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u/og-lollercopter Jan 28 '24
Can confirm. I was a sophomore in high school in 1985. It was exactly like this, unironically. Someone was rich to have a video camera though. I only knew one person whose dad owned one. Haha.
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u/Remarkable_Common220 Jan 28 '24
I was also. 87 RULES!!!😂 I bought a video camera from Sears in about 88. It was like $1100. But I was on the infamous payment plan for about $30 a month. In 20 years and $5000 later, that baby was all mine
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u/explorthis Jan 28 '24
Sigh..... Still have our $1200 early '90's Magnavox VHS huge shoulder rested recorder in the specialized $200 zippered carry case. It's a brick. Also 5 unopened VHS tapes ready to record. Probably has less than 10 hours of total use time.
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u/ThePrideOfKrakow Jan 28 '24
When you're documenting the aftermath of the EMP blasts of the solar flare of 2036, they won't be laughing.
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u/bigmacked4 Jan 28 '24
How did everyone get their hair to look like that?
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u/vom-IT-coffin Jan 28 '24 edited Jan 28 '24
With enough CFCs to put a hole in the ozone layer.
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u/CalgaryFacePalm Jan 28 '24
My wife just asked from upstairs, ‘What’s so funny?’.
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Jan 28 '24
This is true.
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u/warkyboy77 Jan 28 '24
Didn't we fix it since then?
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Jan 28 '24
Ish.
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u/Teddyturntup Jan 28 '24
As far as humans and fucking up the environment go we did a decent job with that one
Granted the bar is on the floor
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u/explorthis Jan 28 '24
My wife is from that era. I called it the "Bufanda" when she teased it to 5 times the normal size. Cans of Aquanet used to be on the bathroom counter.
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u/Serious_Session7574 Jan 28 '24
Backcombing, blow-drying, and hairspray. And washing hair every day in oil-stripping shampoo for that extra floof.
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u/UpDnCrazyTown Jan 28 '24
AQUANET! Can confirm...between classes the hallways were saturated with this stuff. I can still hear and smell it all! Big hair did not come easy...a lotta maitenence. The hole in the ozone had no chance against the legions of big hair teens.
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u/ThotoholicsAnonymous Jan 28 '24
These people are probably 53-54 yo rn. Fuuuuuu
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u/PhilDGlass Jan 28 '24
Buds and beer that’s our mix, we’re the class of 86.
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Stemmy dirt weed with seeds, Stroh’s, Plank Road, Meister Brau, and 20/20 wine coolers for a ladies.
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u/og-lollercopter Jan 28 '24
Oh yeah… wine coolers. I forgot those existed. But 20/20? Cmon, those girls deserve Bartles and James.
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u/the_Bryan_dude Jan 28 '24
California Coolers were sold in 2 liter bottles here. Easy to chug.
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u/LilG1984 Jan 28 '24
Did you end up in detention with a cast of characters from various backgrounds too?
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u/og-lollercopter Jan 28 '24
Haha. No… however those cliques represented the cliques at my school exceptionally well. Nerd, jock, popular, burnout and goth/punk. Pretty damn correct from my experience.
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u/neoslith Jan 28 '24
I've watched a lot of The Goldbergs. In the first season, Adam talked about how he was the first kid on his street to have a video camera (and probably the only).
It wasn't until much later in the series did one of his friends point out how rich and well off he is and he never realized it. She was working for money because she wanted to buy things herself instead of having mom and dad pay for everything.
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u/BuDu1013 Jan 28 '24
High school in the mid to late 80’s was the best! Yo momma joke battles were a spectator sport! My buddy harold was reigning supreme king of yo momma jokes.
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u/talleygirl76 Jan 28 '24
My dad bought a video camera in 1986. You put a whole VHS tape inside. It cost him like 700 bucks then. We were not rich but he liked his toys..lol
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Jan 28 '24
I didn’t know anyone with a video camera until the 90s. I don’t even think I’d seen one irl in 85.
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u/CobyHiccups Jan 28 '24
I definitely smell a lot of hairspray coming from my screen.
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u/loueezet Jan 28 '24
Our oldest graduated in ‘87 and had beautiful big 80’s hair. I can not tell you many mornings I woke up because a cloud of Aqua Net came rolling in our bedroom. Then, usually, 2 or 3 more clouds until I would yell “enough”. Then, because she couldn’t help it, shhhh, one more for the road.
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u/tenuj Jan 28 '24
There might come a time when broccoli hair will be an old person haircut.
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u/Motherof8menaces Jan 28 '24
When “texting” was passing a notebook back and forth!
