The Eighties

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Sitting in a darkened movie theatre in 1983, I remember the lone line appearing on the screen: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...  the theme music erupted and the prelude of Return of the Jedi crawled into infinite space. 

The 1980s was the decade of my boyhood, spanning the ages of five to fifteen. Looking back, I feel fortunate to have spent these formative years in that snippet of time. Unlike any decade since, it seems to me the most defined, of the most specific flavour. I'm sure it is precisely because those were my formative years, and I'm sure those of my generation feel the same way. As evidence, we now share Eighties memes on social media. 

The zeitgeist of the decade may be described as the time when trends trended. When pop culture popped. The blockbuster, the music video, the TV sitcom, the VHS videotape, the video game, the mixtape.