80s sitcoms taught us everything our parents didn’t have time to
80s sitcoms weren’t just funny. For a latchkey generation they were the backup parents: the very special episode, the rich stranger, and a laugh in a padlocked box.
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80s food: the cook was nine, and nobody was home
80s food wasn’t just the snack aisle. A lot of it was made by a nine-year-old alone in the kitchen with a toaster, a new microwave, and a note on the counter.
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80s trivia was a sport. The ref was whoever owned the encyclopedia.
80s trivia from the people who were there: the board game that ate 1984, the fake fact that went to court, and a quiz round with no movie questions.
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80s video games: the strategy guide was a kid on the bus
Every 80s video games list is a ranking, and nobody ranked them at the time. The real strategy guide was a kid on the bus, a graph-paper map, and a password you copied wrong.
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90s board games: the toy aisle started talking, and we were already too old
90s board games had two booms: the talking toy-aisle games and the grown-up party and hobby game. Gen X was too old for one and right on time for the other.
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90s christmas movies were about the grown-ups blowing it
The decade’s holiday canon ran one plot: the adults drop the ball and the kid handles it. Gen X knew that story already.
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90s nostalgia is a product now, and we’re not the customer
90s nostalgia is a category now, and the numbers say Gen X isn’t even its biggest market. What the decade loses when it gets packaged.
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Retro Halloween costumes: we were the last ones in the plastic smock
The internet’s idea of retro Halloween costumes stops in 1960. The boxed smock-and-mask kind is the one with witnesses.
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Gen X memes: we were doing this on a photocopier
A meme is a setup with the setup removed. Which is why Gen X memes land the way they do — and why the ones that explain themselves never do.
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Ditto machine day: the purple paper we all inhaled
The ditto machine ran every school day before the photocopier won. Why the paper was purple, why it smelled, and why you don’t own a single one.
