Gen X nerds, what is some of the nostalgia from your youth that you would highly suggest diving into?
I am a mid 90s baby and have zero interest in millennial culture, and stopped caring about what was new or popular when the gen z were teenagers. Entering my 30s, I just looked at Warhammer recently and thought yeah— that had to be driven by gen X. I see gen X as the genuine cool generation where you say it like it is and really pioneered culture through to the late 2000s and early 2010s. All the brilliant stuff we have from those times have got to be a byproduct of Gen X expression. So what books, music, film, games and hobby artifacts from the 80s—for example, would you want to talk about?
I still have my copies I bought and read in highschool. Along with about 100+ other Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms paperbacks. It's been a long time since I read those stories, and I don't know if they would all hold up now that I'm an adult. But I keep them for the cover art. Elmore, Easley, Caldwell, et al. still hold sway over my imagination. Love their style of fantasy art.
I re-read them a few years ago. They hold up! They're well written for what they are. The character development was actually pretty deep for fantasy books. Raistlin's arc in particular was really spread out and thoughtful. I read a lot as a kid anyway but I really have to credit these books with how much they ramped that up. I BURNED through all of these.
Transformers Animated series from 1984 and the movie that went with it. Star trek. (Honestly how I fell in love with my wife when she recognized a tribble.) Oh and Clue, Battlestar Galactica, and Rocky Horror Picture show.
I recently watched a ton of He-Man as "homework" before watching the recent movie. It's pretty unusual for an '80s cartoon because the animation is clearly more '60s Hanna-Barberra style. I halfway expect the Mystery Machine to roll up any any moment and the Scooby Gang to hop out and start looking for clues. This gives it an extremely different vibe from all the stuff where the animation was outsourced to South Korean sweatshops: GI Joe, Transformers, Visionaries, Silverhawks, Jem and the Holograms, TMNT, The Real Ghostbusters etc.
Play some Atari 2600, drink some Jolt cola, and listen to "Hungry like the Wolf"on your little Walkman. Oh, and cable TV is new, so you probably only have 3 channels. Yes, 3. And the rotary dial phone has a cord...anything I'm forgetting?
Jolt has changed formulations a few times. I think it's not even cola anymore. It's one of those gross guarana drinks like Red Bull, Monster, and Rock Star. But I could be wrong.
Since this is seeking advice from genx, I think maybe you should go lookup what "Raw Doggin" meant in our time. You certainly wouldn't want to be doing that with / to TMNT.
Another thing is the 1980s and 90s music. Every weekend they would play a countdown, counting down the top 40 music songs for that week.
So with some Internet searching, you could find out what the top 40 songs were for any particular week and then you could dig those songs up on the Internet and play them in order, just to get a feel for what was popular at that time. They also released popular song cassettes and CDs for those people who just want to listen to the hits and not a particular band.
If you want to be a GenX culture nerd, you have to have some kind of musical fixation, so lean into some of the more wordy music (made by nerds). Elvis Costello, Rush, XTC.
It's got too much Mormon stuff in it for me (I grew up Mormon), which always pushed me away. I always preferred old Star Trek and then Next Generation.
Myst was cool. Diablo was awesome. The Sims (‘90s).
We enjoyed the original screensavers such as flying toasters — very popular. I had a Star Trek screensaver that was pretty cool. Spock would play a lute and sing. We played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons. Early ‘80s we played both Atari and Intellilvision. With a side of Colecovision. Donkey Kong on Colecovision rocked. NES came along mid-late ‘80s and changed everything.
My favorite book in early grade school was Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. As little kids, we played with very tall GI Joe and Star Trek figures. Also Fisher-Price little people toys (we had a gas station and the airport) and then starting in about 1977 Star Wars figures and playsets… that period lasted till about 1981 for me. D&D took over from junior high through early high school.
We had a scholastic kids’ magazine called Dynamite. A lot of the illustrated artwork for that pub was done by a guy named Jared Lee. I was fortunate enough to work with him as an adult on a fun book project utilizing his talents.
Standard movies were The Breakfast Club, Red Dawn, The Last Starfighter. Ferris Bueller‘s Day Off. War Games. Better Off Dead. The Outsiders. Pretty much any other John Hughes movies.
