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Alexlind123
01-17-2007, 09:36 PM
What is your favorite decade, and why?

My favorite decade by far is the 1990s. Other than the fact that it is the only other decade besides the current one that i can remember anything of, it has numerous advantage over the decades of the previous century and the current one.

Here is a list of just a few of the things the 90s has going for it:

- The economy. While its not bad now, it was definitely booming in the 90s

- The clothes. They stopped being ugly like they were in the 80s.

- Cars. They stopped being quite as ugly in general as they were in the 80s

- Colors. People had no taste in color (or anything else, for that matter) in the 80s

- The music. There was some good music in the 90s.

- The cartoons. They didnt suck like they do now. Animaniacs is a great example, possibly the best cartoon ever made.

- Tamagotchis. No explanation needed.

- Half-life. An awesome PC game. The most revolutionary PC game.

- The magic school bus.

- Mortal Kombat

- Pokemon. Awesome gameboy game. Anyone still have a charizard card?

- Furbys. Remember those?

- Beanie babies. Oh wait, thats not a good thing...

- E34s.Cant argue with that one.

- My car. Its a 1990.

- Me? I was almost born in 1990...one year and 17 days before.

Everything in general just got so much more cool in the 90s, technology in perticular. Im sure there are some important things that i missed, but these are just a few off the top of my head.

Blitzkrieg Bob
01-17-2007, 09:43 PM
Hawaii was a much more "cooler" place to be.

repenttokyo
01-17-2007, 09:46 PM
Here is a list of just a few of the things the 90s has going for it:

- Colors. People had no taste in color (or anything else, for that matter) in the 80s



http://mortystv.com/showcards/fresh_prince_cast.jpg

Excuse me??????

swenpro
01-17-2007, 10:04 PM
[wearing a polo shirt with popped collar, I say]
Only two good things came out of the '80s: My collar, and me. :D

repenttokyo
01-17-2007, 10:09 PM
Fresh prince was totally 90's, man.

Ross
01-17-2007, 10:20 PM
Yea Bob it's such a burden to live there now I'm sure. 19 deg. outside here.

Digita1 Ecstasy
01-17-2007, 10:26 PM
I'd say the 80's because coke and sweat bands are as good a combo as spahgetti and meatballs.

John B.
01-17-2007, 10:28 PM
Being a "little" older then most of you guys I'd have to go for the 60's from 63 on into the early 70s. It was an incredible time to come of age & I enjoyed every minute of it.

Ross
01-17-2007, 10:28 PM
Late '60s & 70s. My formative years. Great cars, short skirts before young girls were fat, great music and a zillion other baby boom friends in a nice suburb.
Feeling a bit nostalgic now. Having been relegated to you guys and a bottle of red while the GF dulls her otherwise sharp mind watching American Idol.

nixter
01-17-2007, 10:31 PM
This is way too funny! How can you say the 90's were cooler than the 80's when your judgement of the 80's is based on your 90's perspective? The 90's win hands down as the most bland decade. The 80's were far cooler than the 90's if you were actually there to know.

I recall one 80's Christmas my brother and I got fanny packs from someone. One black, one neon yellow. We had a fist fight over who got the neon yellow one. That is why the 80's rocked.

n

Zeuk in Oz
01-17-2007, 10:40 PM
- My car. Its a 1990.

- Me? I was almost born in 1990...one year and 17 days before.

Everything in general just got so much more cool in the 90s, technology in perticular. Im sure there are some important things that i missed, but these are just a few off the top of my head.
Just a point of clarification - 1990 was the last year of the 80s - not the first of the 90s.

May I suggest that when you have lived through a number of decades, then you will be in a position to propose a favourite decade - not now at your tender age !

My opinion - mid 60s to mid 70s. What a blast it was !

Digita1 Ecstasy
01-17-2007, 11:07 PM
you 40-50 year olds stop pretending your picks have no biased, and ours do. Because really every decade is reminisced or remembered in a stupid way. By whatever was most popular, mainstream and fashionable at the time, which many would know does not live up to the same "coolness" in the years to come. People here are most likely picking their favorite decade in the times they got their dicks sucked the most, drank the heaviest, had the craziest memories, or when they first met their wife/husband or making the most money in their careers which is all subjective to your DOB :)

repenttokyo
01-17-2007, 11:12 PM
what disgusts me is the way vh1 has "i love the 90's" shows when that was ONLY 7 YEARS AGO!!!!!! **** man, talk about a lack of perspective.

