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Life in the 80s and 90s your thoughts?

So basically I am doing a research for life in the 80s and 90s in the UK ,can you tell me what life in the uk then what social media would be like if it existed.thanks in advance.

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It was like life now, only with far less losers.
Depends where you were.

A working class town would be totally different to a rich area.

Thatcher decimated many places which is why she was so despised.
Reply 3
Original post by King Kebab
Depends where you were.

A working class town would be totally different to a rich area.

Thatcher decimated many places which is why she was so despised.


I live in bolton , the miners got put down
Reply 4
Original post by ifmtg
So basically I am doing a research for life in the 80s and 90s in the UK ,can you tell me what life in the uk then what social media would be like if it existed.thanks in advance.


There was no such thing as social media - all media were essentially one-way.

The 80s were a bit grim. Fashion sucked. Popular music was the last dregs of punk, the birth of New Romantics, Hip Hop started. Madonna was super big. Abba were kind of around. Duran Duran were huge.

Tom Cruise started out his movie career as the all-American-boy-but-can-he-grow-up?

The Sony Walkman made its first appearance, so young people did go around with headphones on. The early walkman had no rewind button due to the complexity of the gearing, so it only had fast-forward. You had to turn the tape over to "rewind". Most teenagers still listened to records or the radio - Capital if you were in London, Radio 1 elsewhere.

16 year olds took CSEs or O levels. O levels were in some cases tougher than A levels are now, but the upside was that there was no stigma attached to failure. Almost everyone failed some of their O levels.

A levels were the gateway to university. Offers were lower and very few people went. Not only were there no fees, but you got given a grant which you didn't have to pay back.

There were both universities and polytechnics, which were applied to separately as UCCA and PCAS on handwritten forms.

In those days, the Taliban were our friends, and the big bad wolf was the Soviet Union. Had TSR existed then, the staple of most debates would have been communism and how great/awful it is. We lived in (steadily reducing) fear that the Russians would try and invade or start nuclear war at any time.

Beer wsa 50p a pint.


The 90s were tacky and garish.

Fashion was loud and crap. Boy Bands became huge - New Kids, Backstreet Boys, Take That. CDs took over. MTV and multiple TV channels became prevalant for many people. The internet started, but was essentially a few bulletin boards about computers or fishing, and a few thousand jpegs of dinosaurs.

There wasn't widespread availability of mobile phones until around 1995-6, and even then they were rubbish.

I remember a club in Central London called "Casper's" that had tables with numbers on it and phones plugged in at each table. You could phone other tables anonymously and chat. It was like very rudimentary Chatroulette.

GCSEs came in at school, which were initally very uneven. Some boards weren't that much different from O level, others were absurdly easy. Within a couple of years, it flattened out to the low standard we have today.

A levels continued to be the gateway to university (Polys disappeared in 1992) despite some terrible attempts to change this, with tens of thousands of students being told that GNVQ was the future.

Offers for most universities for most subjects were around BCC, certainly you could read Medicine with a BBB. At the end of the 90s, grants ended and loans started.
Reply 5
Original post by Clip
There was no such thing as social media - all media were essentially one-way.

The 80s were a bit grim. Fashion sucked. Popular music was the last dregs of punk, the birth of New Romantics, Hip Hop started. Madonna was super big. Abba were kind of around. Duran Duran were huge.

Tom Cruise started out his movie career as the all-American-boy-but-can-he-grow-up?

The Sony Walkman made its first appearance, so young people did go around with headphones on. The early walkman had no rewind button due to the complexity of the gearing, so it only had fast-forward. You had to turn the tape over to "rewind". Most teenagers still listened to records or the radio - Capital if you were in London, Radio 1 elsewhere.

16 year olds took CSEs or O levels. O levels were in some cases tougher than A levels are now, but the upside was that there was no stigma attached to failure. Almost everyone failed some of their O levels.

A levels were the gateway to university. Offers were lower and very few people went. Not only were there no fees, but you got given a grant which you didn't have to pay back.

There were both universities and polytechnics, which were applied to separately as UCCA and PCAS on handwritten forms.

In those days, the Taliban were our friends, and the big bad wolf was the Soviet Union. Had TSR existed then, the staple of most debates would have been communism and how great/awful it is. We lived in (steadily reducing) fear that the Russians would try and invade or start nuclear war at any time.