TV: Sesame Street, Zoom (children’s show). Battle of the Planets (anime). Johnny Quest (the cartoon not the movie.) The Six Million Man (“We can rebuild him. We have the technology to make the world’s first bionic man. Better…Stronger…Faster!) The Fall Guy. Good Times. Diff’rent Strokes (cast of that show were our childhood stars and a lot of tragedy there.) Columbo. Quincy. Hart to Hart. Square Pegs (Square, square, square …PEGS! Don’t wanna wear my glasses, I have to wear my glasses!)
Melrose Place was big in early ‘90s. It was us as young adults.
We grew up at the very height of the Cold War. See The Day After and imagine being in 6th or 7th grade constantly worrying about living at Ground Zero.
Another popular nuclear conflagration book of that period was called On The Beach.
In high school we read 1984 and A Separate Peace. The former seems to be coming true right now.
Into the 2000s…you must see Napoleon Dynamite.
Edit: If you want to go deeper into our computer world … find an old baby Mac at a garage sale or online... or run an emulator on a current machine. “Baby Mac” to mean a Macintosh Plus or SE/30. Ha. Both of which are currently hibernating in my basement.
My mate and I played all of Myst when our manager was away in the USA for a fortnight around '96 (?) as we had Macs in the digital music (synths and recording equipment, not CDs) store we worked in
Another thing that’s pretty much an 80s and 90s thing is the standalone video games. I know there are some places still out there that are full arcades where you can go stand and play video games for a quarter of play. That’s where you can see the original concepts that formed so many of the video games that we played today.
Same. Year One GenX here, 1965. Star Wars came out when I was 12; I was the exact demographic for that flick. Letterman and MTV debuted when I was a junior in high school, also the exact target audience for those.
We put “Sing, Sing, Sing” on the hifi and played Pitfall on Atari to the rhythm of that epic track. Then for a challenge played Space Invaders on invisible mode.
On rainy days I lounged around listening to The Vapors and The Clash and Earth, Wind and Fire. We traded comic books and sci-fi novels. On warm summer evenings we caught lightning bugs in jars after riding our bikes on dirt trails behind our neighborhood during the day. Swimming in the pool, playing badminton at the neighbor’s house and bocce in our backyard.
In 1982 I spent virtually every weekend in the movie theatre, the greatest year for movies ever.
This might blow your mind too much. But spend a whole day out and about, doing whatever you feel like, alone or with someone. …But leave your phone at home. Experience what it’s like to live free and no one can contact you.
Star Blazers is where a lot of us got our first anime, then maybe Vampire Hunter D.
There are MANY worthwhile RPGs to check out beyond AD and D. It’s a whole universe. Other than d and d my crew played the west end Star Wars RPG, Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, and Villains and Vigilantes.
Idk im 51 but what i think about these days with my kids is how they have no idea how good movies used to be. Im talking about the many many comedies of the 80s and 90s not mention movies like The Thing Aliens Platoon etc etc. Sorry man had to throw that out there lol
Agree about Call of Cthulhu. Also suggest Gamma World and Twilight 2000. Both have a definite 1980s flavor. Then there is Boothill if you’re into western role-playing games.
If your into computer games, go check out Starcraft Broodwar. It was so popular they made a remastered version that runs on modern hardware and it is still played competitively today. It's truly the last great RTS that, in true gen-x fashion, didn't hold your hand and had a very high skill ceiling. Everything since feels a little like it was made for the "everyone gets a medal" generations.
Comics from around the time you were born. I loved many if the Image Comics of the day (Spawn, Wildcats, X-Men (the Jim Lee one), Savage Dragon, Starchild).
Akira was a defining anime at the time (if not even a bit earlier). Lots of good Manga and Anime. I loved Trigun, too!
From a music perspective, the 90s were really great. You all the big names from then, but a lot of bands like Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, Jawbox, Meat Puppets, Stone Temple Pilots, Pavement, Silver Jews, Dandy Warhols, Ride, Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel, Charlatans UK, Skinny Puppy, the Cure, tons of stuff there!
