Why Did the '80s Look Like One Long, Scary PCP Trip?

The '70s weren't like that.  The '90s bore no such resemblance to a dissociative-induced fever dream.  So what the hell was going on in the 1980s that made the directors of music videos, commercials, TV shows, movies, runway fashion shows & other popular culture media choose such disjointed, bizarre and downright CREEPY lewks?  

Oh god make it stop.  

And before you say "cocaine/drugs," keep in mind that the late '60s/70s were some of the most psychedelic, mind-bending years in U.S. history, with everything from weed and psychedelics to STRONG pills containing both uppers and downers like Dexamyl & Ambar (Meth + Phenobarbital) & now-obsolete sleep drugs like Placidyl and Quaaludes flooding the market.  That's to say nothing of the pure flake cocaine, windowpane LSD, MDA, Afghani hash & Vietnamese heroin/opium the soldiers were getting hooked on.  If anything, the '80s represented a major pullback from the rebellious '60s and hedonistic '70s, with Ronald Reagan waging a "total war" (his words) on drugs along with his barbiturate-addicted wife who targeted school kids with her rhetoric.  Then AIDS hit and the whole swinging 'free love' thing was over.

So if it wasn't drugs or other social attitudes, what WAS it?  



My Secret Terror

I was born in the '80s and I remember being afraid of the '80s IN the '80s.  Music vids like "Wild Wild West" by Escape Club, with its hideous headless-chairs-with-arms theme (see pic above) made me so scared I demanded my mom turn off the TV in the hotel we were staying in.  Then there was Twisted Sister, whose very name--never mind their high-pitched screeching--sent chills down my spine.  When my (much older) sister would take me cruising at the ripe age of 4, I had only one rule:  no Twisted Sister please. 

We could've done without this.

And TV was no safer.  While most shows (with the exception of live-action Beauty & the Beast) were okay, those little snippets they'd show AFTERward would send my ass scurrying from the room like an autistic cockroach.  The one for UBU Productions stands out.  Most people find it endearing but not me.  Oh no.  That towering black dog with the frisbee in its mouth, completely frozen in space & time yet somehow managing to bark?  Yeah, not my definition of a "good dog." {Shudders}

Go back to Hell, Ubu. 

But that wasn't the worst of it.  Those creepy end-of-show production company card things got even creepier.  See:  The Bedford Falls Company one that came on after Thirtysomething, a show I don't even remember.  No, really.  Gun to the head:  I literally couldn't name a single actor or plotline from that show today, yet this 5-second blurb that followed each episode is forever etched into my brain, almost causing as much terror as those EBS tests with the "Eeeee-eeeee" sound.  See for yourself:

RUN!  It's coming on!

There were countless other '80s monstrosities that simply aged awfully due to either too much synthesizer, too much Jheri curl/mullet, neon overload, gaudy graphics or what have you.  Granted, '80s nostalgia is huge for those who came of age during that time, which is normal regardless of when you came up.  But if you're being objective, there's no denying this was one of the most hideous, garrish, unflattering decades of the 20th or 21st Centuries.  Case-in-point: shoulder pads.  Teased bangs soaked in Aquanet.  Rat tails.  Need I say more?

I call this "The Horrors Go On Forever."  It was EVERYWHERE in the '80s,  

Maybe it was just an awkward technological period where everyone thought this is what the future would look like (nervous lol) but then technology advanced so fast it made the '80s look ridiculous.  What was up with that one graphic with the checkerboard pattern that stretched on forever?  You know the one.  And Atari: that must've seemed like cutting edge tech in the early '80s along with games like Oregon Trail for early home computers.  Now they're the butt of jokes.  "You've died of dysentery."  💩

Is this like 1-bit graphics, or... ?

And I keep coming back to music:  In a matter of years we went from Punk Rock to New Wave to fucking HAIR METAL.  For people who hate all loud guitar music, those genres may all sound the same but I promise you, Punk and Hardcore at least had some artistic merit... a message beyond "Pour some sugar on me".  And then in the '90s we got Riot Grrrl & Grunge.  Sweet, sweet Grunge courtesy of bands like Alice in Chains & Nirvana.  But for a while there it was nothing but White Snake, Bon Jovi, Ratt & several others you've mercifully forgotten. 

Black culture was no better off:  Fashion devolved from the super cool afros and shades of the Black Panther Party; long free-form dreads a la Bob Marley & Blaxploitation-inspired looks to well, whatever tf this was called:

Behold:  The Toadstool(?)

Black music in the '70s was all "Hey Funkateers!  Let's go on a super-smooth spoken word trip with Gil Scott-Heron before singing along with the Jackson 5, then we'll hit up the Disco and dance all night to the sweet sounds of Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor & Sister Sledge" to "Get in the van, dammit.  We're gonna Party All the Time with Eddie Murphy & Rick James while watching in collective horror as Michael Jackson turns himself into a white woman."  🫥

Again, while you may have fond memories from this period, you can't argue with a straight face that it was fashionable or stood the test of time.  It was an awkward period, like that pubescent stage around 12-13 when your teeth don't quite fit in your mouth, your nose looks too big for your face and your hair's all scraggly.  AT BEST.  At worst it had an ominous, oppressive feel.  Political events like the Cold War/constant threat of nuclear annihilation, the economic lull that hit inner cities especially hard, the War on Drugs, AIDS, the crack epidemic, Iran-Contra, the Challenger explosion & Chernobyl ensured that a dark cloud of doom hung over the entire decade as wealth inequality grew more than ever before.  Wall Street gamblers got rich while high on cocaine flown in on military planes while poor Blacks were locked up for selling $5 crack rocks made from the same drug.  It was a bad time for the empire.

Maybe some of this goes toward explaining the, let's call it "avant-garde" aesthetic choices of the 1980s, but I'm still not fully convinced.  We don't even have a unifying name for this nightmare of which I speak.  In closing I'll leave you with a random video still from one of the most popular dance hits of the decade, New Order's "Blue Monday 88".  This upbeat tune was popular in clubs all over the world and had an infectious beat, so the inclusion of jump-scare graphics like the one below just doesn't make much sense.  It doesn't even fit in with the mood or theme of the song so why was it included?  Just to make weirdos like child-me scared AF?  

The horrors persist but so do I.

This doll & the masked creatures from Genesis' "Land of Confusion" can DIAF, respectfully.