ILoveMPower
01-17-2007, 11:40 PM
I wasn't around for much, but I think if i WERE, it would be the late 60s :)

Zeuk in Oz
01-17-2007, 11:51 PM
you 40-50 year olds stop pretending your picks have no biased, and ours do. Because really every decade is reminisced or remembered in a stupid way. By whatever was most popular, mainstream and fashionable at the time, which many would know does not live up to the same "coolness" in the years to come. People here are most likely picking their favorite decade in the times they got their dicks sucked the most, drank the heaviest, had the craziest memories, or when they first met their wife/husband or making the most money in their careers which is all subjective to your DOB :)
You might be right, but I was more thinking along the lines of originality.

Our generation was responsible for original music - Beatles, Stones, Beachboys, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Elvis, Bob Dylan, Peter Paul & Mary, the Mersey sound, even the Sound of Music for gods sake.

We didn't have to re-release music from the 40s & 50s.

We were responsible for institutions like Woodstock. Big Brother just isn't quite the same.

John Lennon invented the "love in".

We felt strongly about things like the Vietnam war so we got arrested protesting against it. What do Uni students do these days - they f'ing study - what sacrilege.

We tried to change the world - now they just want to get rich !

How times have changed !

icehole2001
01-18-2007, 12:04 AM
'64-'74

Bill R.
01-18-2007, 12:38 AM
We walked on the moon, The birth control pill, Free love. Linda Lovelace and Deep throat. The birth of muscle cars. The first computer game, the first microprocessor, the birth of the internet or arpanet. All those funny little cars from Europe made their big splash in the US. BMW,VW,Porsche,Mercedes,Saab,Volvo. Star Trek, Almost every comic book character from Marvel. The Brazilian Thong or string bikini. GoGo Boots, Granny Glasses, BellBottoms, Surfing took off, LavaLamps, Miniskirts,Slotcars, the modern day skateboard with polyurethane wheels,




You might be right, but I was more thinking along the lines of originality.

Our generation was responsible for original music - Beatles, Stones, Beachboys, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Elvis, Bob Dylan, Peter Paul & Mary, the Mersey sound, even the Sound of Music for gods sake.

We didn't have to re-release music from the 40s & 50s.

We were responsible for institutions like Woodstock. Big Brother just isn't quite the same.

John Lennon invented the "love in".

We felt strongly about things like the Vietnam war so we got arrested protesting against it. What do Uni students do these days - they f'ing study - what sacrilege.

We tried to change the world - now they just want to get rich !

How times have changed !

Blitzkrieg Bob
01-18-2007, 01:36 AM
Yea Bob it's such a burden to live there now I'm sure. 19 deg. outside here.

more trees, less highrise buildings, no traffic, nothing to do but smoke & poke.

Zeuk in Oz
01-18-2007, 01:55 AM
We walked on the moon, The birth control pill, Free love. Linda Lovelace and Deep throat. The birth of muscle cars. The first computer game, the first microprocessor, the birth of the internet or arpanet. All those funny little cars from Europe made their big splash in the US. BMW,VW,Porsche,Mercedes,Saab,Volvo. Star Trek, Almost every comic book character from Marvel. The Brazilian Thong or string bikini. GoGo Boots, Granny Glasses, BellBottoms, Surfing took off, LavaLamps, Miniskirts,Slotcars, the modern day skateboard with polyurethane wheels,
While we're on the subject;

James Bond became famous, Carnaby St, in Oz the muscle cars were the Torana XU1 and the Falcon GTHO phase III, Subaru first reared its (then) ugly head, Toyota brought us the Corolla and the Corona, Twiggy, platform shoes, fondue parties, did we mention free love ?, credit cards, MacDonalds, Formula 1 got rich, Jean Shrimpton, Chrisine Keeler, did we mention miniskirts?, Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, did we mention bikinis?, ........

Nostalgia......it ain't what it used to be .......:D

CharlesAFerg
01-18-2007, 02:50 AM
NO!!!
80s, that's when our cars and the E32 amoung other great BMWs were born! How dare you say the E34 was a 90s invention Alex! Blasphemy!


Please, everyone listen to sussudio now, and go watch American Psycho.

