I hate the 80's.

I know a few people who are absolutely enamored with this decade, my mother shamelessly being among them. I also know a few people who have such a seething hatred for the era that they count their blessings every night to not have been born during the Reagan administration. So where do I fall? I lean towards the seething hatred, to be honest.

When I was about 12, I was wrapped up in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and being the impressionable bugger I was, I absolutely loved it. Outside of the great, Scarface-esque story and the endlessly replayable gameplay, I was amazed with Rockstar's ability to send the player back in time to the 80's. Barring the aforementioned elements, what I also loved about Vice City was the atmosphere. I was so into it that I bought the official soundtrack to the game, so I could be washed away in the sounds of the 80's.

And then I grew up a bit, and realized that the 80's fucking sucked.

I'm not just talking about music and movies. I could go on for days about glam rock and John Hughes, which I will later, but outside of that, look at the decade as a whole. Recession, the explosion of AIDS, the introduction of crack cocaine, and all those fucking neon lights. And while we had a bit of prosperity while Reagan was in office, Reaganomics would ultimately skyrocket the public debt. Not to mention he nearly risked all-out nuclear war with the Soviet union by forgoing detente and outright confronted Gorbachev. I mean, good for you, ending the Cold War, but you could've done the same thing using Nixon's strategy.

I'm glad you had a good time snorting coke and having unprotected sex, but come on. How could anyone think that this was even moderately enjoyable? Even the culture sucked, for God's sake, people were wearing leisure suits like Tubbs and Crocket:



And somehow, the people of the 80's were too in love with all this bullshit to not notice their president selling weapons to Contras in Iran. Brilliant!

The 80's were also responsible for jumpstarting Tom Cruise's career. I'll admit that Top Gun,Risky Business and, to a lesser extent, Cocktail(>_>) were fun to watch. I will concede that the 80's weren't a bad decade for film, outside of the cavalcade of Jason movies, which, while awful, were fun to poke fun at. But I do love me some National Lampoon's Vacation.

Music of the 80's:



Enough said, I think.

PS. Very few bands escaped the 80's ability to turn good music into crap with a bunch of synthesizers in it.

PPS. At least this wasn't too bad

PPPS. This was probably extremely rambly and didn't make much sense. But that's ok.