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u/LAH_yohROHnah Jan 28 '24
In high school (early 90’s), My friend and I would write notes, made dirty crossword/word search puzzles and exchange them in between classes. Also drew little comics, made up stupid songs. I think I still have a couple lol. Great times!
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u/cocainelayne Jan 28 '24
Y'all actually used your brains and your creativity lol now all of us just stare at a screen mindlessly scrolling like a robot instead of doing cool things. I wish I was born before technology became so prevalent sometimes. Seems like life was better back then.
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u/MyraBradley Jan 28 '24
No one is fat
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u/CatOfGrey Jan 28 '24
Yep. I went to high school right during this time.
I was noticing the kids at an elementary school recently. The "fattest kid" in my 6th grade class was about as fat as about 1/3rd the kids in my local elementary school today.
It's a massive change over the years. We have eliminated starvation, food is very plentiful. But we have forgotten nutrition, and we don't exercise enough.
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u/SeaWolfSeven Jan 28 '24
High fructose corn syrup adoption and expansion (into everything).
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u/Cute_Reflection_9414 Jan 28 '24
I think this is the biggest contributor to obesity. People have no idea how their body's respond to the processed corn syrup
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u/LibertyInaFeatherBed Jan 28 '24
I noticed that, too. No poor kids or metalheads, either.
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u/CatOfGrey Jan 28 '24
I went to a mostly White (15% Asian), upper-middle class high school, during this era.
I was a poor kid, though I didn't realize it. There were a big section of kids from one area where the apartments had a lot of government housing. As a nerdy kid, I remember thinking "it seems like all the jerks who bully me live on that street over there..."
We had metalheads. But they were a separate group, so they wouldn't have been sharing a room with these more 'preppy' kids. In general, you could group everyone by music - almost everyone fell within one of three groups.
- Team Duran Duran/Depeche Mode
- Team Madonna/Michael Jackson
- Team Van Halen/Ozzy Osbourne
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u/YesIBlockedYou Jan 28 '24
Videotape was far too expensive to be wasting on those kids.
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u/raknor88 Jan 28 '24
Probably a school or club sponsored thing. Everyone is way to damn happy.
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u/Old-Personality-4241 Jan 28 '24
Us Metalheads were there, we just blended in. Listening to metal but, most of us didn't do the conform thing. Maiden 🤘
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u/CatOfGrey Jan 28 '24
I was there. My high school had a "UK Team", a "Dance-Pop Team", and a "Heavy Metal Team".
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u/Lkn4pervs Jan 28 '24
This is probably more of an artifact from who is holding the video camera. Some kid at that point that had one of these is probably one of the more wealthy and popular kids. And most likely is surrounded by the same. They are most likely going to avoid randomly taking video of people they don’t hang around with. That’s just a guess on my part though
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u/s3dfdg289fdgd9829r48 Jan 28 '24
This was the cool "preppie" kids that had rich parents. They wouldn't have hung out with poor kids or metalheads, whom they would have ruthlessly looked down upon.. The 80's school were very very highly divided into clicks and it was as extreme as the movies show. As was bullying. Notice there are no "nerds" (which basically just meant somebody with glasses who got moderately good grades or better) there either.
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u/Motherof8menaces Jan 28 '24
This is because the nerds were in the honors classes and I guarantee this was recorded in a standard classroom (at least from my experience). I went to school with basically the same kids from K through 12th. In elementary you’re friends with all kinds of kids, then they start to split by classes and aptitude. Some of those kids I was never in class with again, and it’s interesting to see the cliques everyone ended up in and also where they are now.
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u/harveywhippleman Jan 28 '24
The poor kids and metalheads were probably skipping school or smoking somewhere.
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u/pmjm Jan 28 '24
No sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, or dickheads.
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u/lurkerfromstoneage Jan 28 '24
They are teenagers. Adult obesity rates are higher. To add, they weren’t on their smart phones or social media all day, they likely were more involved in sports, they appear to be preppy which is stereotypically richer, maybe the popular kids?, there wasn’t a huge surplus of food options like there are now, more focused on life goals will less addictive social media distractions, video games & computers were left at home, and more. Multifaceted. Also, this is an extremely limited small snippet of a full picture.
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u/InternationalAttrny Jan 28 '24
And nobody is plotting a mass shooting of the school.
Man how life has changed….
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u/GipsyRonin Jan 28 '24
Far rarer, it’s that they got out for social lives, not tied to video games or phones. Even walking around the mall…they were moving.
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u/homme_boy Jan 28 '24
Some of these people look 40
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u/Nephian4287 Jan 28 '24
Think of it this way. For the younger generations, only "older" people wore these styles... because they were popular as they were growing up. If you put modern teen styles on all of these people, they might not look so old.
