This Page Shares Pics And Memes From The ’80s And ’90s, Here Are The 50 Most Nostalgic Ones
InterviewSometimes, often without warning, you will see or hear something that unlocks an entire ocean of memories you didn’t even remember you had. Nostalgia, after all, is a potent emotion. Naturally, there are many pages out there dedicated to dishing it up to everyone who wants some.
The “That 80s and 90s Page” Instagram account shares memes and pictures of things from past decades that might make you pretty darn nostalgic. We got in touch with the page’s administrator to learn more. So get comfortable as you scroll through and upvote your favorites.
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Idk what just happened in my brain. You unlocked something I didn't know was stored there. If you don't hear from me again you know why
Bored Panda got in touch with Tom, the creator and administrator of the group and he was kind enough to answer our questions. Firstly, we wanted to know the story behind why he created the account. “The story behind the page is that I would remember or come across a picture of something from my childhood, toys I grew up with, foods that have been discontinued, stores I used to shop at that were no longer around, and then the content to family and friends.”
“Eventually, I decided to post them on social media so others who grew up in the 80s and 90s could see them too, and then it just kind of grew organically. I had no idea I'd one day have hundreds of thousands of followers on social media,” he shared.
My kids still still have this childhood. They knock on friends doors to ask if they can come out and play, they spend hours in the forest behind the house or down by the lake. They have to come home before dark. Its still normal in my corner of the world.
You guys are so lucky. Cherish those memories for the rest of your lives.
Load More Replies...Being raped and nobody talked about it. Being run over by cars in much greater numbers than today. Friends who "moved away" quite suddenly. Not being able to get into some activity clubs you were interested in because you were a girl/ boy. Oh yeah, those were the days. This nostalgia is stupid
Yeah, goddam all that technology that allows my kids to interact with friends and family on the other side of the world, enjoy a more integrated education that caters for neurodiversity and medical technology that will allow them to live longer, not to mention all the social progress that means they live in a world that is more tolerant no matter their race, gender or sexuality. You just keep making up fairytales about the past that doesn’t include polio or or homophobia, okay?
this stupid thing is reposted for every generation. we never picked blueberries or caught fireflies. We smoked a lot of weed, drank illicitly obtained alcohol and committed petty vandalism and crimes all over.
So you did all of that under the age of 10? I doubt it. As teenagers, sure, I'm sure you did, as did many others in plenty of generations. Maybe you even did some of that under age 10, but that would still not negate any of this. Yes, kids have and DO catch butterflies, pick wild (and sometimes not so wild, lol) grown fruits and veggies, and do all of the things in the post. Trying to bring it down because you claim you were a hoodlum from birth doesn't change it, lol.
Load More Replies...We have this kind of neighborhood now. It's a delight. About 10 kids, all within 4-5 years, bikes, balls, bubbles, jumpropes, ice cream truck, street lights and all. Florida suburbs. Great life 👍🌴
Sorry 4 you mean 4 year olds out on their own running around chasing ice cream truck etc? That is too young even by the 90s standards…
Load More Replies...I was born in the early 90s and never had this because my mother was paranoid about someone kidnapping me. Still is. Unfortunately, I couldn't get away from it. I was born to a person that gave me no childhood right before a time when I could live out any dreams I have came crashing down around us. It sucks.
I’m tired of the teChNoLoGY bAd, it was invented for a reason: it’s useful
If you try to let your kids do that nowadays and one of your neighbors is likely to call the police on you. It's not just technology keeping them home.
I was thinking only a few days ago about how we had these types of lives but now can’t trust the safety of our kids to leave them unsupervised until they are at least 16. But even then, they are at risk of sexual assault, kidnap into human trafficking and more. How on earth did we find so much personal freedom and then lose it all in a matter of a couple of generations?
This describes my childhood to a T. Despite the trolls about this post, we had an economy where it was affordable to have a Parent stay home with the kids to WATCH US as we skated in the neighborhood, ride our bikes with friends, play in the backyard, run around the backyard at night catching fireflies, play in the snow all day during a 'snow day...it was also a time when neighbors actually SPOKE and SOCIALIZED with each other, so everyone knew where everyone's kids were. That is a very rare thing today...
Technology has ALWAYS been taking over the world. This is not new. Life, and how we live it, changes. I miss that stuff, too, but I don't delude myself into thinking that 'technology has taken over the world'. Most of all, I acknowledge that the only thing it takes to live that way is to live that way.
Try finding a parent that will let their kid do all that now…no wonder kids retreated to their technology.
