My Personal 80s

generally, the last years, or even decades, there was a rising interest in a specific decade - the 80s. lots of revivals, retrospectives and lots of other retros. what was significant for me was that they painted a much, much different picture of the 80s then the one i lived through. i was born on the 16th november 1980 - so basically i lived through almost all of the 80s. whether the situation in germany was different to the rest of the world and and thus different to the picture of the usually usa and uk centered retrospectives of the 80s, whether my own situation was different,  or whether there is a redefinition of a decade going on as part of cultural warfare - i don't know. all i can do is write down my personal account of the 80s.
first of all, the 80s was a political decade. the left movement was strong. the peace movement was strong. the ecology movement was strong. the punk movement was strong. images of riots, demonstrations, rallies, greenpeace, left terrorism and activism on the television defined my early childhood. the left was simply a major player these years, including the radical left. it cannot be compared to our current days, where it has withered, and is far from being a hearable voice in public debate, even farther from being a force in society.
i remember in the early 2000s talking to an anarchist friend about the riots in genova and other cities, that were part of the anti-globalization then. his comment was the riots were all good, but, back in the 80s one would not have to travel annually to far away cities for this, but there were similar riots in hamburg and other large cities of germany every weekend!
apart from the anarchist rioters, the peace and fairly new ecological movements were another factor in society. and unlike the rioters their voices also had a bigger effect on debates in the more mainstream of societies. i remember my oldest brother ran into trouble at school because he brought coca-cola for the break inbetween classes. coca-cola, a money-minded corporation from capitalist usa! the teachers and parents were shocked!
of course germany in the 80s was far from being a "riot nation" - but it was, to a degree.
but getting beyond leftism, the 80s were dominated by politics either way. the cold war was in full effect, and talk about a possible war, the danger of nuclear bombs, the relationship to russia and the eastern bloc, as well as the revolts and changes that went on in the "third world" totally dominated public discourse and the media these years, till the fall of the eastern wall.

yet, there was also a wholly different thing about the 80s. it was still the space age. there was an interest in everything science, astronomy, space, science fiction, that too was a part of societal live and society. the then new synthpop music was full of space themes, science fiction movies generally attracted a large audience, there were plenty of documentaries relating to everything space on TV. if you think "interest in space" today, you think of a scifi nerd teen maybe, but if you seen some 80s TV shows or documentaries on this topic, you will remember serious, well combed and dressed adult men talking about and taking an earnest interest in "mars flights until the year 2000" or the possibility of alien life, or the future moon colonization, with a seriousness towards these things that is baffling for today's audience (because now we are sure we will not live on the moon in the next 50 years... or will we?). this definitely gives a picture of how it was then.
of course, similar with leftism, not everyone was a spacehead in the 80s. but it definitely was not the nerd thing it was by 1996 - but played a part in the societal mainstream.

this were my 80s. did i get the wrong picture due to my young age? or do people of our era can not dive deep into a gone decade, and necessarily they're the ones with the wrong picture? over the years, with snippets of tv shows or films from the 80s, i get the idea that my picture is maybe not as subjective as it might appear at first.

so, now we have 2016, and it seems that maybe these things are not as gone and far away as one might have thought between 2000-2010. there is definitely a growing interest in politics. there is real political talk and debates again. there is a heightened interest in anarchism.
space themes and science fiction, in music tv and film make a comeback. when it was announced earlier this year, that a 9th (10th?) planet might be discovered soon in our solar system, and the mainstream news was eager to pick this up and run the story, i got a positive vibe of "retro-future shock". because this was definitely close to the feelings towards these things in the long gone by decade.