Maybe even drive a Lamborghini Countach, or a POS Maserati BiTurbo.

Watch Miami Vice!

80s FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

angrypancake
01-18-2007, 03:14 AM
the 70's.

Alexlind123
01-18-2007, 03:18 AM
Lol...i dont think anyone agrees with me.

632 Regal
01-18-2007, 05:21 AM
didja fix that headlight yet?

Lol...i dont think anyone agrees with me.
miniskirts...sigh

mattyb
01-18-2007, 05:23 AM
no, no they dont dude. but that is the nicest ****ing pic of your car i have seen to date. something special about snow that changes colour and shadows. very nice indeed. im sorry mate the 90 sucked hard.

wingman
01-18-2007, 05:32 AM
I looooooved the 80's. Big hair, big colours, big bouncy boo....beers. You could do what you wanted in the 80's and noone snapped you for it. Greed was good and so were the cars (E30/intro of E34/The E24 M6 for chrissake) God I loved the 80's! BTW have a think about this. I was born in the 60's so I have been alive for 5 decades! 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's. Scary isn't it as I've not yet reached 40.

Zeuk in Oz
01-18-2007, 06:50 AM
I looooooved the 80's. Big hair
Someone just had to mention hair ! :( :D

DaveVoorhis
01-18-2007, 08:38 AM
My favourite decade was the 1340's. Okay, the Black Death was a bit of a bummer, but it sure cleared out the riff-raff.

swenpro
01-18-2007, 09:04 AM
no, no they dont dude. but that is the nicest ****ing pic of your car i have seen to date. something special about snow that changes colour and shadows. very nice indeed. im sorry mate the 90 sucked hard.

second on the nice photo, Alex, was thinking the same thing

brick8
01-18-2007, 09:41 AM
Late 60s through early 70s, just for the music. It was great until disco came along.

repenttokyo
01-18-2007, 10:03 AM
the reason the boomers are hating on the 80's and 90's is because those are the decades where they sold out and got fat ;)

Ross
01-18-2007, 10:34 AM
Gotta second the Bi Turbo comment. One of the few new cars I've owned, sold it the moment the warranty expired.

Alexlind123
01-18-2007, 12:30 PM
Even if the e34 was technically introduced in the 80s, it lived in the 90s. The 80s were the realm of the e28.

BTW, thanks for the comments on my pic. It first turned out slightly underexposed, which is to be expected because of the snow. Jason from bimmer.info tweaked it in photoshop for me.

Edit: Overcast sky with snow on the ground is easily the best condition for taking pictures of a car. Good, uniform lighting from above and below helps to eliminate shadows and provides even lighting over the subject.

John B.
01-18-2007, 01:02 PM
the reason the boomers are hating on the 80's and 90's is because those are the decades where they sold out and got fat ;)

Damn & I thought it was because most of the new music sucked as bad as the hair styles! By the way I lost the weight.

repenttokyo
01-18-2007, 01:04 PM
Damn & I thought it was because most of the new music sucked as bad as the hair styles! By the way I lost the weight.


lol congrats!

CharlesAFerg
01-18-2007, 02:08 PM
Gotta second the Bi Turbo comment. One of the few new cars I've owned, sold it the moment the warranty expired.

Hahhahahaha!
I saw one at a shop during the summer, they couldn't make it work... Then it finally came to life... BAM-A-DEE-DRRRPD-A-DIDDLE! POP! REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

But MAN! It was fast until it died again 3 minutes later lol... :D

Ross
01-18-2007, 03:10 PM
Yea, a shame really 'cause they are a blast to drive. I had one of the later fuel injected models that were considered an improvement.
Mine's engine management computer died just after 1000 miles, intermittantly at first, leaving me stranded twice. Maser replaced ALL of the relays in the car to cure some electrical ghosts.
The Bi Turbo was supposed to be a high volume car to make Maser profitable, instead it killed 'em.
When the new Quatroporte was released they sent me an invitation to a special preview at the Chicago Autoshow. Champagne,hors d'ouvres, touchy feely the car, all the hoo ha. I don't know if they remembered selling me a car or were hoping they hadn't.
I often see a black Q-porte in my town , they are really, really pretty.

mikell
01-18-2007, 03:52 PM
And, no HIV in the 60's & 70's - the worst thing you could get from sex with the wrong person was curable.

