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🎛️ The 1980s: Today's Retro Now™
- Retro Sonya
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 12 hours ago
Brought to You by Boomers, Shared by Xennials, Claimed by Gen X!
This is an expansion of the last blog I wrote called: "🎧 The Xennial Struggle Is Real! 🌇"✨ If you haven't yet read that, be sure to check that out!
First of all, before I begin pointing out the irony of the Analog Gatekeeper energy, once again, I would like to point out that not all Gen Xers have this attitude towards younger (or older) generations. Some of my favorite content creators are Gen Xers, and much of who inspired me to do 80s music, fashion, and hair were the ones who passed it down to me. Who were they? The Gen Xers! They are some of the best.
Aside from that, I will tell you some bad apples like to slip into the comment section every once in a while... You know those analog gatekeepers who try to exclude elder millennials from their early childhood, like it was some forgotten story erased off of a floppy disc that only members of GenX can possibly remember.
Ah, the 1980s. That glorious, synth-soaked, hairspray-choked, shoulder-pad-strutting decade of magic. A time when TVs weighed more than the people watching them, and your social network was a landline with a tangled cord.
But let’s talk about a strange little glitch in the timeline:🧐 The Analog Gatekeepers™.
You know the ones — mostly Gen Xers who insist the '80s belong to them and them alone. They patrol the timeline like trench coat-wearing time cops, ready to eject anyone who can’t recite the “Breakfast Club” monologue or didn't suffer the trauma of rewinding a VHS with a ballpoint pen. (Spoiler: That was a cassette, Todd.)
But here's the synth-soaked irony...
Gen X: “We made the 80s cool.” Boomers: “We made the 80s... period. Y’all just showed up with angst and fingerless gloves.
💡 The Boomers Built the '80s Like It Was a Mall!
Let’s break this down. Gen X didn’t invent the '80s. Nope.
You ever notice how some of these analog gatekeepers running '80s nostalgia pages act like it’s some kind of exclusive Gen X clubhouse?
((“If you weren’t a teenager in the ‘80s… you weren’t really there.”))
((“If you were born in the early ‘80s, you’re basically just a Millennial with a Rubik’s Cube.”)) 🙄
((You're not yet 50 years old. Sure you remember the 80s? Be honest.))
Dude. Really?
That's such a classic case of generational gatekeeping—like there's some secret handshake required to claim your slice of the decade. I remember Reagan-era cartoons, cassette tapes, and the first time neon went mainstream… but according to the analog gatekeepers, unless you were old enough to pay bills or a teen listening to Journey, your '80s card is up for review? I grew up listening to Journey!
If your memory kicks in around 1984, like mine did, you’ve still got a solid chunk of the decade under your belt. You felt the tailwind of the Cold War in your history classes, watched the Challenger disaster unfold on live TV, and maybe danced through your elementary school years to "Thriller" or played Duck Hunt on an actual tube TV. That’s not nothing—that’s a cultural imprint.
My version of the '80s may have been seen through the eyes of a child, but those formative years are powerful. Nostalgia doesn’t come with a minimum age requirement. I lived it, and I mean really lived it! My brain is a mixtape of those moments—and nobody gets to rewind or fast-forward through what I experienced.
Funny, they fan the flames between Boomers and Millennials like it’s an intergenerational turf war — meanwhile, they forget one little fact:
Gen X didn’t invent the ‘80s. They inherited it.
The music? Boomers made it. The toys, cartoons, tech, and fashion? Boomers designed them, and we all played with them. Even the teen heartthrobs they swoon over? Yeah, they were in their 20s — Boomers again.
So no, you don’t own the ‘80s. You just happened to hit puberty while it was happening. The rest of us were there too — we just had better snacks and fewer curfews.
It’s telling, really. The loudest gatekeepers are the ones clinging to the past like a frayed denim jacket……while the rest of us are out here rewinding the vibe without the ego trip.
Gen X: “We were the first to use synthesizers!” Boomers: “Sweetie, we invented the synthesizer while you were still trying to figure out which end of the joystick was up.”
Boomers were the ones literally working behind the scenes:
They designed the synthesizers, coded the arcade games, and built the Atari.
They animated the cartoons and voiced our beloved characters — yes, your He-Man was basically voiced by someone who probably voted for Reagan… twice.
They invented the hairstyles we now call “iconic” and were using Aqua Net on their real estate headshots before your teen rebellion started.
They created the classic rock scene.
So while Gen X was jamming out to “Sweet Dreams” in their bedrooms, Boomers were producing the album.
👶 And Then There Were Xennials… the Middle Kids of 80s History!
Enter the Xennials — the mixtape middle children. Born in the late '70s to early '80s, we were there too, Todd. Just because we were watching She-Ra while eating Teddy Grahams doesn’t mean we didn’t live it.