Beer wsa 50p a pint.


The 90s were tacky and garish.

Fashion was loud and crap. Boy Bands became huge - New Kids, Backstreet Boys, Take That. CDs took over. MTV and multiple TV channels became prevalant for many people. The internet started, but was essentially a few bulletin boards about computers or fishing, and a few thousand jpegs of dinosaurs.

There wasn't widespread availability of mobile phones until around 1995-6, and even then they were rubbish.

I remember a club in Central London called "Casper's" that had tables with numbers on it and phones plugged in at each table. You could phone other tables anonymously and chat. It was like very rudimentary Chatroulette.

GCSEs came in at school, which were initally very uneven. Some boards weren't that much different from O level, others were absurdly easy. Within a couple of years, it flattened out to the low standard we have today.

A levels continued to be the gateway to university (Polys disappeared in 1992) despite some terrible attempts to change this, with tens of thousands of students being told that GNVQ was the future.

Offers for most universities for most subjects were around BCC, certainly you could read Medicine with a BBB. At the end of the 90s, grants ended and loans started.

Thank you for this valuable information, how old were you in 1980 if you don't mind
So it cannot be from anywhere other than UK?


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Reply 7
Original post by ifmtg
Thank you for this valuable information, how old were you in 1980 if you don't mind


Six.
Growing up in the 90s was, I now realise, marvellous. I used to go out with friends, having to be home as soon as the street lights started to turn on. We played all the time, outside, football, at the park, running around.. whereas now it seems as though all children do is play games online and sit at their computers or televisions. I never, ever see children playing outside where I live anymore, and when I was growing up the streets were always full of us! It was such a lovely atmosphere, but I suppose you don't know what you've got until it's gone.

As far as social networking goes, it was non-existent. My age group got our first email address made for us by our school in 2001, and until probably about 2004 when MySpace was used, that was absolutely it, and hardly used anyway.
Hip Hop started in the 70's but good post.
Reply 10
Original post by xoxAngel_Kxox
Growing up in the 90s was, I now realise, marvellous. I used to go out with friends, having to be home as soon as the street lights started to turn on. We played all the time, outside, football, at the park, running around.. whereas now it seems as though all children do is play games online and sit at their computers or televisions. I never, ever see children playing outside where I live anymore, and when I was growing up the streets were always full of us! It was such a lovely atmosphere, but I suppose you don't know what you've got until it's gone.

As far as social networking goes, it was non-existent. My age group got our first email address made for us by our school in 2001, and until probably about 2004 when MySpace was used, that was absolutely it, and hardly used anyway.


Hi thank you for replying how old are you right now just want to put down on my survey
Reply 11
Original post by Wilfred Little
Hip Hop started in the 70's but good post.


Not as popular culture. The number of people who pretended that they had been into it for years was amazing - they all made out they were big fans of Grandmaster Flash and The Sugar Hill Gang - but in reality weren't interested until Salt n Pepa and the Beastie Boys turned up.

No different to now. Everyone's a retrospective fan.
Reply 12
Original post by Wilfred Little
Hip Hop started in the 70's but good post.


The good old days
Original post by cole-slaw
It was like life now, only with far less losers.


Lol, define loser


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Reply 14
Arguably, it was much worse for losers then. Once you were a loser - that was it.

With no tech or social media, your typical TSRian of today (social anxiety, alleged health issues, introverted, asexual) would have absolutely no one to talk to unless they could find someone else at their school.
Reply 15
Original post by Yeah dude
Lol, define loser


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Someone who lacks basic
Original post by Clip
Arguably, it was much worse for losers then. Once you were a loser - that was it.

With no tech or social media, your typical TSRian of today (social anxiety, alleged health issues, introverted, asexual) would have absolutely no one to talk to unless they could find someone else at their school.


Nobody is a loser, and I say that being an extrovert


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Reply 17
Original post by Clip
Six.


How old are you now
Reply 18
Original post by Clip
Arguably, it was much worse for losers then. Once you were a loser - that was it.

With no tech or social media, your typical TSRian of today (social anxiety, alleged health issues, introverted, asexual) would have absolutely no one to talk to unless they could find someone else at their school.

I have no idea what you just said
Original post by ifmtg
Someone who lacks basic


I thought a loser would be someone who lost a lot of competitions


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