Yes, I am prjudiced. I was young then, knew everything, had no real responsibilities, and could fix my car with a pair of pliers - no computers needed.

Zeuk in Oz
01-18-2007, 04:25 PM
the reason the boomers are hating on the 80's and 90's is because those are the decades where they sold out and got fat ;)

There might be some truth in that, however it is the re-release of all our favourite songs by inferior artists that really p$sses me off.

Come up with your own music, guys, and leave us to ours !

RallyD
01-18-2007, 04:44 PM
well only being around for 2.5 decades i can't really say.
From what I remember about the 80's they were pretty cool, Then it all started going down hill. I blame it on the world's lawyers. Everyone started to blame someone else for **** that was their fault. "Oh I slipped on your icy sidewalk" well you should've been more careful, up your's pal

So with something I can relate to, cars, I'd say that the mid to late 60s into the early 70s were probably the best. Big power, high octane leaded gas, compression ratios were up, and the cars were just plain cool.

Sam-Son
01-18-2007, 06:17 PM
80's The Music, The Style, The Cars

Digita1 Ecstasy
01-18-2007, 06:24 PM
im too lazy to go through the thread and quote it but pointing out linda lovelace in the 70's for deepthroat....wow.

Ugliest bitch ever, deffinetly not a vocal point for the decade man lol

Ross
01-18-2007, 07:40 PM
Music? What hair bands banging guitars and every drumbeat accompanied by a cymbal crash. Style? You mean leg warmers and mullets Cars? Delorean, Yugo,K cars?
Sorry, pop culture was so F'ed in the 80's retro was invented.

markus
01-18-2007, 08:11 PM
the 1990s, last time the dallas cowboys were awesome.

nizmainiac
01-18-2007, 08:15 PM
60's and 70's for the music, 80's for miami vice and the a team

Blitzkrieg Bob
01-18-2007, 08:25 PM
This is the time when I discovered e34s.

Have the time & income to maintain it.

Have the technology to "acquire"...whatever music I want & listen to it.

My kids are old enough to feed, wipe & dress themselves.

My wife has hit the ”FREAK” stage and has become rather entertaining.

Someone pass me a beer and I think this could be good.

Alexlind123
01-18-2007, 08:51 PM
the 1990s, last time the dallas cowboys were awesome.

Finally, someone agrees with me.

Gayle
01-21-2007, 01:48 AM
We walked on the moon, The birth control pill, Free love. Linda Lovelace and Deep throat. The birth of muscle cars. The first computer game, the first microprocessor, the birth of the internet or arpanet. All those funny little cars from Europe made their big splash in the US. BMW,VW,Porsche,Mercedes,Saab,Volvo. Star Trek, Almost every comic book character from Marvel. The Brazilian Thong or string bikini. GoGo Boots, Granny Glasses, BellBottoms, Surfing took off, LavaLamps, Miniskirts,Slotcars, the modern day skateboard with polyurethane wheels,


Very impressive list Bill.

Alex--when I read the original question I thought it was asking about the best decade in my life personally which is different that the best decade societally.

In society, I liked the 70's. Sex, drugs, rock n roll. There was a optomism that things were changing and going to get better. But I was in my 20s then. When you look back at your 20s, they are nothing but a painful embarrassment.

I liked the music in the 80s and the economy was growing which infuses optamism. It was the sweet spot of when I had my life together and my body had not started to deteriorate.

The 90s left me cold both societally and personally. And did I mention the music was lame? This is the decade that was ruled by the grown-up, latch key children of the boomers. They were warped by neglect and just didn't bring the optomism to society that young adults are supposed to do. It made the 90s sort of bland.

This decade--e34s came into my life. I remember the internet before it had content and now I can't imagine how I lived with out it. The down fall of this decade is advent of political correctness.

Reading what I have written, I conclude if the music is good, the ecomony is good, and people are optimistic--then I think life is good.


.

Gayle
01-21-2007, 01:54 AM
This is the time when I discovered e34s.

Have the time & income to maintain it.

Have the technology to "acquire"...whatever music I want & listen to it.

My kids are old enough to feed, wipe & dress themselves.

My wife has hit the ”FREAK” stage and has become rather entertaining.

Someone pass me a beer and I think this could be good.



You know Bob, I really don't much like Hawaii, but this post makes me want to go there again just so I can meet you and see your e34s and meet your wife.

