I remember it so clearly, just like it was yesterday ..................... Who are you people and where am I?

I had accidental 80s hair as a teenager. (In the 80s, thankfully.) My best friend's mother opened her own salon when I was 13, and when she was getting ready to do her first perm, she asked me and my mother if she could try it out on me first. We both said okay, and I was all for it because I wanted curly hair. (Still do, but am resigned to not having it.)

For the first year after the perm, I looked like the bastard child of Little Orphan Annie and her dog. For a couple of years after that, it was 80s hair. I don't know how she managed it, but I had big hair for FOUR YEARS. I never had the patience for hairspray, mousse, or any other product; my hair got shampooed and brushed, and that was it. One of life's not-so-great mysteries, I guess.

The most obvious difference between malls then and malls now is, primarily, the fact that people weren't walking around texting with their heads down or talking on a phone, not paying any attention to anything around them... Being a bunch of self-absorbed, hyper-mediocre, slaves to their little devices that they think is making life easier, when in actuality, it desensitizes the entire human experience. Interaction is dead. Engaging strangers is obsolete... Everyone is a stranger, who isn't one of your 900 Facebook friends... Who are total strangers that you pray for, tell him their kids are beautiful...which keeps you from ever having to have any REAL human experience.

/Unless that is the evolution of humans, in our slow march toward self-desecration.

waxingpolemic: The most obvious difference between malls then and malls now is, primarily, the fact that people weren't walking around texting with their heads down or talking on a phone, not paying any attention to anything around them... Being a bunch of self-absorbed, hyper-mediocre, slaves to their little devices that they think is making life easier, when in actuality, it desensitizes the entire human experience. Interaction is dead. Engaging strangers is obsolete... Everyone is a stranger, who isn't one of your 900 Facebook friends... Who are total strangers that you pray for, tell him their kids are beautiful...which keeps you from ever having to have any REAL human experience.

/Unless that is the evolution of humans, in our slow march toward self-desecration.

You worry too much. Eventually the pendulum will swing back and the priority will be on friendly face-to-face contact, intimate relationships, and leaving the cellphones in the car. Right now its all new and shiny, but everything reverses eventually.

Look at them. They still had a country then.

martlet1: Rolled jeans. Tight on the ankles.




/awesome

Marine1: Did you ever play Chuck Yeager Air Combat? Was a pre-suck EA game.

Remember that one. You could take your F-4 and go against a flight of Me-109s...

/"Its the man, not the machine"

StokeyBob: Look at them. They still had a country then.

Yep... just before the Red Invasion of '84. Started at dawn, I think.

Marine1: Heck, I was still a year away from being born.

/Making you old farkers feel old.

I have lab equipment that's older than you.

/it says "made in West Germany" on it.
//the link gives me flashbacks to highschool.

waxingpolemic: I mean, 60 CLICKS CRASHES YOUR SITE???!!!! WTF?

The site's server is also 30 years old, for added authenticity

waxingpolemic: The most obvious difference between malls then and malls now is, primarily, the fact that people weren't walking around texting with their heads down or talking on a phone, not paying any attention to anything around them... Being a bunch of self-absorbed, hyper-mediocre, slaves to their little devices that they think is making life easier, when in actuality, it desensitizes the entire human experience. Interaction is dead. Engaging strangers is obsolete... Everyone is a stranger, who isn't one of your 900 Facebook friends... Who are total strangers that you pray for, tell him their kids are beautiful...which keeps you from ever having to have any REAL human experience.

/Unless that is the evolution of humans, in our slow march toward self-desecration.

And you know what killed it? Jackasses in trenchcoats and overprotective parents.

A male can't even help a lost child find the security desk in the mall without being accused of kidnapping.

Those pictures were taken last August at the Perimeter Mall in Atlanta.

Marine1: thatboyoverthere: Marine1: TheNyquilKid: Marine1: Heck, I was still a year away from being born.

/Making you old farkers feel old.

I'm only 25 and you just made me feel old. Jerk.