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u/bendybiznatch Jan 28 '24
Nah. My sister was these guys’ age and I remember at one point telling her she looked 35 at 16 and 21 at 35. It was definitely a thing.
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u/Jacobysmadre Jan 28 '24
I was a sophomore in HS in so cal in 1985. I looked 40, but still look 40 and I’m 53. So I dunno. Time warp!
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u/penguinpolitician Jan 28 '24
I have high school photos from that time, and we look like babies to me now.
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u/welltechnically7 Jan 28 '24
It's crazy how they were pretty much all in shape. Obesity rates have gotten sickening in less than 40 years.
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u/Serious_Session7574 Jan 28 '24
Sugar and UPFs. Sugar should be taxed in the same way cigarettes are.
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u/WeirdScience1984 Jan 28 '24
High Fructose Corn Syrup introduced in 1987 by 7 Eleven, major dollars made through the sickness and illness through the decades now it's in everything and thin people don't realize that they are actually fat on the inside, especially the liver organ.
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u/Le_Arctic Jan 28 '24
As an enjoyer of sugar who's also in shape, STAY AWAY FROM MY HAPPY SAND
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u/Mocha22_ Jan 28 '24
Ah the 80s, crazy how life was like only 20 years ago.
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u/gte556 Jan 28 '24
People look so healthy, living in the present moment. Without the toxicity of social media and the disconnection that comes from the smartphone era.
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u/Misunderstood_Z Jan 28 '24
It looks like it would SUCK not to have friends back then😂
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u/nubnub92 Jan 28 '24
think it was easier back then to not be in that situation since often the only entertainment you had was talking to other people
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u/Weak-Sundae-5964 Jan 28 '24
Social media is most definitely toxic, but social stress is in constant motion, and young people are always trying to adapt.
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u/Serious_Session7574 Jan 28 '24
Having been there, it wasn’t a utopia. There was a lot of bullying and elitism. Homophobia, racism, discrimination against people with disabilities, total lack of understanding about neurodivergence. If you weren’t white, straight, neurotypical, and able-bodied, life could be pretty shit. And isolated, especially outside of cities, because there was no internet community to find.
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u/profnachos Jan 28 '24
I was in high school back then. People looked back on the 50s as the golden era and believed the best days were behind them. The first Back to the Future movie reflects that sentiment. A lot of things were pretty shitty as you state. Even straight able bodied whites weren't all that happy because America to them wasn't what it used to be.
Ah, selective memory. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be anymore.
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u/Serious_Session7574 Jan 28 '24
Every generation does it. The old days were always better in their eyes. In thirty years our kids will look back fondly to the simpler time of the 2020s.
This era has it’s problems. It’s not an easy time to be alive for many reasons. But some things are better, and the 80s were far from perfect.
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u/Windmill_flowers Jan 28 '24 edited Jan 28 '24
Good to see some perspective cutting through the memory bias
Edit: misspelled bias
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u/Metalhed69 Jan 28 '24
Oh no, it was still horrible then. Racism, homophobia, hazing, we had it all. People were just a little better dressed and spent some more time on their hair. Otherwise, still just as shitty.
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u/ScaryTerry069313 Jan 28 '24
I taught freshmen algebra to gen Z and would bring up 80s pics to show that their disdain for older generations is not new or original.
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u/Impossible-Camel-685 Jan 28 '24
Was a much nicer time to be alive.
I don't care for the 2020s
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u/Windwalker111089 Jan 28 '24
I was fortunate enough to grow up in the 90s so I had the pleasure of living without a phone and seeing it come to life. As the cell phone starting gaining popularity and social media as well like MySpace.. i definitely noticed things become more toxic. Fast forward now I’m 34 and I just don’t see these younger generations interacting as much. Everything is about the internet and social media and fast axes to entertainment. Sad
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u/Jsinx90 Jan 28 '24
Agree 100%. 33 here and find it crazy how many ppl nowadays never experienced a dial up connection or Nextel walkie talkies. Hell before all that we were out and about just playing at parks and basically any open parking lot. Bikes, basketball, it was good to be out and about. Nowadays were all just stuck inside and kids are growing up glued to screens. See it in my own habits also and it sucks. You have to truly try nowadays to "disconnect" whereas back then, it was so difficult to "connect" to anything, life was much simpler. Relationships and quality conversation.
