Ah, the good old days! There’s nothing like a taste of nostalgia to boost your mood whenever things get tough. You think back to your childhood and you realize how carefree you probably were. Not to mention how much simpler life used to be!
The ‘80s and 90s Babies Only’ social media project reminds everyone how great it was to grow up in the 1980s and 1990s. We’ve collected some of their top memes and pics for a blast from the past. Scroll down for a retro daydream that might inspire you to start working on that time machine.
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My mom throw all my cassettes I recorded so many songs from radio and also recorded myself like a diary. Everything’s gone😔
Nostalgia can be incredibly lucrative. Lots of businesses and entrepreneurs recognize this and rely on nostalgia marketing. BBC Worklife reports that consumers are more likely to spend money on brands that evoke nostalgia.
There’s a lot of power in people’s emotions and how they think about the past.
We were never bored. Always something weird stuff to do. Can’t remember I was bored at all like kids nowadays.
Meanwhile, CNN Business notes that more and more adults are buying toys to relive the past. Known as ‘kidults’ (‘kid adults’), they spent $6.4 billion on toys for themselves in June 2023.
That’s up $1.7 billion from June 2021. Part of this trend can be explained by the COVID-19 pandemic: people tend to be more nostalgic during times of crisis.
The ‘80s and 90s Babies Only’ project can be found on Instagram, where it has 47.7k followers. There’s also an active Facebook group with 26.9k loyal fans, as well as a now-defunct Tumblr account.
The people running the whole show invite everyone who was born between the ‘70s and ‘90s to follow their content. Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions for posts and memes, you can message the curators or share your own content on their Facebook group wall.
Something that the administrators of the project want their followers to focus on is sharing original content.
They want everyone to “relive the good old days, reminiscing about anything and everything that reminds us of those happier times,” however, this doesn’t mean that folks should repost the same few images over and over again.
Though nostalgia can be a lot of fun and incredibly useful, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. When used responsibly and in moderation, it can energize us and inspire us to be more optimistic about the future.
However, if all we ever do is live in the past and view the present as a pale shadow of the ‘good old days,’ we’re doing ourselves a disservice.
No matter how you spin things, we still have to live in the present. No matter how amazing your childhood or youth might have been, this does not mean that it’s ‘all downhill’ from there.
You can live very meaningfully no matter how old you are. It all depends on the choices you make, the relationships you build, and your perspective.
For example, thinking that the world’s an incorrigibly messed up place and everything will only ever get worse is going to do more harm than good. Yes, the world is full of problems. These global issues change with every generation. But there’s never been a period of time in history without serious challenges. It’s good to be realistic, but you have to make sure that you’re not being pessimistic, jaded, and cynical.
Positive change is possible. Though, it takes tremendous, sustained effort for it to happen.
A dye tablet used in schools in the U.S. to teach children proper dental hygiene. The dye sticks to the tartar on their teeth.
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Now I can remember going to a dental health assembly in our school's auditorium sometime around the 4th grade and getting a free toothbrush, but I don't think they did this.
The whole class had to line up on both sides of cafeteria tables, chew the tablet, look at our selves in mirrors, watch a demonstration on proper tooth care, then actually brush our teeth. That got the dye off.
I had completely forgotten about these. It was weird that this was a thing.
And they tasted like c**p. We also had to do this clear green liquid fluoride stuff called swish. It was as horrible as it sounds.
Unnecessarily Humiliating pretty much sums up the 80s.
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We used similar pills in second grade and had to watch "snow white and the teeth brushing dwarfs " https://youtu.be/xFGgZWIBCJw?si=-mgJWqUDsIDhMc-1
I had one once in guides when someone came to give a talk on dental hygiene, I almost threw up as soon as I bit into it, never tried it so.
We had these in Denmark too. Had sorta a licorice taste to it. Still remember going down to the school dentist hygienists in groups of 4 to chew these, and then brush our teeth until she was satisfied with our brushing skills.
