The 80's

If you were fortunate enough to be conscious during the 1980s, you'll undoubtedly look back on that decade with a heady mix of nostalgia and relieved bewilderment that we all escaped with our faculties intact. It was a time so overburdened with excess, indulgence, and unabashed trendiness that it's difficult to know whether to regard the era with wistful fondness or cringing secondhand embarrassment.

Perhaps no greater emblem captured the gloriously over-the-top spirit of the 80s than its dedication to making everything bigger, brighter, and more excessive than good taste could possibly allow. From the frozen mounds of hairspray-assisted bouffants to the feathered excesses of Miami Vice chic, it was an aesthetic arms race of unrestrained maximalism.

And nowhere did this zeal for immoderation manifest itself more deliriously than in popular entertainment. Films like Top Gun and Ghostbusters captured the zeitgeist with a surplus of slo-mo high fives, bomber jacket fashion statements, and nuclear-grade quotability. On TV, a new breed of ultra-materialistic soap operas like Dynasty and Dallas became cult obsessions, with their big hair, shoulder pads, and Machiavellian family squabbles.

Even the music of the 80s seemed to be locked in a sonic arms race of grandiosity. From the gated reverb drums of Phil Collins to the shamelessly indulgent guitar solos of every third Bon Jovi song, it was an era when aural bombast reigned supreme. And who could forget the sartorial atrocities that passed for cutting-edge music videos on the fledgling MTV? Between Duran Duran's Franken-shoulder couture and Cyndi Lauper's thrift store kaleidoscope ensembles, it was a carnival of the delightfully gaudy.

Of course, the 80s were also a heyday for unabashed commercialism and nakedly materialistic pursuits. Greed, as Gordon Gekko so memorably proclaimed, was good. Legions of young urban professionals embraced the "dress for success" ethos, unironically donning suspenders and garish power ties like they were conducting a hostile takeover of the local Starbucks. Brick-sized mobile phones became de rigueur status symbols for the aspirational set, even if using them required lugging a suitcase-sized battery pack.

It was a decade when even childhood became commodified and commercialized within an inch of its life. From the Cabbage Patch Kids pandemonium to the inexplicable ubiquity of Teddy Ruxpin dolls, it seemed every young person was swept up in the frenzy of must-have toy manias. Not to mention the insidious ways marketing found to infiltrate nearly every aspect of youth culture, from G.I. Joe cartoons to product-shilling rap songs about Burger King.

Yet for all its grotesque excesses and unrestrained bad taste, there was an audacious vibrancy to the 80s that made it irresistibly watchable, even at its most cringeworthy. It was a decade that didn't so much embrace camp as swaddle itself in it like a cozy, neon-hued blanket. From the Wham! fashion atrocities to the cult of Cyndi Lauper, it was an era when self-awareness and subtlety took a permanent holiday.

So while we may look back and wonder how we survived the 1980s with our dignity intact, there's also a begrudging respect for its defiant, glorious shamelessness. It was a decade with no off switch, no internal governor to rein in its wildest impulses. For better or worse, the 80s went for broke in its pursuit of more, bigger, bolder everything. And that's perhaps its greatest legacy - the sheer audacity of its full-throttle ridiculousness.