It isn't safe to do that anymore in most places. Cities are very unfriendly for bike users and pedestrians, and the suburbs can be pretty dangerous
Some of my favourite memories were playing elaborate games of make-believe outside with my friends. We would spend hours outdoors playing sports, riding bikes, and catching bugs. There was not pressure to constantly record every part of my life on social media. It was just children being goofy children-- no insane competitions, no hundreds of afterschool sports and clubs where I had to win trophies at everything. I honestly kind of miss that. That's why I just love children exploring and having fun.
I TOTALLY AGREE! I did a lot of those things that you mentioned and I miss it sometimes! 🙂❤️
We didn't have sprinklers. There were no ice cream trucks. And there were no streetlamps. I spent much of my time outside, but also playing video games, watching TV, playing indoors, playing on the Apple Macintosh...Life is about balance.
Ah yes. The funny smelling sprinklers we later found out were attached to the septic system :)
The baseball field where we had pick up games had an old piece of wood with rusty nails for the pitchers mound. If we could get 8 kids together, we had enough for two teams.
Ugh, how so? I'm a queer woman and this resonated with me.
Load More Replies...We also wanted to know what he thought attracted people to the page and this sort of content in general. “I think the main appeal is the combination of humor and nostalgia, not everything I post has humor, but I do try to add humor to my content when possible.”
I believe nostalgia-based content is popular online because it's sort of a mental time travel that reconnects us to who we are and our past, it was a simpler time in our lives and brings back a lot of happy memories, like a favorite toy you had when you were a kid, or a movie or TV show that you used to love but totally forgot about. It doesn't matter what walk of life you came from; we were all watching the same commercials, and TV shows, and looking forward to finding the prize at the bottom of a cereal box.”
Undoubtedly, the ‘80s and ‘90s were a very unique time, so we wanted to know why he focused on them in particular. “That's what I knew and was passionate about since I was born in the early 1980s. I have fond memories of growing up in both the 80s and 90s. I had no idea the page was going to do as well as it had done when I first started it. I feel blessed to have had the page to have grown the way it has and I'm very grateful to all the fans who have followed and supported the page over the years,” he shared with Bored Panda.
“In a way, my page and other nostalgia pages like mine are time machines, followers get to see toys they played with when they were kids and have long forgotten about until they see it on the page, they see fashion they grew up wearing, stores that are no longer around, movies and TV shows they used to watch but haven't seen in years. It's like comfort food for the soul because it brings back a lot of happy memories of a simpler, less stressful time in their lives.”
My ADHD brain still does this but nobody understands me :') It also does this with any other obscure niche reference to the past it can think of.
“I think it's natural for the younger generation to find the two or three decades before they were born appealing, I remember watching 'Dazed and Confused' in the nineties and thinking how cool it would have been to grow up in the 1970s, I loved the music and fashion, and I think the same is true for a lot the younger generation today, they like the music and fashion, and have watched shows like 'Stranger Things' and 'The Goldbergs', so they have a romanticized view of the past.”
McDonald’s has become unbearable now. I was lucky enough to go into one recently where they actually had a place to order at the counter instead of the kiosk. The employee then proceeded to come around the counter and have me give him my order while he punched it into the kiosk for me. Almost broke the whole store when I decided to pay with cash.
“And while the 80s and 90s were overwhelmingly positive for me, it definitely had some drawbacks like no internet in the 80s, a very slow internet in the late 90s in comparison to how fast it is today. If you took a trip you had to use a map, whereas now you can enter where you want to go into your phone and it will tell you exactly how to get there every step of the way.”
Happened to me @ bros wedding..thought it was one of his friend's dad..nope..kid I graduated with...
“In the past, if you needed help with your math homework you had better hope one of your parents knew how to solve the problem and could explain it in a way that you understood, and now a kid can use a site like Calculator Soup or go to YouTube and find a video that explains it in a way they can better understand it. I have no doubt that in twenty to thirty years from now, there will be a whole new younger generation wishing they had grown up in the 2020s.”
I have one of these floating around my parents house..it has pix of the world trade center from a class trip less than 3 months before they went down....
Lastly, we wanted to know if he had any particular philosophy when picking what to feature. “I try to keep my content family-friendly for the most part, and I stay away from politics. In short, I want my page to be an escape to the simpler and happier times of the past, even if it is for a brief moment.” So if you want more nostalgic content, check out “That 80s and 90s Page” or go to their Facebook page.
I'm still waiting for the flying car that folds up into a briefcase. I'm convinced that it can be done. Gyrocopters are getting close to the flying car and Transformers to the folding car. But I want them together.
