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We have a paralegal in our group who is heading off to law school in a few weeks, and we were all just sitting around talking about how young he is. He's 24, meaning he was born in 1983. And much to our chagrin he does not remember a time before cable TV, a time when we were afraid of the Russians (or rather, the Soviet bloc in general), a time before the advent of the space shuttle, the leadup to the launch of MTV, Ronald Reagan as president, or the song "My Future's So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades)."
I asked him about that last one after relating an anecdote from a few years ago. My friend Samantha about 6 years ago dated a Harvard student. She would tell you that he was very mature for his age and that it totally wasn't weird at all, while I would tell you that he was 20 and she was 26 and it was fucking weird. I have this rule that if you're over the age of 25, you should not be screwing someone who either has to use a fake ID to buy beer or who lives in a dorm room. And both? Well, ew. No dorm sex for me, thanks. But I digress.
One night we were out with this mature guy barely out of teenagerhood, and somehow the song "My Future's So Bright" came up. And it occurs to us that he might not know this song, so we ask if he's ever heard it. He responds "oh yes, I'm very up on retro music." I glared at him and responded something along the lines of "or as we refer to it, 7th grade." I was pretty much done with him at that moment.
Well, the paralegal thought this story was hilarious and tried to justify the classification of 80s music as "retro." In a group of 30somethings. How do you think that went over? Yeah, about that well.
As tacky and campy and ridiculous and strange as the 80s were, they are part and parcel of my generation. I have next to no memories that begin before 1980, save perhaps for some vague flashes and the pictures my parents kept. But I remember the 1980 presidential election, I remember "I want my MTV" and I remember our kindergarten class trying to write a song to commemorate the first flight of the space shuttle Columbia. (OK, so our teacher really wrote it.) I also remember the Challenger blowing up 5 years later. I remember Duran Duran, and when Madonna first appeared on the scene, and when people started getting cable. And dammit, I'm a product of all that and I'm proud of it.
The notion that there are college graduates in the workforce who don't remember any of those things, well, that's just supremely depressing.
7 comments:
Just what I needed with PMS. I have memories that begin well before 1980.
I was just thinking the same thing. You said 7th grade, for me that song was the year after graduation.
What? Cable didn't always exist?
I have this definitive memory of watching the Pepsi commercial of Madonna that was adapted to Like A Prayer and my mother being absolutely mortified.
That said, I have an intern who works for me who was born in 1987 which makes me feel, like, 172.
See, I can distinctly remember the Maddona "Borderline" video with the car and the spray paint and the angry photographer boyfriend.
Considering we didn't get cable til I was 12 it's surprising how much of an impact it made on me.
Continuing the Madonna thread, I've always been partial to her during the Who's That Girl era, primarily because I always found La Isla Bonita catchy.
There was also way too much Richard Marx on MTV in the mid- to late-1980s.
"Hold on to the nights....hold on to the memories...."
I loved Richard Marx when I was 8 and didn't know any better.
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