Blitzkrieg Bob
01-21-2007, 02:02 AM
You know Bob, I really don't much like Hawaii, but this post makes me want to go there again just so I can meet you and see your e34s and meet your wife.


Just think Morticia & Gomez Addams go Hawaiian

Gayle
01-21-2007, 02:18 AM
Just think Morticia & Gomez Addams go Hawaiian

Laughing out loud.

Sam-Son
01-21-2007, 03:26 AM
Music? What hair bands banging guitars and every drumbeat accompanied by a cymbal crash. Style? You mean leg warmers and mullets Cars? Delorean, Yugo,K cars?
Sorry, pop culture was so F'ed in the 80's retro was invented.

1st Hair bands suck
these aren't
Robert Palmer, Talking Heads, The Cars, Peter Gabriel

Cars: Ferrari F-40, Ruf CTR Yellow Bird, BMW M5, BMW M3, BMW M6, Lamborghini Countach
to name a few

I like the 80's even if nobody else does

attack eagle
01-22-2007, 12:22 AM
Here is a list of just a few of the things the 90s has going for it:

- The clothes. They stopped being ugly like they were in the 80s.

- Cars. They stopped being quite as ugly in general as they were in the 80s

- Colors. People had no taste in color (or anything else, for that matter) in the 80s







you obviously missed 1990-1992

80's = true birth of super exotic cars
80's great alternative music.

90's - affordable moddable turbo sports cars
90's great alternative music

ryan roopnarine
01-22-2007, 08:33 AM
Reading what I have written, I conclude if the music is good, the ecomony is good, and people are optimistic--then I think life is good.


.


i've wanted to post to this thread for a while, but i didn't have time to write an adequate response. another vote here for the 90's, for much the same reasons you've said above gayle. at the same time, i have a hard time understanding how the original poster could of said the 90s because of how young he was. the late 90s had everything you speak of. the intertubes were going to save the world, you could get VC money to set up a webcam in your living room and create a website centered around it, significant job security, decent pay for even unskilled workers, and a glut of exceptionally cheap gasoline. all of this novel, useful technology was being created and implemented, but it was OK if you didn't want/need to use it. it was ok for most to not have cellphones, and it wasn't a big deal if you didn't get reception in a certain area. you didn't need to go online to download instruction manuals, print out your boarding pass, et cetera.... but if you wanted to take advantage of the internet and whatnot, you could do things that were inconceivable 4 or 5 years previously. computers weren't 50% inapplicable to home users like they were in the 80s. early 90s cars (to me) set the standard for reliability and simplicity, you can't get any better than the 91-95 honda cars for examples of this. no vacuum line nightmares like the mid/late 80s cars that eventually got taken off the road when sticking pencils and golf tees into "emissions equipment lines" didn't work anymore.
as (gayle) said, the x'ers and milennials were a product of their upbringings, but if all they know is pessimism, the more pessimistic they got, the happier and more content they were--(they) had all the nostalgic life experiences that every other decade had, obtaining driver's licenses, getting laid, &c. the backdrop just happened to a little dark, and as a result, they can find a little nostalgia in that darkness. perhaps i'm incapable of explaining it over the intertubes. the 60s and 70s bois were cooking up every STD known to man and spreading it around to anything with a moist hole. as al bundy said "at least in my day, we didn't have to put a tire on our (paraphrase wang) to get laid." indeed he didn't, but the decade itself wasn't responsible for (us) not getting to have "free love."

as to the music....i'll definitely give you hippies that. i could listen to the rushmore soundtrack for 8 hours a day, and all that is is british invasion+some 70's music. but just understand that much of that was borne of drugs, and that by the 90s it was socially unacceptable (and i think somewhat for the better) to walk around having piss capable of melting a styrafoam cup. i was watching vh1 one day with my sister, and actually heard one of the beachboys actually say that their music was "cerebral", which caused me to laugh my ass off and discount their catalog entirely. i don't care how much critics may sing hosannas about "pet sounds", if that clown actually thinks that, i'm going to go ahead and consider them about as innovative as sonic youth. whilst the hippies may have a certain amount of nostalgia tied up in that decade, i certainly don't, and i can find a hundred stupid emo bands that are as "innovative" as they are. this extended into the 80s with your bolivian marching powder, looking back now, i can definitely see how coke shaped a lot of the children's programming i watched. for example, here's a promotional video for microsoft windows 386 (released for 386s around 1988). this version has a lot of the boring parts cut out, but just watch it--coke obviously had a lot to do with even the idea ever seein the light of day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGO2hVA3P58