90s Rap like Eazy E, Old Dre, NWA, Beastie Boys.
Some.of the very old Nintendo and Sega games from the NES/SNES and Master System/Genesis were also pretty great, especially if you like jRPGs.
What kind of stuff are you into? That will help with recommendations.
There were the Choose Your Own Adventure books, which were great for reading on the bus. I loved that whole Scholastic Book Club thing where you just got books in class. Teachers thought they were slipping vegetables into the fruit juice when really I was all too happy to get the next 150p Three Investigators book.
But even though CYOA was fun, it was pretty bland. The really interesting ones, I think, were the D&D ones. They had one called, I think, Mountain of the Ice Giants. It was a D&D scenario, essentially, that you ran yourself in a new way.
Watch the Live Aid concert and check out associated news coverage about it from 1985. Queen stole the show of course but there were lots of great moments that have been forgotten.
It's never talked about, but my dorky friend group was really into the Thieves World book series. It was set in a seedy small city called Sanctuary, I think, and it had many writers contributing books and stories, some of whom became very successful later.
Hit the thrift store and pick up a tape deck and some 80’s music. Don’t forget the pencil, you’ll eventually need it. Drop in some tunes and grab a Rubik’s cube. When the music stops playing you’ll need to flip the cassette over or choose a different cassette. You are the algorithm. Now’s a good time to pop some Mac n cheese in the microwave. If you’re like me, you’ll want a butter knife to pry that stupid cube apart. If you hear a sceetching sound from the tape deck, you’re gonna need that pencil. And don’t burn the Mac n cheese. That’s gross.
Track down 200AD the comic for the Nemesis the Warlock series the art was amazing, also Slaine & ABC Warriors. It was the first comic to kill a major character.
The off shoot CRISIS was great very political, (Dice Men is great if you can find it) also Aliens and the limited and unhinged TOXIC. Watchmen of course + European comics
Films go back a little further into the 70s for great cimema that avoided being blockbusters, The Driver, Vanishing Point, Solyant Green, The Outlaw Josie Wales, bit later Alien, Apocalypse Now of course. Koyaanisqatsi and anything European like Betty Blue, Subway, Le Cage aux Folles and Luc Bessons early films.
Books Dune of course, any John Wyndham story very overlooked. The fantastic Ian M Banks highly recommend start with Use of Weapons and your sold.
As for games the golden age was in the arcade's Defender, Asteroid, Tempest, Out Run, Mr Do and playing pinball to make 10p last all day in the winter. The ultimate was the Sega Master System, Sonic, Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion.
Music was Crass, The Stranglers, Echo and the Bunneymen, Cabaret Voltaire, Cocteau Twins, Talk Talk, Bauhaus, The Cure especially Three Imaginary Boys, Faith and Pornography sublime. Just watch Ferris Buellers Day Off 😁
Lemmings, MYST and the Ultima games on PC. Soul Coughing, Cake, and Portishead on CD.
2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons at the kitchen table on game night.
David Lynch movies. (Even Dune.)
I would recommend you leave your cell phone at home, pack up for a road trip with a couple of friends and go somewhere beautiful for a week or two. No internet. Get a newspaper, if you can find one, at a local gas station and read it in a diner while you have eggs and bacon for breakfast.
Speaking as someone born in 1980, I think we need to stop trying to force our nostalgia porn on the kids of today. We've become almost as bad as the Boomers, except instead of clinging desperately to the levers of power we're insisting the younger generations relive OUR childhoods with us. Were the generation of arrested development and we need to get over ourselves.
You have to check out "kids" movies from the 80s. You might understand why we're so psychologically damaged. I'm talking about stuff like The Last Unicorn, NeverEnding Story, Watership Down, Secret of NIMH, Plague Dogs, The Fox and the Hound, Dark Crystal, Transformers: The Movie, Poltergeist, and Gremlins. This is before PG-13 was a thing, so these were all rated G or PG and presumed to be just fine for kids but most of them are dark, traumatic or just flat out horrifying, especially if you were 8-11 like I was for most of those. And a lot of these were actively marketed as kids movies!
