95 Posts About the ’80s That Show What No Longer Exists

At the beginning of the decade, as the Cold War showed no signs of easing, arms control advocates argued for a “nuclear freeze” agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In 1982, almost a million people rallied in New York City in support of the freeze. Many historians believe this was the largest mass demonstration in American history.

As Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher spearheaded conservative politics and capitalism, the foundations of communism grew increasingly shaky.

In 1985, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began to introduce the twin concepts of glasnost, or “openness,” and perestroika, or “restructuring,” to revive the struggling Soviet economy—but those efforts yielded few tangible results.

By the end of the decade, communism was in rapid retreat across Europe and Asia. The Berlin Wall, which had long divided the German city into an eastern, communist-controlled half and a western democratic half, was torn down by ecstatic crowds in 1989, and two years later, the Soviet Union collapsed.

In some ways, pop culture of the 1980s reflected the era’s political conservatism. For many, the embodiment of the decade was the young, urban professional, or “yuppie,” a baby boomer with a college education, a good-paying job, and relatively expensive taste.

Society would ridicule them for being self-centered and materialistic, and surveys of young urban professionals across the United States showed that they were, indeed, more concerned with making money and buying consumer goods than their parents and grandparents had been.

Unlike the 1970s, when hard-hitting movies addressed controversial topics, lighthearted fare seemed to reign supreme in the 1980s. Films like Ghostbusters, Die Hard, and The Breakfast Club kept audiences enthralled and box office receipts high.

At the same time, mammoth franchises like Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, and Star Wars appealed to moviegoers of all ages, grossing hundreds of millions of dollars across the world.

However, not everything fell under the umbrella of superficial escapism: many now-famous directors released darker, more serious movies like David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull.

At home, millions watched family sitcoms like Family Ties and Married... with Children. By the end of the decade, broadcast networks realized they were in serious trouble, as 60 percent of American TV owners had cable.

Soon, companies like HBO, Cinemax, TBS, and Nickelodeon became household names.

As CNN started delivering news via satellite worldwide, MTV made its debut and completely changed the way people thought about music, dance, and fashion.

Speaking of music, MTV made stars out of bands like Duran Duran, R.E.M., and Culture Club, and megastars out of Madonna, Prince, Whitney Houston, and Michael Jackson.

Hard rock acts such as Metallica and Guns N’ Roses captured the sense of malaise among young people, particularly young men. The 1980s also saw the growing popularity of electronic music, house music, reggae, new wave, and other dance-club favorites.

IBM released the IBM Model 5150, the first IBM personal computer, in 1981. One year later, the Commodore 64 personal computer debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and TIME magazine named the computer as its “Man of the Year.”

Soon, scattered computer users began communicating with one another through an early network developed by the U.S. Department of Defense, ARPANET. In 1983, the network adopted TCP/IP, a set of communication protocols that led to the creation of the Internet, and the modern era of computer communications was born.

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