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Like I Was Saying

The Analog ’80s

Pandemic-weary Gen Z’ers have gravitated toward what many of them view as a simpler more upbeat era

By Kellyn Brown

The theme for this year’s Whitefish Winter Carnival is “80’s Rewind: Totally Rad,” which is appropriate because just about everything popular in the ‘80s is making a comeback. And I do mean everything. Even smoking. 

That’s right. Smoking, which is still the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 

“We’re having a very sexy and ethereal 1980s revival, and smoking is part of that,” a 25-year-old smoker recently told the New York Times. “A lot of people I know are posting pictures doing it. I’m doing it. It’s having its moment for sure.”

Cigarette sales increased in 2020 for the first time in decades. Because of TikTok?

As a child of the ‘80s I remember that time in my life being decidedly uncool. All I have to do is shuffle through my elementary school class portraits to be reminded of that. There I was with my pegged pants and fluorescent pink turtleneck. But the worst part was my hair, which my mother would slick straight back except for a few bangs before sending me off to the bus stop.   

I once asked her if she realized that the hairstyle and accompanying outfits made her already awkward child appear even more awkward. She insisted that everyone looked like that during the decade of decadence. And there is evidence of that in pictures of my older brother, who at the time used an equal amount of product in his A Flock of Seagulls hairdo. 

The outlandishness of the ‘80s look is why I never thought it would return. Bright colors and strange patterns. Big hair and heavy makeup. These details were rightfully left to the dustbin of history only to be mocked in retro movies and by children flipping through their parents’ yearbooks.    

And I should caution those who are only now embracing the style of that decade. You will almost certainly look back at yourself and wonder what happened. You may ask your parents why you were allowed to leave the house looking the way you did. With that said, this comeback seems to only be accelerating.

Shoes that were popular then are popular now. So are the oversized sweatshirts and cropped jeans. That’s fine, I guess, but do blazers with shoulder pads need to have another moment? What about fanny packs and jean jackets?

Pandemic-weary Gen Z’ers have gravitated toward what many of them view as a simpler more upbeat era defined by hanging out at shopping malls and watching MTV. A time markedly missing something. 

“It was kind of like the last decade before social media, cell phones … internet,” a 19-year-old girl told the website Jezebel. “Obviously it’s easy to romanticize something that you never experienced. But it sounds nice, in theory, the way people interacted.”

And, in theory, our analog lives were nice, but we’re best to forget much of the rest. Like smoking, which could kill you and was still allowed on airplanes in the United States in the ‘80s. We also spent the decade mainlining Kool-Aid and eating mounds of processed junk food. Don’t do that either.