Let me just tell you that the oldest millennials have turned 42 this year. And while we’re well aware of the fact we’re no kids, we don’t feel that ancient either. Dad jokes and cargo pants seem to be a boomer thing, but what if we’re not that far from them?
So today, my fellow millennials, we’re about to feel not just old, but ancient thanks to this walk down memory lane right back to our simpler and happier childhood days.
“The Ultimate '80s Page” Facebook page is a notorious source for nostalgia–inducing content, and below we wrapped up some of the best examples shared here. The page’s whopping 2.7M followers show just how much we all relate to the long gone days, and honestly, it’s no surprise.
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Lauren McMenemy, a professional writer, journalist, and writing coach who runs workshops and training to help people get their words down right, told Bored Panda that the immediate thought when someone says "1980s" is the cliches: “neon, big hair, shoulder pads, power ballads. It was an era of multitudes.”
She commented: “There was indeed that break-out fun, bright and fluffy, everyone's excited angle - but there was also the ‘Greed is Good’ angle, the Wall Street tycoons, the money-at-all-costs which really started to dominate at this time (and still does).”
When you get a perfect picture but your finger sticks out in the corner…
Dear other generations: Just in case you forgot, we drank from garden hoses. Sincerely, GenX.
Lauren argues that what was unique about the '80s - aka her childhood - “was the sense of adventure and exploration, particularly as technology started to infiltrate the home. It was the first era of home computing consoles, of Nintendo and Atari.” So for her, as a kid, it was the absolute best time.
I got to spin the wheel once (relative works for CBS & he was giving us a backstage tour). It's *really* heavy.
Since the '80s style, from clothing to music, has been coming back to fashion in recent years, we asked Lauren why she thinks this bygone era has this enduring appeal.
Lauren believes that there isn't anything unique about the '80s that's driving this comeback. “As humans, we are inherently nostalgic, and there seems to be a trend that we go back every 30 and/or 50 years.”
In fact, Lauren argues, “in the '80s, we were obsessed with the '50s. In the '90s, it was the '60s, and so on. It's a long enough time-lapse that we can remember things with rose-tinted glasses.”
and it is resistant, since the 70s, we are in the 4th generation to play with, still works "Ding!" !
We also asked Lauren what’s her favorite '80s thing, and she said it’s “Back to the Future. Hands down, my favorite movie ever. And you get the double whammy of '80s and '50s nostalgia, too!”
“I'm also partial to hair metal and power ballads; put on The Final Countdown by Europe and I'll sing at the top of my lungs,” she added.
I recently went to a high school reunion. Those of us who are still alive are turning 75 this year. :)
We called the theatre phone number and listened to the recorded listings on repeat
I'll can tell you, as the teacher writing on and teaching from an overhead projector, that thing gave off massive amounts of heat! I pitied the kid sitting behind it.
I remember when those were called "hard disks" and floppy disks were larger and literally floppy.
Maybe, but Ford has had a spontaneous combustion issue WAY before Tesla. Think it started with the Windstar
“I have little feet because nothing grows in the shade.” - Dolly Parton Don’t you just love her. And here’s a cheesy joke. Q. How can you spot Dolly's children in a crowd? A. They're the ones with stretch marks round their mouths.
Yeah we had some, bloody horrific seeing them again. Somethings you don't need reminding of
Is this American? I think the UK equivalent is chip paper and those foam ceiling tiles!
"UUUUUUPPPPP next it's COUPLE'S skate!!! Grab your sweetheart and head to the floor!!!!" ::: Every middle schooler::::: immediately skates to the exit
OMFG! I got this toy and I loved it I was convinced that I was going to be a fashion designer. I'm not.
By the time I was a kid we were playing Cruisin' USA. We earned those book-it pizzas.
Lol it's true. There was a point where everything had to be see-through so we can see the workings inside. Phones, toys, etc.
These still exist in some places in the UK. Many national trust places and the like still have them
Yes definitely. We go to lots of these. Lowther Castle has a great one.
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Oh shiiiiiiii a Kidtopia Park?! I once climbed one of those spires. Had some random adult screaming at me for it, so I got down. 🤣 I didn't want to get my new random "friend" in trouble with their mom. Oh my mom? Yeah, she wasn't there. She dropped me and my sister's off at like, 11am. She'd be back around 3. She finally showed up around 4. Great day, honestly.
My mom is an artist and our wooden playground had murals she painted all over it. The coolest one was Medusa hiding inside a castle. It was sad when they had to tear it down.
