Poll: 80's or 90's: Which was the Bigger Cultural Wasteland?

[Funkysandwich]

The 90's win for me because they produced the fastest non turbo production car of all time:

The McLaren F1

And in 1990, Mazda built a race car so fast it was banned. The legendary 787B had to be limited to 700 horsepower, but could make up to 900 HP.

Two of the finest cars ever built were made in the 90's, and they were like nothing that came out of the 80's. The most iconic car of the 80's was probably the DeLorean, which is a cool car but doesn't hold a candle to either of these.

 

[DragonChi]

Born in the 80's and have nothing but fond moments. the 90's however...its hit and miss...but more misses than hits. the 90's is something you survive from.

 

[Silvertongue]

The 80's were more or less the golden age of metal, for that I love them. I don't know of many things that came out of the 90's that I actually enjoy(minus the grunge and some death metal)

My sentiments exactly, minus most of the death metal.

 

[Valkyrie101]

The 80s were better. Iron Maiden, Ronnie James Dio, the founding of Manowar, Arnie films, etcetera. One long chain of awesome.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I think the both had high and low parts. As much as I love grunge, there was the Spice Girls and alternative music is, bizarrely, mainstream now.

80's... well the 80's were really, really vulgar. But then, metal!

To be honest they're about as good as eachother and I'd say the 00's are too. I mean, plenty of great tv, film and music have come out. Plus with the internet it's much easier to find lesser known pieces of greatness, such as Streetlight Manifesto.

I don't think things are getting better or worse, just staying around the same base level that's about 75% arse and 25% good-to-awesome.

 

[OceanRunner]

I wasn't born 'till the late 80s, but I've still seen a ton of awesome cartoons and shows from then, though the 90s had a strong showing too. One aspect that I feel the 80s does best is music with legends like Michael Jackson, WHAM!, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Phil Collins, Chris De Burgh etc.

 

[NickCaligo42]

The 80's were the time of film, the 90's were the time of television. We got most of the best Simpsons episodes and the Animaniacs during the 90's, we got most of the best action movies during the 80's. We got the best video games during the 90's too, but we also got most of the best D&D content during the 80's. It breaks pretty well even, I'd say.

 

[Spencer Petersen]

We can never appreciate any time period until enough time has passed for it to fade from recent memory. I'm pretty sure guys in the 1920s were complaining that the 1900's and 1910's were worthless but we know that not to be true. Besides, what people remember most about a period is its pop culture, and pop culture will always look terrible in hindsight.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

From the perspective of somebody who grew up in the 80s, I can tell you that just about all the stuff I actually cared about was created during the 90s - as a nerd obsessed with technology, the 90s were a bonanza of wonderful things. Looking at the various products of the respective decades after the fact though, I'd say that the bits about the 80s that are ridiculous are still less annoying than all the nonsense the 90s produced that I pointedly ignored whilst actually living through them (as a child my favorite music was from the 1890s anyways), though there were some damn decent cartoons in the 90s that have rendered me all but incapable of enjoying 80s cartoon staples with anything but "ironic" appreciation (in quotations because that's not the correct use of irony, but it's the one that people use anyways).

Mind you, a lot of the bands I listen to now got their start in the mid to late 90s, but those are bands that "nobody's heard of" for the most part, or isolated exceptions. I would still take the awful boy band nonsense of the 90s over the pop music from our present decade though!

 

[Jamiemitsu]

In my opinion, pop music has all been horrible since the late 90's, but at the same time, thats when gaming started to get REALLY good. Overall, though, the 80's was probably a bit better.

 

[Srdjan]

I will go with the 80s the decade that fashion barely survived.

 

[Syphous]

Oh the 90's produced awful, awful crap. So did the 80's, but I think the 80's are the lesser of two evils.

 

[Fraught]

The '90s had all my favourite cartoons (on Cartoon Network), my favourite games (on the PS1), my favourite movies (things like Pulp Fiction, Saving Private Ryan, Fight Club, y'know) of the two.

Of course, that's mostly because I grew up in the '90s (some of my childhood, at least), and I saw the products it excreted, I experienced them, and they're what I remember, what hold nostalgia to me. Also, I think even if I tried to convince them side-by-side, I think all of those categories would win. The PS1 just had amazing games (and a lot of SNES games came out in the '90s too), the cartoons on Cartoon Network I can see liking much more than the Transformers and whatnot of the '80s, and I'm actually really a kind of "new-movies" kind of guy. I don't really watch a lot of old movies, and I usually only watch newer, more contemporary movies.

Doesn't mean I haven't watched the odd oldie, but still.

 

[Knusper]

Iron Maiden was founded in the '80s (I think) and there was Aliens - the best film in the series - I wouldn't really call many of the games produced in the '90s inspirational, either. the '80s wins on pretty much all fronts.

 

[fullbleed]

90s gave us Brit Pop, what 80s band do I actually listen to? Pretty much none, Gary Numan and Joy Division count as 70s bands. Plus in the 80s in Britian Thatcher was ruling so instant loss there. In terms of films though the 80s wins, John Hughes was a legend.

 

[TheGreenManalishi]

When you see the TV footage, the 80s and 90s kind of blur into one.

 

[newfiegirl 110]

I am a big fan of the 80s...maybe because that was my childhood/early teen era. The music, the movies, games (video games have much refined, but they got a solid push here). hell, even the fashion (although it hasn't held up well over the years- at the time it rocked) Great memories there... the 90s.... high school... university... meh. The music I keep falling back on was all minted in the 80s.

 

[Denizen]

The 80s and 90s complimented each other. 80s like many other people believe it was the last decade of overall good music and entertainment and 90s just payed homage to all the stuff going out of style therefore becoming a style of it's own (more like a refinement of things that started before) as well as advanced video games in (debatable) the right direction.

I grew up with the systems that came out in the 80s and then in the 90s, I remember it was hard not to either find an instant classic/pretty good game or a complete shit game. Nowadays it's hard to find an instant classic among mediocrity and the occasional shit-bomb from a mile away.

Both decades produced way better cartoons and other children related stuff that I'm pretty sure a majority of the members here remember fondly while sympathizing with this new generation of cartoons. Overall I stick to what I first mentioned in this reply, both decades complimented each other and it only got worse from there. However I am hesitant to stick with saying "it only got worse."

Last year I learned that if you can't handle change, you have nothing left to look forward to and upon realizing that I'm glad that things did change, though I will always remember what was incredible back then though it's hard to see it surviving now, therefore, good things deserve to be laid to rest peacefully so we can focus on finding (and peacefully) enjoying what's good now.