Arin Thompson
Daily Egyptian
I took a brief trip to Memphis last semester, and while I was drunkenly meandering down Beale Street, talking into my tape recorder, I came upon a club. It was an 80's style dance bar with something resembling a huge Pac-Man head eating a rather large, florescent "80s."
"Did Pac-Man eat the '80s or did the '80s commit suicide?" I mumbled into the tape recorder.
No one will ever know. Perhaps Reagan had something to do with it, or maybe it was just the fact that nobody knew how to dress with any sense. At any rate, they did die but have been painfully resurrected at Hot Topic stores across the nation.
I myself went through a sort of '80s denial for a brief stint in the late 90's. I disowned the beautiful years that made me who I am today. I just couldn't admit out loud that I really love the '80s. I didn't want to be shunned.
Low and behold, the '80s pop back up as a new, hot fashion trend, and kids who never even had the chance to sit down on Saturday mornings with a bowl of Kix, watching G.I. Joe and My Little Pony, are donning T-shirts and Care Bear shoe laces. You know it's coming - I got upset, like most things do to me these days.
At any rate, all the searching I'd been doing on eBay turned defunct. All that money I spent trying to buy back those precious years of my childhood was in vain when reproduced '80s memories turned up on the shelves.
I couldn't stop thinking about how this must anger me the same way new-aged hippies must tick off my parents. Like they know anything about rebellion and what a peace sit-in actually stands for. It's all about looking cool anyway, right? I was awe-struck when I helped my mom teach her art class at the tail end of the spring. There was a little girl wearing a shirt that said "Punk Rock Rebel."
"So, ah, you like punk, huh?" I asked, trying to strike up a conversation.
"No, my mom just got me this because it's in," she said in a sort of snide little voice.
Well that's horse hockey, I thought. It was complete with little silk-screened British flag pins from the Sex Pistols era. It seems to me that the world is in a lax of about 10 to 30 years. Bellbottoms were really popular in the '90s, and now the '80s have come back in full force.
But I wonder why the true '80s trends aren't coming back. It's cool to wear a "Goonies" shirt, Ninja Turtles patch on the book bag and slap a Transformers sticker on the car, but why isn't anyone sporting neon socks or spandex bike shorts or tying their shirt at the corner? Those were the real landmark '80s clothing trends, and yet we ignore them. Those are the styles I want to see!
I want to see hot guys wearing Zubaz pants - you know, those Joey Buttafucco, child-molester parachute pants. I want to see girls ratting their hair. I want to see jazzercise socks. I want to see scrunchies! If these avant-garde fashion victims really had any balls, those are the styles we'd be seeing in all the magazines. We'd be seeing white sport coats with carnation pink t-shirts underneath; we'd be seeing checkered pattern clothing and Vans deck shoes.
While the '80s carry with them a bleak perception, I have to say that I miss them terribly, and every time The Cars come on the radio, I get a little teary-eyed. The fact is, we don't need to strive so hard to get them back. The '80s hold a tender place in the hearts of us all - whether we like it or not.
Arin Thompson can be reached at athompson@dailyegyptian.com.
Published on 11/17/05; 12:24:44 PM