here's steve balmer of microsoft selling windows 1.0 on the teevee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6YgZc5th6g&NR

i'll also say that i think that 1980s womens' hair sucked, yeah, it was big, but it made them look like prostitutes. i like poofed up poofed out 70s stewardess hair the best. maybe if fashion designers weren't all gay men, there would be fewer flat womens' hairstyles, as any straight man likes big @ss hair on women. i'll stop now before i become more irrelevant.

PS: i realise that i may have written some things that may come off as harsh or @ss-h0lish. i really don't mean to be that way, i'm just bitter that i can't have any coke or random sex.:D

Alexlind123
01-22-2007, 10:28 AM
at the same time, i have a hard time understanding how the original poster could of said the 90s because of how young he was.

Since i have lived the majority of my life so far in the 90s, i think i would probably have a decent understanding of the decade. Besides, my original post was clearly based mainly on the pop culture of the decade, which anyone can easily look at years after the fact by simply sampling the different aspects of whatever made that particular decade unique.

attack eagle
01-22-2007, 02:08 PM
Childhood doesn't count. You don't remember the entire decade, probably only the parts after I graduated highschool.. :)

I got my Driver's license in 1990...

Sorry ryan, you have an opinion but I have to disagree.

I remember the 80's as well, hell, I remember Carter. It wasn't as bad as people who DON'T really remember it or never lived thru it make it out to be. No worse than the pot head/heroin/meth revolutions of the 90's, no lamer than dirty flannel from thrift stores, or oversized sports apparel with tags attched, neon clothing, baggy Gumby pants, etc.

Those of us who actually lived thru that era and pretty much any other decade since the late 50's, seem to take a certain view that no matter how bad it is, at least we aren't nuclear ash. IN the 90's kids and adults were free of that worry, but they also lost some sense of what was really important in a wave of consumerism and lost a sense of nation.

But you can definately shoot all the Flock of seagull/cure wannabe music "artist" today. Like those schmucks from AFI. IF they were any lamer or gayer, they'd be queer quadriple amputees.

repenttokyo
01-22-2007, 02:43 PM
I don't think you can call the 90's more consumerist than the 80's!!!!!!

Alexlind123
01-22-2007, 08:37 PM
Childhood doesn't count.


How can you say that childhood doesnt count?? Its just a different perspective on the same thing. You probably werent even aware of or didnt participate in most of the things on my original list.

Its obviously an opinion, and i gave some reasons to support my opinion.

repenttokyo
01-22-2007, 08:41 PM
How can you say that childhood doesnt count?? Its just a different perspective on the same thing.

that's a really good point. ie the 60's might have been a good time to be an adult, but if you were of draft age, maybe not such a good time, etc....

attack eagle
01-22-2007, 09:02 PM
How can you say that childhood doesnt count?? Its just a different perspective on the same thing. You probably werent even aware of or didnt participate in most of the things on my original list.

Its obviously an opinion, and i gave some reasons to support my opinion.
Sorry
:) meant not to take my comment too seriously.

There was consumerism in the 80's, yes, but not to the extent that you HAD to upgrade (sometimes frequently) many items in the home to benefit from technology. And there seemed to be less disposable technology goods. I know my mom's 1980's era VCR (push buttons and analog tuning dials) is still soldiering on, unlike most 90's vcrs she had that lasted 3 years tops for example.

repenttokyo
01-22-2007, 09:07 PM
Sorry
:) meant not to take my comment too seriously.

There was consumerism in the 80's, yes, but not to the extent that you HAD to upgrade (sometimes frequently) many items in the home to benefit from technology. And there seemed to be less disposable technology goods. I know my mom's 1980's era VCR (push buttons and analog tuning dials) is still soldiering on, unlike most 90's vcrs she had that lasted 3 years tops for example.

i think i was referring more to conspicuous consumerism like you see typified in the movie Wall Street - a generation of "yuppies" obsessed with upward mobility and accumulating wealth is typically the caricature of 80's excess. I would define that as consumerism, of a different type however. The 80's are the decade that coined the term yuppie.