🎲 80s Memories

A collection of memories from the greatest decade.

• When your cassette player ate your favourite tape.
• Waiting all week for your favourite TV show because there was no streaming.
• Recording songs from the radio and trying not to catch the DJ talking.
• Renting five VHS films on a Friday night.
• Blowing into a NES cartridge because everyone thought it fixed it.
• Walking into an arcade with a pocket full of coins.
• Arguing over who got to be Player One.
• Using a pencil to rewind a cassette tape.
• Owning a Trapper Keeper that weighed more than your school books.
• Hearing the modem sound years later and instantly recognising it.
• Trying to beat your friend's high score on Pac-Man.
• Getting excited when the TV guide arrived in the newspaper.
• Buying a new issue of Smash Hits just for the song lyrics.
• Watching Saturday morning cartoons in your pyjamas.
• Spending hours making the perfect mixtape for someone.
• Having to walk up to the TV to physically turn the dial to change the channel.
• Putting stickers on your blank VHS tapes so you didn't accidentally record over them.
• Snapping off the tiny plastic tabs on a cassette tape so nobody could record over it.
• The distinct smell and heat coming off a CRT monitor after it had been on all day.
• Taking a photo and having to wait a whole week for the film to be developed at the chemist.
• Adjusting the TV aerial just right and telling someone not to move because the picture cleared up.
• The heavy 'clunk' sound of pushing a tape into a VCR or a car cassette deck.
• Trying to read a paper road map in the passenger seat while your parents argued about directions.
• Wearing a digital watch with a built-in calculator and feeling like a secret agent.
• Climbing into bed with a Sony Walkman clipped to your belt.
• Running to the bathroom during a commercial break so you wouldn't miss the show.
• Staying up late hoping to catch a glimpse of static-filled late-night cable.
• Studying the double-issue Christmas TV guide with a highlighter pen.
• Watching the TV test card before broadcasting started.
• Being genuinely terrified by the theme from The X-Files or Unsolved Mysteries.
• Renting a VHS movie and discovering the last person didn't rewind it.
• Rushing home from school to catch the latest MTV music video.
• Putting your coin on the arcade machine to reserve your next game.
• Accidentally getting your hair caught in roller skate wheels.
• Mastering the trick to get slime back into its tiny plastic bin.
• Untangling a rainbow Slinky after it became hopelessly knotted.
• Trading Garbage Pail Kids cards at school.
• Owning a Rubik's Cube you 'solved' by swapping the stickers.
• The clacking sound of Clackers filling the playground.
• Putting fresh AA batteries into your Game Boy.
• Memorising all your friends' phone numbers.
• Calling a friend's house and speaking to their parents first.
• Stretching the curly phone cord halfway across the house.
• Passing folded notes around the classroom.
• Slapping a slap bracelet onto your wrist.
• The smell of freshly printed mimeograph worksheets.
• Ironing band transfers onto a denim jacket.
• Wearing two pairs of slouch socks together.