Omg I LOVED these we had red or blue and it was so cool we loved them
We had these in Australia too in the 80s. I remember using them in Year 1 or 2. They made your teeth pink if you had plaque. And everyone could see it.
This just unlocked a weird intense fear i didn't remember until right this moment
Me, too. Getting the "non-smoking" section in a restaurant, only to be seated by the barrier and choking on smoke. Strange how the cigarette smoke didn't understand which section to stay in! 🤪😂
On top of that, if you’re constantly mumbling about how swell life used to be decades ago, you’re potentially cutting yourself off from awesome opportunities in the present. There are lots of great people to meet, plenty of interesting activities, and places to travel to here and now.
Yearning for the comforts of the past and your glory days is toxic if all you ever do is daydream about them without taking action. However, if all of that nostalgia spurs you into action to get fit, value your loved ones more, and follow your passions, then embrace that!
However, it’s not necessarily childhood that people are nostalgic about. Broadly speaking, we yearn for the periods in our lives when we felt the happiest, carefree, or driven.
If you had a loving upbringing, that might be your childhood. But for someone else, it might be their early or even late adulthood when they finally started crafting the life they wanted with their own hands.
Yeah every day! Also same song more than one time if it was a song I really loved! I miss those times.
How many of you Pandas reading this miss the ‘80s and ‘90s? Or maybe there’s a whole different decade you remember even more fondly? What do you miss the most about the past? Real talk: would you like to go back to the past if time machines existed? Why (not)? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this, so if you have a moment, scroll down to the comment section to reminisce.
I was out of high school when this was on and I still watched the hell out of it. LOL.
That's where to good old walkman was superior. Here's the pic of the very last one I've ever owned: 333670068-...15ddab.jpg 
We used to turn it upside down on PURPOSE to take turns egging each other on to run across it & squeal in pain!
I forgot about this until seeing this picture. I had one although I don't remember which version it was.
I desperately wanted the fashion plates set, never got it.
There's my childhood right there. Still got all my Star Wars figures from the 80's
Note: this post originally had 80 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
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I wish you had those lists for specifically my country, because most are American and a lot of that stuff we just didn't have.
As a US citizen I would be fascinated to see a list from any other (group of) culture(s)! I am pretty sure all of this is harvested from Reddit, where it would be nice if someone created a subReddit for each of various cultures.
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Some of these are definitely older, but it's still a pretty good list!
Several of these things were around in the 70s and a few were here in the 60s.
Let me get this straight - Bored Panda is citing the example of phoning a radio station, waiting on hold to request a song, then waiting for a long time to record it on cassette (and no doubt get frustrated at the DJ talking over the intro/ outro) if you were lucky enough to have it played (in contrast to just asking the smart speaker to play it nowadays) and other "kids these days don't know the struggle" type posts as evidence that life was simpler back then? *Laughs in Gen X*
And if you bit down on them, they made this weird crumble that was hard to spit out!
I miss my MASK toys. Great decision giving them away to my cousin when I was a teenager :( IMG_1704-6...a9a3d6.jpg 
I wish you had those lists for specifically my country, because most are American and a lot of that stuff we just didn't have.
As a US citizen I would be fascinated to see a list from any other (group of) culture(s)! I am pretty sure all of this is harvested from Reddit, where it would be nice if someone created a subReddit for each of various cultures.
Load More Replies... Some of these are definitely older, but it's still a pretty good list!
Several of these things were around in the 70s and a few were here in the 60s.
Let me get this straight - Bored Panda is citing the example of phoning a radio station, waiting on hold to request a song, then waiting for a long time to record it on cassette (and no doubt get frustrated at the DJ talking over the intro/ outro) if you were lucky enough to have it played (in contrast to just asking the smart speaker to play it nowadays) and other "kids these days don't know the struggle" type posts as evidence that life was simpler back then? *Laughs in Gen X*
And if you bit down on them, they made this weird crumble that was hard to spit out!
I miss my MASK toys. Great decision giving them away to my cousin when I was a teenager :( IMG_1704-6...a9a3d6.jpg