It’s important to remember that nostalgia isn’t just some term marketers use to get us to buy things, it's a very real emotion with its own benefits. Some research suggests that it helps us remember better days as a substitute for current sadness. This, interestingly, often allows a person to pull through. So if you are in need of a pick-me-up mentally, feel free to check out our other articles on nostalgic content.
I live in a small coastal town and it is so safe that the local kids still do this
I preferred swings and get them going flat out! I was on some swings recently and the thrill is different when you are 72...
My first apartment had an entire set stolen from Pizza Hut over numerous visits to their Lunch Buffet.
Actress Mae Questel who played the role of Aunt Bethany in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation was the voice behind Betty Boop, Minnie Mouse, Olive Oyl, and Felix the Cat.
I have a picture of 4 year old me me dressed up in one of these when we still lived on the Navy Base in Japan. My Japanese mom did her best, and I don't remember what happened, but I had a skull mask and a Bozo The Clown suit for my constume. LMAO
My mom beat the first Super Mario World game for the gameboy, it was insane because you had to play it in one go and I remember it being very difficult
Not anymore. They just announced they're discontinuing it
Note: this post originally had 89 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Most of these were “technology bad” and “kids are so weak these days” memes, I’m gonna get downvoted to hell, but they’re just annoying at this point
You're not wrong though. I'm so tired of all the people insisting kids don't play outside, or hang out without technology. Are these people even around kids? I've raised three since 2000 and they and all their friends were always outside, running around the neighborhood, playing sports, riding bikes, etc. We have a walking path and park behind our house and I still see teens hanging out back there, just shooting the s**t, ALL the time. But for some reason everyone has convinced themselves kids don't do those things anymore.
Load More Replies...Respectfully, if they are getting tiresome, in your opinion, don't look at them. There are those of us who really enjoy them. You can tell that by the comments. Thank you
Load More Replies...These posts always make me think of the Drew Gooden video where he breaks down how ridiculous these posts are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_FUmf0T8YI
Some of these are nostalgic for all kids aswell. Also why are some of these just slandering 2000s and 2010s kids childhoods. Most I fypu are the older generation that caused this and are for some reason blaming the kids that you lot raised. Smh
I agree. I’m amongst the oldest millennials and definitely in the target group for this kind of nostalgia but it gave me kind of a weird feeling. Some of the entries were a little amusing, but many of them seem to connote a misplaced sense of cultural superiority and judgey nostalgia that would cause lots of millennials to roll their eyes if boomers were doing it.
Load More Replies...I feel like only old people like the posts that feel the need to make it a contest about which generation was best: Newsflash, none of them, you're just biased and will obviously prefer your timeline from when you were young. People that were kids and young adults in the 80s prefer the 80s, people from the 70s, people from the early 2000s and so on. Y'all really became your parents 😂 not so young anymore, now you're the old farts wishing you were a kid again and dogging on young people today.
Most of these were “technology bad” and “kids are so weak these days” memes, I’m gonna get downvoted to hell, but they’re just annoying at this point
You're not wrong though. I'm so tired of all the people insisting kids don't play outside, or hang out without technology. Are these people even around kids? I've raised three since 2000 and they and all their friends were always outside, running around the neighborhood, playing sports, riding bikes, etc. We have a walking path and park behind our house and I still see teens hanging out back there, just shooting the s**t, ALL the time. But for some reason everyone has convinced themselves kids don't do those things anymore.
Load More Replies...Respectfully, if they are getting tiresome, in your opinion, don't look at them. There are those of us who really enjoy them. You can tell that by the comments. Thank you
Load More Replies...These posts always make me think of the Drew Gooden video where he breaks down how ridiculous these posts are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_FUmf0T8YI
Some of these are nostalgic for all kids aswell. Also why are some of these just slandering 2000s and 2010s kids childhoods. Most I fypu are the older generation that caused this and are for some reason blaming the kids that you lot raised. Smh
I agree. I’m amongst the oldest millennials and definitely in the target group for this kind of nostalgia but it gave me kind of a weird feeling. Some of the entries were a little amusing, but many of them seem to connote a misplaced sense of cultural superiority and judgey nostalgia that would cause lots of millennials to roll their eyes if boomers were doing it.
Load More Replies...I feel like only old people like the posts that feel the need to make it a contest about which generation was best: Newsflash, none of them, you're just biased and will obviously prefer your timeline from when you were young. People that were kids and young adults in the 80s prefer the 80s, people from the 70s, people from the early 2000s and so on. Y'all really became your parents 😂 not so young anymore, now you're the old farts wishing you were a kid again and dogging on young people today.