST by Pox (Eff You China. Buy American!)
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To: DallasBiff

NHL hockey was in that good number of respects much better. You didn’t have players wearing suits of armour (many grandfathered helmetless players) and routinely acting like the Knights of the Round Table with their cheap shots and stickwork like nowadays. Also, the games (including the playoffs) were not the boring neutral zone trap soccer matches that became commonplace later on, You had Gretzky and Lemieux and others piling on goals without the goal horns and other loud and obnoxious sound effects and music.


27 posted on 12/12/2023 5:44:05 PM PST by OttawaFreeper ("The Gardens was founded by men-sportsmen-who fought for their country" Conn Smythe, 1966 )
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To: Pox

Yep, came out in 1977.


First came out in 1979.

The point is, the whiny author of this article did zero research and just made-up stuff based on his "feelings" about the 1980s.

28 posted on 12/12/2023 5:47:07 PM PST by Obadiah
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To: DallasBiff

In case y’all missed it, this is called tongue-in-cheek humor.


29 posted on 12/12/2023 5:49:24 PM PST by odawg
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To: bigbob

But Rush started his show in the late 80’s.


30 posted on 12/12/2023 5:50:18 PM PST by EvilCapitalist (81 million votes my ass.)
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To: odawg

Well... okay, a bit embarrassed, but I guess it was fun to reminisce as to how good things were.


31 posted on 12/12/2023 5:55:13 PM PST by Obadiah
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To: DallasBiff

This guy just wants life to be easy.

He should be replaced by AI. No great loss.

My advice to young Mikey:

1) You could try reading a book.

2) You could try going outside.

3) You could interact with your parents and maybe appreciate them or learn something from them.

4) You could try interacting with other people.

5) You could learn a musical instrument and make your own music — maybe even with other people.


32 posted on 12/12/2023 5:55:58 PM PST by x (To really appreciate how great the 80s were, you had to have lived through the 70s.)
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To: DallasBiff

They guy who wrote this is a moron. OOoooh...no gameboy on a long trip....gadzooks!


33 posted on 12/12/2023 5:59:12 PM PST by DouglasKC
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To: DallasBiff

As usual, Buzzfeed gets a lot wrong.

1. Alright, this is undeniably true. There were plenty of times I was bored as hell as a kid. One of the great things about the internet and being able to watch whatever you want whenever you want is I’m never bored anymore.

2. Yeah this one is true also.

3. Well, I NEVER watched any televangelists but yes, Tv being a push system (ie you watch what they care to show you when they care to show it to you) to a pull system that we have now (go on the internet and watch whatever you want whenever you want) is much better.

4. As bored as I was sometimes, I was never that bored.

5. We didn’t have a computer. I didn’t get my own until 2002.

6. They weren’t terrible. They were awesome. Before them we simply did not have anything like that so when Atari came out and we got it, I thought it was great. I had lots of fun playing games on that Atari, later Coleco electronic football and other electronic games.

7. See above answer...though there were some cool computer games like Ancient Art of War, Silent Service, etc

8. True but we had 2 phone lines. 1 for the parents and 1 for the kids.

9. HA HA HA HA. I specifically mentioned earlier that even when I was in junior high when it came out, I thought “the Day After” was just media bedwetting. Now that its 40 years later and I’m older and wiser I see...........that I was 100% right all along. It was just media bedwetting.

10. True but I wasn’t that into toys.

11. See above answer

12. Never saw “teen wolf” or a lot of other stupid kiddie movies. Also accusations of being “casually sexist and racist” is usually just whining from pantywaists and can be ignored. It usually just means something is normal or funny.

13. Couldn’t have given less of a crap about the Goonies, never saw it and sure as hell wasn’t going to wait in any long ass lines for it or any other movie.

14. Again, yes the selection in the mom and pop video stores was nothing like we would later see at Blockbuster and Tower Records and other places we’d rent movies from but before those mom and pop stores we had NOTHING. Compared to NOTHING, they were great!

15. No we weren’t. It was never overwhelming or anything. So restaurants and planes had a smoking section. So what? Nobody smoked at home. Dad was a doc and a fanatical anti smoker.

16. Yeah OK? So what?

17. Very true. I remember the “map fights” my parents would have when driving somewhere new and getting lost. Hell, I remember being absolutely furious when I would get lost somewhere or not know where I could get gas as the needle was getting close to empty, etc. GPS is a godsend.

18. So what? I rarely us the AI on my smartphone to play anything specific. I have my music organized into playlists. I was never into records. That was some outdated technology my older Boomer siblings had. We had cassettes.

19. True. Never leave the damn things on the dashboard of your car in the hot Florida sun. HA HA. Digital music is much better.

20. No. We had boom boxes that had dubbing decks. We just needed to borrow a cassette that had the songs we wanted. Then we could dub them onto a blank cassette.

21. We drank diet coke anyway so we were never afflicted with “New Coke”.

Now a lot of stuff that was so much better that they don’t mention:

- Society was nowhere near as paranoid and safety conscious. We were free to be kids. We could ride our bikes and jump things and fall down and get scraped up and just....have....fun.

- We had humor. You remember humor, right? It was risquee and edgy and FUNNY as hell. People could laugh at themselves and laugh at others and it was OK. It made life a lot more enjoyable. We could still enjoy 70s stuff like Monty Python and Mel Brooks masterpieces like Blazing Saddles and History of the World Part I but we also had Airplane, the Naked Gun, Raising Arizona, Porky’s, etc. We had comedians like Rodney Dangerfield, Sam Kinison, Andrew Dice Clay, Eddie Murphy,.....go back and listen to Sam Kinison or Eddie Murphy Raw. A lot of it is still hilarious today. Of course, you’re not allowed to make those kind of jokes today.......

- we still had a middle class. The country was far more united, stronger, healthier and a much much happier place than it is now.

So yes, our technology was much worse back then but our society and culture were so much better. I’m glad I got to be a kid in the 80s. It beats the hell out of now.


34 posted on 12/12/2023 6:01:34 PM PST by FLT-bird
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To: DouglasKC
OOoooh...no gameboy on a long trip....gadzooks!

Oh, the horror! That's what books were made for.

35 posted on 12/12/2023 6:05:43 PM PST by BlueLancer (Think of it as evolution in action. [Oath of Fealty - Pournelle and Niven])
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To: DallasBiff

I’m backing away from my original thought which may sound mean, but in general, put kids in situations that are uncomfortable on occasion and limit what they can interact with and let them use their creativity to find ways to entertain themselves.

We depend on our phones and other stuff far too much when we need more brain time. This works in any decade.


36 posted on 12/12/2023 6:09:29 PM PST by Zack Attack (✔)
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To: DallasBiff
I see lots of what ever this is complaints have to do with not having his face glued to a screen.

I understand. He is the kid that no one liked because he ate his own boogers in high school.

37 posted on 12/12/2023 6:10:40 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear ( In a quaint alleyway, they graciously signaled for a vehicle on the main road to lead the way. )
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To: TexasM1A

Loved those tube tops.
Hated when they got stuck on my finger


38 posted on 12/12/2023 6:11:19 PM PST by Keyhopper (Indians had bad immigration laws)
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To: DallasBiff

If you think the 80s were bad try the 50s...

[No, the 50s were GREAT for kids to learn about personal freedom, personal responsibility, learning, invention, etc.]


39 posted on 12/12/2023 6:14:59 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: Antihero101607

total loser. all his points are “not enough media.” “Electronics not good enough.”


40 posted on 12/12/2023 6:15:21 PM PST by MNDude
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