1985

The internet can be a funny place, full of interesting trivia, connections to far away friends, and (maybe most importantly) funny animal videos. And yet, sometimes what the nostalgic web reveals can pack a bit more of a punch than we expected…

No, I’m not talking about Facebook Memories - they’re a whole other bag of mental gymnastics-inducing depressing or joyful moments which fully deserve an entire blogpost of their own. Rather, recently I keep stumbling over a particular music-based clip trending inevitably from the newest-fangled web portal of amusement (TikTok) which makes me laugh for a second until the cringes set in. But not for the reason you’re thinking - but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. 

In said clip the Tiktok-er (is that what we call them, idk?) has an unfortunate revelation about the aparent drabness of their life while listening to the classic nostalgic banger “1985” by Bowling for Soup. The song begins on a positive note, led by and upbeat drum beat and catchy guitar riffs, but as the band begins to wax eloquent about lost opportunities and sour memories the listener begins to think that the song is about them…

Were any of these kids even alive in 1985?! I sure wasn’t, and even though I’ll always have a fondness for the mid-decades of my childhood, my high school years, and even my 20s (as an amalgam for what the band’s singing about), I’m going to call bullshit on lamenting all the things in life that have gotten away. Staunch disbeliever in FOMO, here, if you couldn’t already tell. 

Sure, there are always going to be missed opportunities and a certain sense of “how did we get here from there” as we get older, but sitting there and whining about the choices we made isn’t going to get us anywhere. So you didn’t dance on Whitesnake’s car (an opportunity to hard-pass on, IMO); so you married a CPA (presumably he likes other things than finance…); so you bought and paid for that yellow SUV (way to stand out in a parking lot!), but none of that has to be a negative if you don’t want it to be. There are new places to find music other than MTV, that antidepressant is doing its job to boost your serotonin levels, and you bet your ass there’s a podcast (or twelve) out there to satisfy your craving for radio sitcoms. 

Limits went out the window with the millennium, so here’s to having access to a way bigger world of opportunities than were available in 1985 (or even 2005). So, Debbie, rather than hitting the wall, maybe it’s time you broke right through it.