/Nothing makes me feel older than waking from a nap I didn't intend to take.

I feel old as it is, watching all of these damned kids with their "rap music" and iPods. I still listen to thrash metal on my Zune HD. I guess that counts towards being old........ right?

I guess it's a part of being an only child raised by smartass parents... you spend all of your time around sarcastic adults, so you become one earlier than originally scheduled. Probably explains my love for Fark as well.

/I can remember using a PC with Windows 3.11, in 1996. For someone born in 1991, that's old.

Hell I remember my dad setting me up with Doom at 5 when he had to take me into his work during the weekend. I remember that I won against two 14 year old on a deathmatch.... Those kids are now in there 30's by now.... I'm 19 and I feel old.

Did you ever play Chuck Yeager Air Combat? Was a pre-suck EA game.



Chuck Yeager's Air Combat is the game that got me into aviation. I tought myself to fly by playing flight sim after flight sim. The first time I actually took a discovery flight and took the controls, I already felt like I knew what I was doing.

Remember the ridiculous copy-protection? It would ask you an airplane performance question upon starting, which could be answered by consulting a reference on the backside of the manual.

Being Class of 87, I would put this at about 1989-90... We were peg legging our jeans that year and men, who weren't teh ghey, started wearing anklets and trying to look like surfers, with OP and Jimmy Z, being all the rage. This appears to be post-Chess King, parachute pants, members only jacket-era... The FIRST wave of "urbanizing" in fashion. Think MC Hammer meets Garth Brooks with some Lisa Bonet thrown in. IMHO.

/2 didn't load

waxingpolemic: Everyone is a stranger

I think you need some friends or something.

That is what all the malls out here looked like. Same tile work, same benches, same architecture. It's like malls were all made by the same pre-fab factory. Creepy.

This site is loading as if it was the internet circa 1990

anyone have a copy of BinHex so I can translate the ASCII into a .jpeg?

mrpants5587: Chuck Yeager's Air Combat is the game that got me into aviation. I tought myself to fly by playing flight sim after flight sim. The first time I actually took a discovery flight and took the controls, I already felt like I knew what I was doing.

Remember the ridiculous copy-protection? It would ask you an airplane performance question upon starting, which could be answered by consulting a reference on the backside of the manual.


Hell, I'd go back to that kind of copy protection in a heartbeart, rather than the "phone home to the authentication servers, even if you're playing offline" bullshiat that we have now.

I also miss the days where a game had to actually work before it would ship. Now, the obligatory first step with any new game I buy always seems to be "download the 100 MB patchfile to fix all the bugs we've already identified in this game that came out last week."

kiteless: That is what all the malls out here looked like. Same tile work, same benches, same architecture. It's like malls were all made by the same pre-fab factory. Creepy.

I was thinking the same thing. Except I don't see the ginormous indoor, tiled fountains. Did yours have those?

Sorry. Probably 1990... I was in Europe in 88-89, but this is definitely what the mall in every town I lived in looked like in 1990... But, SOME of them have a real early 80's Loverboy-meets-Damone look, so, they may be from different era's.

eggrolls: In an era of muscle shirts, big hair, mullets and stretch pants, you can still embarrass your girl wearing bib overalls to the mall.

While this guys definitely looks like bubba, over-sized overalls were quite the fashion statement at the time. of course, only one strap was to be buckled at a time.

Exhibit "A"

ScottRiqui: Remember the ridiculous copy-protection? It would ask you an airplane performance question upon starting, which could be answered by consulting a reference on the backside of the manual.


Hell, I'd go back to that kind of copy protection in a heartbeart
When I was like 10 and the computer was in the family room, I'd go into the living room to ask my parents questions so I could get into

LEISURE SUIT LARRY

/@1988?
//IIGS?

Ah, those were the days, being able to smoke in a mall.

They had (and still do have) the air conditioning systems to handle that, which is why your local mall (if it's even open) doesn't smell like what's in the food court.

Christian Bale: anyone have a copy of BinHex so I can translate the ASCII into a .jpeg?