Gen X Analog gatekeepers be like: (("Only we grew up with real cartoons.")) Yeah, cartoons… drawn by Boomer animators, voiced by Boomer actors, and watched by us Elder Millennials in footie pajamas with cereal all over our face.
We remember the '80s vividly. And not just in retrospect or reruns. We wore the jelly shoes. We suffered the metal playgrounds.
We collected the Garbage Pail Kids and feared the Bermuda Triangle.
We were the toddlers getting zapped by static from shag carpeting, the kids fighting over who got to be Michelangelo on the NES. We watched our older cousins, aunts, and uncles (aka Gen X) hog the controller while Boomers walked by with a beer and said, "It’s just a phase."
📟 “We Had It First!” Okay But… Did You, Though?
Gen X says: ((“We had it first.”)) Okay, sure. But you didn’t invent it.
Funny how the analog gatekeepers love to say we, the elder Millennials, can’t wear 80s fashion or rock the hair — because we were “too young” or “don’t remember.” Apparently, we’re just Gen X wannabes in scrunchy socks and Aqua Net. 😏
Meanwhile… let’s rewind the tape a sec:
As teens, they were listening to bands sung by Boomers, wearing styles designed by Boomers, using Boomer-made tech, watching Boomer-produced cartoons, and playing with Boomer-invented toys…
And somehow we're the culture thieves? Please.
Newsflash: You didn’t “have it first,” Todd — you inherited it. Just like we did. You don’t need to gatekeep the '80s… it wasn’t a secret rave, it was mainstream culture. We shared it. We lived it. We still wear it, too.
Gen X: “We had it first!” Boomers: “We paid for it.” Xennials: “We finished it, reheated it, and had to clean up the mess.”
That’s like eating the first slice of pizza and acting like you baked the pie.
Boomers cooked it. Gen X grabbed it and ran. Xennials shared it with their little siblings, learned to microwave the leftovers, and memorized the Pizza Hut phone number by age 8.
You know you're a true Xennial when.... you remember who made the pizza, who stole it, and how to reheat it without burning your mouth — all while calling Pizza Hut without auto-dial.
Now, do you think saying “We had it first” is a valid argument? Especially about trauma, rotary phones, and asbestos tiles.
🎮 Real Talk: Who Really Lived the '80s?
The ironic part? My Gen X mom was the one taking me to get my girl mullet cut, dressed me in 80s iconic wear, and sharing her favorite music with me. Sometimes she even cut my hair in layers herself — full-on 80s feathering action with kitchen scissors and Aqua Net. 💇♀️💨
I wasn’t trying to cosplay the ’80s…I was living it, thanks to the same Gen Xers who now say I "wasn’t really there." Ma’am, you gave me this haircut. I rocked that girl mullet like it was going out of style — and spoiler alert: it was. But I made it look rad all the way into high school. 😎🔥
So when gatekeepers say I can’t rep the '80s, I just laugh. Because Gen X literally raised us in it.
And you know what? It wasn’t just my Gen X mom passing down her 80s style to me —it was her younger sisters too. The Gen X Auntie Dream Team™ passed everything down:
👖 Clothes
🎶 Mixtapes
💿 CDs
💇♀️ Hairstyles
🧸 Toys…and all that glorious 80s energy.
They weren’t gatekeeping — they were handing me the keys.
Straight-up inducting me into the neon cult with love, Aqua Net, and Madonna cassettes. 💜📼 So when some analog gatekeeper wants to say, ((“You can’t rep the '80s. You weren’t really there.”)) I just smile and think:
Dude, I was raised by the original VHS queens. The culture wasn’t locked behind a vault — it was handed to me on a glittery slap bracelet.
Let’s be honest. The '80s didn’t belong to one group. It was a vibe, a shared hallucination, a day-glo fever dream where generations collided over cassette tapes and Commodore 64s.
If you were alive, breathing, and somewhere between fetal development and filing taxes during the '80s—you lived it.
Saying you can’t enjoy '80s culture unless you were a teen in 1985 is like saying you can’t enjoy pizza unless you worked at Domino’s in the Reagan era.
And no, Brenda, you don’t need a gatekeeping passcode to enjoy "Miami Vice" aesthetics or quote “Back to the Future.” The flux capacitor welcomes us all.
✨ Final Thought From a Neon Heart
To the Analog Gatekeepers: Thanks for keeping the mixtapes warm and the arcades sticky. But maybe chill with the velvet rope.
((“We had it first!”)) Cool. And Elder Millennials had it with you.
Because the '80s? They weren’t just yours. They were Boomer-built, Xennial-approved, and Gen X-branded.
And guess what?
They're Retro Now™, and that makes them everybody’s.
Especially ours.
Stay neon,💾 Retro Sonya
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