There is a whole story behind the company that designed and helped build them- how they developed the fundraising process, how they got communities involved in them. I read an in-depth article about it that would be fascinating to any 80s kid; I believe there was a documentary in the works about it. I will try to find some helpful links for my fellow 80s kids and edit to add them if I can
My elementary school had a mini one of these. Many a battle were fought over the highest spot
Ours had slides on different levels, and there were several broken bones from us trying to walk down the top of the enclosed slides. At least they put down wood chips, because falling flat on sand was enough to knock the air out of you... wood chips at least gave a little bit of a cushion. We also had the big long monkey bars, and Americam Gladiators had just started, so lots of gladiator fights happened there.
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There was one at the local park when my son was little. It was half castle, half pirate ship. It was f*cking awesome!
Is this Martha rivers park? Or are we in a simulation where all castle playgrounds are the same.
My school never had anything like this just asphalt under steel monkey bars and a steel slide.
There's still one near my son's place. We spent probably three entire summers there...
I remember the pirate ship the 60 ft slide and the used tire pyramid
still i am 13 and i know of these, i went on my 6th birthday to one in a batgirl outfit and met a guy my age wearing a batman outfit, friends forever!.......................until i had to go
Is that the Indian Boundry playground? I helped build one in the late '80s. I worked the 5 days it took to build the playground at Indian Boundry. Whole families worked together and when the opening speeches were finished and the ribbon cut, we all climbed over the finished playground. A true neighborhood project in West Rogers Park, Chicago.
We had a small one at the park at the end of our block. They took it down after homeless guys starting using it as a toilet.
We had a large asphalt surface butted up along a larger, empty area of hardpacked dirt surrounded by chain link fencing. My primary school got their playground design from a prison yard I guess.
Nope, never used that. Mom didnt even like me using the swing that Dad built in the back garden because if you went up high enough, the supports would lift partially out of the ground from momentum. Never collapsed on me though.
Splinters! I removed so many splinters from my kids knees, hands, butt. They loved these playgrounds.
My kids loved one of those that was in Alamogordo, NM. They both cried when it burned up one night.
These are still around. There's one in my town. We never go play on it because it's where all the highschool kids go to do things, but it's still there.
Moved to a new town and found one of these playgrounds fully functional lol I took my kids every chance I had so I could play too!!!
I’m 17 and I still love playgrounds! I WANNA KNOW WHERE THIS IS! I WANNA LIVE HERE!
I'm thirteen and I think these are way better than the ones we have now.
We had one built at my Sturbridge, MA elementary school that we designed in a brain-storming session followed by a school vote. We spent months collecting "Pennies from Heaven" in empty milk cartons to do our part, as we kids were challenged to gather enough pennies to cover the gym floor to "pay" for the playground. I'm sure that there had been additional grants, donations, etc. to cover the cost, but my 9-year-old self totally bought into the "mission" and puffed with pride in our accomplishment. Once the ceremony marking the end of fundraising (I e., making a big show of spreading out pennies over the gym floor) was finished, I was able to join the local civic groups in hammering nails and spreading sand there between my school hours over the course of two weeks, allowing me to feel like my young self had been a part of designing, paying for and building something magical that would be there for many years to come. This is one of my very favorite memories.
Spiders, splinters, and the world's entire population of yellow jackets. There is still one in existence in Tomah, Wisconsin...it was swarming with yellow jackets
There was still one nearby -- and in darned good shape -- to me up until about 3 years ago. It was "The Castle" and so much fun. The plastic behemoth in it's place will never achieve such status.
I think that specific one is somewhere in North Carolina maybe? I think I've been there
my old school had 2 of em, got taken down as they were 2 stories or so tall and kids could fall off em
I miss it so, it was the best part of going to my one family reunion I was 18-19 the year we got there and it was gone, I was so sad, it was huge and always had fun running through it and climbing up into top part of tower
These are still around. The elementary school in Chestnut Hill (a neighborhood in Philadelphia) has an awesome one.
Ahhh the injuries from these houses of pain and fun. And we kept on going after brushing off the dirt not giving the scrape, bruise, or whatever a second thought.