That's how i beat off in 1995/freshman year of college.

/set quicktime 2.0 to slideshow, 5 seconds
//alt.sex.porn

Greta_VanHouten: SilentStrider: Those people have far too much hair.

It's called mall hair

It was called a hair bear.

The "BUY AMERICAN BUY SEARS" makes me laugh. Otherwise, this looks like the world ages 6-8. Then came the neon and the grunge.

The cultural savants in the above pics apparently were the goth kids and black guys. Those two pic play today. And guys in general look normal. The women are atrocious. Hideous. Burkaworthy.

Sadly, the mall I grew up hanging out in (late 80s/early 90s) has shootings once a month now.

/Eastland Mall
//Suburb of Detroit

cryinoutloud: thatboyoverthere:
Hell I remember my dad setting me up with Doom at 5 when he had to take me into his work during the weekend. I remember that I won against two 14 year old on a deathmatch.... Those kids are now in there 30's by now.... I'm 19 and I feel old.


My kid used to play Doom when he was about five. He never got very far, but....it was all my fault that he turned out that way. Now he reads Fark......

/cries

My kid isn't even 3 yet and plays videogames and asks me if I'm done reading fark so I can make him lunch.

/SAHD

Softens_hands_while_you_do_the_dishes: The cultural savants in the above pics apparently were the goth kids and black guys.

LOL, I was thinking the same thing.

I was a little worried that I might be in the pix, but that seems to be southern/eastern U.S. given the spread of styles and hair (looks like '85-'89). Then I remembered by '90 I was hiding out in San Francisco, shoving very bad chemicals into my face.

JimmySlicings: /Eastland Mall
//Suburb of Detroit


you brave bastard.

/Pontiac Mall(summit place)brat.

Marine1: zerkalo: I miss Port Plaza in Green Bay, WI. But that's because the last time I was there I was 9 years old.

/1978 was a very good year

I assume you now shiat in a diaper and eat dinner at four?

I was Amiga before Amiga was retro cool

shiat, 80s hair ahoy.

DreamyAltarBoy: ..... Then I remembered by '90 I was hiding out in San Francisco, shoving very bad chemicals into my face.

thatboyoverthere: Any know where I can find a copy of Journeyman Project? I never finished it and it's not on Steam.

gog.com has the second in the series for sale, tweaked to install to your hard drive and run on modern systems without any problems. I don't know where the first and third can be found.

Most of those people look pretty much the same as people I see shopping today. Even the people with 80's styles might still be found cruising a Wal-Mart today. Especially in Jersey.

"No Heather! Of course you didn't overdo it with the acid wash today!"

LAY OFF ME! I'M STARVING!!!!


/RIP Chris Farley

There appeared to have been less fat people then. Maybe we should encourage indoor, low-tax smoking again?

re: LAY OFF ME! I'M STARVING!! (new window)

Cerwin3302: LAY OFF ME! I'M STARVING!!!!


/RIP Chris Farley

Dammit all at almost the same time... lol... :D

Apropos, from How I Met Your Mother
Let's Go To The Mall (new window)

Marine1: doglover: thatboyoverthere: Hell I wasn't even born yet. I fell glad that I can barely remember the 90's. (Born 1991. Had a friend that was born when the Berlin Wall Fell.) Then again my kids are going to find Justin Beiber and make fun of that at me.

Wow, you're legally too young to drink yet, right?

Wow. Just wow.

Yep, me too. Well, in the state of Missouri, there are ways around that... but.. w/e.



Count me in in the 'under the drinking age' crowd as well.


/born in 1994, so pretty much no memories of seeing this in public.

JimmySlicings: martlet1: Rolled jeans. Tight on the ankles.

/awesome

I'll admit to doing this back in the day, I was in 4th or 5th grade. I remember a couple years later though in middle school one of my friends was still doing it and people were making fun of it behind his back. I guess that trend didn't stick around too long.

Thanks for rehosting/posting, urban.derelict. Flashback time!