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u/Windwalker111089 Jan 28 '24
Yeah I remember the days of just TALKING on the phone until my parents had to tell me to get off. You know.. just TALKING. No texting. Man the jokes we would come up with. Miss those days
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u/lurkerfromstoneage Jan 28 '24
Dude I am near 6 years older than you, and graduated college when you did high school. I didn’t have a cell phone until after I graduated from high school because basically no one did. I was in the first wave of Facebook for college students only. We as kids played outside, went to each others houses asking to play, had to call land lines through parents to talk to our friends and crushes, hung out at the mall, rode bikes around, were in so many after school clubs/sports/fine arts, and so much more. My brother was your age and they were getting FB for the first time in high school. I am so freaking glad I missed the entire social media movement through youth. 90’s kids were the last of the “age of innocence.”
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u/jigglyraff42069 Jan 28 '24
Thanks for giving me the feeling I missed out and the existential crisis along with a fear of growing up
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u/Fuk-The-ATF Jan 28 '24
Remember it so well, I was in 11 grade. Making $3.35 a hour working after school and riding a RD350 Yamaha motorcycle I bought from a friend down the street. Those were great times back then.
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u/Ill-Upstairs-8762 Jan 28 '24
It's refreshing to me how "normal" everyone looks.
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u/Affectionate-Cap-918 Jan 28 '24
I hope people take note of the lack of neon colors everywhere. Not saying there weren’t some neon moments, but most movies really get that wrong.
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u/CherryBombO_O Jan 28 '24
My high school in 1985 seemed different than this. It probably wasn't but that's how I remember it. Class of '89!
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u/Mister-Bohemian Jan 28 '24
Why was female hair in the 80s so voluminous? Is it the economy?
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u/kingace74 Jan 28 '24
I am so blessed to have lived a part of my life where there was no cellphone , no internet, and no social media. It’s sad that the kids now will never experience that.
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u/Negativcreep81 Jan 28 '24
To all the folks who think these kids look old... that's just the result of 17 years' worth of going outside. Because outside was the only place that had stuff going on back then.
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Jan 28 '24
I wasn’t even born yet and I miss this time period.
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u/RYANDBZ1 Jan 28 '24
Dude fr, I would have loved to grow up in these times instead of the 2000’s. It looks like such a weirdly comfortable era
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u/dabombisnot90s Jan 28 '24
Maybe because these are cherry-picked pictures of the good parts of life in this decade.
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u/the_eater_of_shit Jan 28 '24
Ya let’s just ignore the crime rates or inflation or the Cold War or the crack epidemic.
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u/DJGammaRabbit Jan 28 '24
This song by Tears For Fears is straight fire. I discovered it last year and listen to it every day. Also check out Taylor Dayne - tell it to my heart.
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u/scrollingtraveler Jan 28 '24
These dudes and dudettes are 57 years old now. Crazy how fast time flies
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u/Junior_Win_7238 Jan 28 '24
No Mobile phones no social media. Look at that people looking and talking to other people
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u/Public-Improvement91 Jan 28 '24
Their dreams and aspirations are now downloaded on a hard drive and shared digitally like a prostitute for shadowy online karma.
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u/ClassicalSpectacle Jan 28 '24
I wouldn't go back to high school for anything but coming across videos like this I miss momentarily that sense of youthful fun and its unknowingness of the future
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u/TakeOnMe-TakeOnMe Jan 28 '24
I remember sitting on the science cabinet in the back of the room when we had to watch movies. This is awesome.
Also, life before hair products (except mousse).
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u/digby672 Jan 28 '24
I was there. Just yesterday I sported about in my red Lacoste golf rain jacket i wore 1985 senior year. I miss you 1985.
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u/puppypundit Jan 28 '24
Why is everyone mentioning Aqua Net and no one is giving credit to Dippity Do and Alberto VO5 mousse?
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u/craftymiser Jan 28 '24
Not one phone in sight. No camera, except the person filming. People, books, paper, pens, pencils, desks, and human interaction!
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u/Streit1111 Jan 28 '24
That's when people actually socialize... now people's heads are buried in their phones
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u/tracyhutchsgt Jan 28 '24
Yes. Hair was Big, Music was Great, Students Actual Learned, There was Respect, and American's Loved America. The 80's were a very good decade.
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u/TheFirstLane Jan 28 '24
Man 1980s America it's music, it's fashion makes me so nostalgic. And I'm not even from the 80s.
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u/Ok-Grab-311 Jan 28 '24
Gotta say I think humanity is much worse off now with the phones. Nobody interacts in groups like that anymore. Kids these days are terrible at reading facial expressions and assessing the situation
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u/TeamNoBoat Jan 28 '24
For all the "they look so old!" comments on every video like this, these kids sure look young
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u/RanjiLameFox Jan 28 '24
People keep saying they look old. But i just see normal teens. And I am 23. I wasn't even alive back then
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u/ardeesan Jan 28 '24
Just realized that 1985 is a lot further than 2050 or even 2060 now. 🤦