The Super market close to town still has one of these!! And pretty much health and safety is the parent or group of parents who arrived together yelling their kids names every time an accident had or will happen. Nothing says parenthood quite like having a mums a**e hanging out of a wooden hut blocking the queue for the slide whilst trying to convince their child the floor is not real lava, it's just a game and it's safe to go down - no prizes for guessing what I was doing earlier today! 😂
I worked one long day in our community to build one of these back in 1990! Hit myself in the head really hard on one of the bridges that day because it was THISCLOSE to being my exact height. It wasn’t. I took my two daughters to play here for 10 years until we moved to a different town.
Blisters, splinters, burned legs, and bruises; these things were daily occurrences if you had one of these with a metal slide in your local park/playground. We were lucky that our playground kept the wasps out of it.
Never seen anything like it. Was this a popular thing in cities or something?
They just replaced the one I grew up on with plastic, I feel old and sad
I remember the day they replaced the blackboards in my school with whiteboards (2001)
A lot of my pants cut off around the ankles because I have long legs. I still rock these bad boys.
Note: this post originally had 102 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
I don't even care that I commented on almost every post. This was the best compilation I've ever seen on BP. I was borne in 80 and my brother in 81. We were 11 months apart. He died in 2020... I relived so many memories with him; things I haven't thought about in decades... This made my day 🥹 I miss you, man. ♥️
I agree this is the best one, took me waaaaay back. Sorry about your brother 😞
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Like always, many of these still exist, or were at least still around in the 2000s. Still enjoy reminiscing but linking them to a single generation (or this case a decade) is not factual.
And like always, many of these existed long before the 80s.
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Usually I don't like these kinds of posts; they end up being so "We're cooler than millennials" type things. But this one celebrated the sheer insanity of age without criticizing (much, anyway). Mainly I just enjoyed being feral and wearing my jelly shoes. I wouldn't go back, though.
I'm a 90s kid, there were loads of upsides, but I don't miss being called 'Gay' as an insult and I don't miss the bullying and general awful treatment of women by the media
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I’m a boomer and this was so much fun to go through. Some of this was also from my childhood. All of these are so great to remember. Smiled through the whole thing. Thanks BO. Best one in a long time.
Agreed. Why the concept was there, it took hold in the US and UK particularly and.... yeeesh. What a ....
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I wish I was born earlier y’all!!! No offense or hate to my generation, but I feel like an old soul. I loved seeing you guys talk about the good times in the old days I had no part in 😭😅 and talking about some stuff I didn’t know about… y’all probably sounded as crazy as my generation’s slang heheh
Stop acting like there's any decade that wasn't a sh*t show. Please. Warm fuzzy nostalgia for Grandma's cookies, fine. For any given decade or era as if it wasn't horrible in its own ways, no.
This generational argument over who had it best is so exhausting. Everyone's experience is relative. What I don't get is that so many adults actually have no idea who today's kids are outside of social media. They're smarter and more aware of global issues than we ever were. And our generations mucked it up for them too. We created those cell phones. We created that demon you call technology. Kids today are only living the life we planned for them.
Yes! to all my fellow GenXers... we are the most amazing generation and this post proves it!
They are missing the View Master and there miniature versions of the View Master that was the size of two flash drives which I can not remember the name of. Does anyone know?
considering I was born in '95, I can still relate to quite a lot of these hehe x3
Went to so many good concerts as a teen in the 80’s. Once I had tickets to see my fav band (besides Duran Duran -saw them in 1984 Maple Leaf Gardens - first concert ever), Platinum Blonde as part of the Kingswood $5 concert series at Canada’s Wonderland. Met Chris Steffler and Sergio Galli waiting in line at the broken down MineBuster roller coaster ride and talked to them for half an hour & they signed my tickets. Later in the 90’s would hang out with Kenny MacLean doing gigs in Toronto bars as my sister dated his keyboard player. He asked if I wanted to meet my former teen crush, the gorgeous Mark Holmes who was playing pool nearby but I croaked No because my sis had embarrassed my sensitive 22 year-old self by saying to everyone at the table how I was part of their fan club and drew pictures of him. So dumb. Who cares now? I should have said yes and I think he heard me and looked a little disappointed. Sorry Mark! Kenny was a great guy.
*inhales, it's time to be that kid* AcTuLlY aside from the technology and general safety, kids today can relate to most of these! Just because you grew up in a different time period does not mean that you miss out on the simple joys of childhood.
Me being born in 2004 and relating to most of these... This was a great list. I am obsessed with all things 80s, so much so that I want a Macintosh from '84.
So many of these were around way before and way after the 80s. A lot of this list is true for 2000s kids too. Y’all act like y’all are tougher or superior because y’all didn’t have modern tech. Calm down.
