This post is not a “these young kids today don’t get it” criticism. “Kids today” can take a look at this and maybe see where we come from. This is meant to make us grateful for being born at an awesome and unique time in history. A peaceful and simple time. Even if it wasn’t, we didn’t know.
I was born in 1983. Sure, I may be getting a little long in the tooth now, but if you were born in the early 80’s you know what I mean when I say we were born at the perfect time.
First off, technology was garbage, but we didn’t know it. Sure some friends had computers at home, but not everyone. Just enough so you could slip over to a buddies place and play Doom or Wolfenstein occasionally. But also not enough to sit on the damn thing all the time. Video games were awesome, but not good enough to make a marathon of. Genesis and Nintendo games could be wrapped fairly quickly and then what? We had the games, but still the interest to get outside.
We had magazine subscriptions. Rolling Stone and Mad Magazines were still cool. The Sports Illustrated “Swimsuit Edition” was still a sought after holy grail. One buddy would get it and it would make it’s rounds. Which…is kind of disgusting now that I think about it. Porn was kept in sock drawers, between mattresses or in ceiling spaces. It was a rare thing. It was also a shared experience with 3 to 5 buddies flipping the pages together which…is kind of disgusting now that I think about it.
We had cellphones, but not until maybe late high school. But they were used to call someone, T9 text, or at most play “snake”. We were forced to sit with our thoughts. Which lead to many dumbass thoughts. But we became comfortable in silence.
We didn’t have our lives documented. We were allowed to make private mistakes. Bullying stayed with the physical interaction. We didn’t have to scroll through it constantly. We could escape criticism. Today, that isn’t possible.
Our music was awesome, but we loved our parent’s music too. Because it was awesome. We grew up loving Nirvana and Metallica, but still respected the hell out of Led Zeppelin and The Beatles. We were also just young enough to miss out on shitty 80’s dance music. It was around us, but it didn’t register. In high school we got Eminem, Venga Boys, TLC, and most importantly, Creed and Limp Bizkit. We got to see the glory of Woodstock 94 and the disaster of Woodstock 99. We could also get all those CD’s through Columbia House for literal pennies. I still have a Meatloaf’s “Bat Out Of Hell 2” CD because I forgot to let Columbia House know that I didn’t want the record of the month.
The movies were awesome. Action flicks like “Independence Day” and “Jurassic Park”. Not to mention the original reboot of the Star Wars franchise. Rewatchable comedy classics like “Something About Mary” and “Dumb and Dumber”. Historical classics like “Forrest Gump” and “Schindler’s List”. Cult classics like “Empire Records” and “The Big Lebowski”. All in theatre. No streaming. The best you could get at home was VHS and DVD.
Our friend groups were tight. Many still remaining intact to this day. We hung out with each other in person. We were comfortable sitting in silence. We had enough to keep us busy, but still not enough to have to search for it some times.
We didn’t live in a perfect world, but we didn’t know it. We were old enough to feel the reality of 9/11, but still young enough to remain somewhat numb to it’s overall effect.
Our generation can be the first to judge the ones coming up now, but we need to realize how great we had it. New generations face challenges we couldn’t ever imagine. Something I need to remind myself of frequently. -Chad