I’m a young GenXer (‘79) and I’ll say this: Nostalgia is a dangerous thing. It’s okay to look back and have fond memories but we shouldn’t think ourselves superior simply because our childhood was different. There are things we’ve lost but also those we’ve gained and that’s okay. Onward and upward.
Kids thee days will never know the true meaning of carefree play.
I don't even care that I commented on almost every post. This was the best compilation I've ever seen on BP. I was borne in 80 and my brother in 81. We were 11 months apart. He died in 2020... I relived so many memories with him; things I haven't thought about in decades... This made my day 🥹 I miss you, man. ♥️
I agree this is the best one, took me waaaaay back. Sorry about your brother 😞
Load More Replies... Like always, many of these still exist, or were at least still around in the 2000s. Still enjoy reminiscing but linking them to a single generation (or this case a decade) is not factual.
And like always, many of these existed long before the 80s.
Load More Replies... Usually I don't like these kinds of posts; they end up being so "We're cooler than millennials" type things. But this one celebrated the sheer insanity of age without criticizing (much, anyway). Mainly I just enjoyed being feral and wearing my jelly shoes. I wouldn't go back, though.
I'm a 90s kid, there were loads of upsides, but I don't miss being called 'Gay' as an insult and I don't miss the bullying and general awful treatment of women by the media
Load More Replies... I’m a boomer and this was so much fun to go through. Some of this was also from my childhood. All of these are so great to remember. Smiled through the whole thing. Thanks BO. Best one in a long time.
Agreed. Why the concept was there, it took hold in the US and UK particularly and.... yeeesh. What a ....
Load More Replies... I wish I was born earlier y’all!!! No offense or hate to my generation, but I feel like an old soul. I loved seeing you guys talk about the good times in the old days I had no part in 😭😅 and talking about some stuff I didn’t know about… y’all probably sounded as crazy as my generation’s slang heheh
Stop acting like there's any decade that wasn't a sh*t show. Please. Warm fuzzy nostalgia for Grandma's cookies, fine. For any given decade or era as if it wasn't horrible in its own ways, no.
This generational argument over who had it best is so exhausting. Everyone's experience is relative. What I don't get is that so many adults actually have no idea who today's kids are outside of social media. They're smarter and more aware of global issues than we ever were. And our generations mucked it up for them too. We created those cell phones. We created that demon you call technology. Kids today are only living the life we planned for them.
Yes! to all my fellow GenXers... we are the most amazing generation and this post proves it!
They are missing the View Master and there miniature versions of the View Master that was the size of two flash drives which I can not remember the name of. Does anyone know?
considering I was born in '95, I can still relate to quite a lot of these hehe x3
Went to so many good concerts as a teen in the 80’s. Once I had tickets to see my fav band (besides Duran Duran -saw them in 1984 Maple Leaf Gardens - first concert ever), Platinum Blonde as part of the Kingswood $5 concert series at Canada’s Wonderland. Met Chris Steffler and Sergio Galli waiting in line at the broken down MineBuster roller coaster ride and talked to them for half an hour & they signed my tickets. Later in the 90’s would hang out with Kenny MacLean doing gigs in Toronto bars as my sister dated his keyboard player. He asked if I wanted to meet my former teen crush, the gorgeous Mark Holmes who was playing pool nearby but I croaked No because my sis had embarrassed my sensitive 22 year-old self by saying to everyone at the table how I was part of their fan club and drew pictures of him. So dumb. Who cares now? I should have said yes and I think he heard me and looked a little disappointed. Sorry Mark! Kenny was a great guy.
*inhales, it's time to be that kid* AcTuLlY aside from the technology and general safety, kids today can relate to most of these! Just because you grew up in a different time period does not mean that you miss out on the simple joys of childhood.
Me being born in 2004 and relating to most of these... This was a great list. I am obsessed with all things 80s, so much so that I want a Macintosh from '84.
So many of these were around way before and way after the 80s. A lot of this list is true for 2000s kids too. Y’all act like y’all are tougher or superior because y’all didn’t have modern tech. Calm down.
I’m a young GenXer (‘79) and I’ll say this: Nostalgia is a dangerous thing. It’s okay to look back and have fond memories but we shouldn’t think ourselves superior simply because our childhood was different. There are things we’ve lost but also those we’ve gained and that’s okay. Onward and upward.
Kids thee days will never know the true meaning of carefree play.