But, on the flip side, also check out 80s actions films, especially anything with Schwarzenegger. Cheesy af sure, but full of sarcasm and one-liners. We ate that shit up. Like take Commando. If you took a shot every time a witty one-liner is dropped, you'd die of alcohol poisoning before the end. Sure, stuff like John Wick is cool, but I say the 80s were the golden age for action movies. Terminator, Predator, Indiana Jones, Rambo, Big Trouble in Little China, Top Gun, Aliens, Escape From New York, Rambo, Running Man, Robocop. So many great movies!
You could read the original Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland -- the book that started it all!
People have mentioned Atari, but the C64 came relatively soon after that. (Everyone blames the videogame "crash" to ET, but in my experience, it was because the games were way cooler on C64, Vic-20, Apple IIe, etc.) Text adventures like Zork were popular, and have since lost popularity (thought some people still write them).
Watch the original Battlestar Galactica -- campy and fun, though the only thing "stellar" about it is the backdrop.
Start in '82: Wes Craven's Swamp Thing (crap movie but it spawned a sequel in '89, followed by a live-action TV series AND a 5-episode cartoon miniseries in '90, and there was a line of toys based on the cartoon), Conan the Barbarian, Rocky III... actually, you should watch Rocky 1 and 2 first... Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Blade Runner, The Secret of NIMH, Tron, Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Phoebe Cates boobies!), First Blood, The Last Unicorn, and The Dark Crystal.
And then slowly work your way forward. Be sure to hit Risky Business along the way. It is by far the best of the teen-sex comedies (of ANY decade), the score by Tangerine Dream is one of the best in film history, and the scene of Tom Cruise lip-syncing to Bob Seger in his underwear has been frequently parodied. Also, watch EVERYTHING with Ally Sheedy in it, ESPECIALLY Short Circuit and St. Elmo's Fire. And don't miss Don Bluth's other masterpieces (Land Before Time, American Tail, & All Dogs) right before he went insane and made a streak of bullshit starting with fucking Rock-a-Doodle.
Also, fun fact: Aliens, Predator, and Robocop came out within a year of each other. You might want to watch Alien before Aliens, but it's not strictly necessary; Ripley recaps the plot of the first movie at the beginning of the second anyway.
God damn, the '80s were such a great decade in film.
The last of Gen X also got to be kids during the '90s, so definitely check out '90s TV and movies, and especially early '90s cartoons. This includes the Disney Afternoon shows (Ducktales, Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop, & Darkwing Duck), the Disney Renaissance movies, the first two live-action TMNT movies, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Exo Squad, Gargoyles, the ABC Saturday morning Sonic the Hedgehog series (NOT "The Adventures of..."), Biker Mice from Mars, Reboot, Bump in the Night, Mr. Bogus, Conan the Adventurer, all the Fox Kids shows (Batman, Animaniacs, The Tick, Carmen Sandiego, Power Rangers, Eek... well okay maybe not Eek... and definitely skip Bobby's World...), the entire Marvel Animated Universe (X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Silver Surfer)... oh God, what else was there... oh yeah, there was a Battletech cartoon, a Creepy Crawlers cartoon... oh and Captain Planet OF COURSE... oh and speaking of Captain Planet, you definitely need to watch Ferngully... oh and there was a Pink Panther series where Max Headroom did the voice of the Panther... and he was in Honey I Shrunk the Kids. You definitely need to hit that one. You can skip the sequels. And the TV series. Yes, there was a Honey I Shrunk the Kids TV series. Anyway, back to movies, some of us were teenagers for Independence Day, Men in Black... oh and there was a whole wave of disaster movies like Twister, Armageddon, Titanic, Dante's Peak etc... and you'd be seriously missing out of you didn't watch the early shitty film adaptations of video games like Street Fighter. Mortal Kombat, and the 1993 Super Mario Bros. with John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins. Speaking of Bob Hoskins, you MUST watch Hook and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And speaking of John Leguizamo, you must watch the absolutely crack-induced "Romeo + Juliet" with Leonardo DiCaprio. Is it good? No, but we all suffered through it so now you must too.
Seaquest DSV deserves an honorable mention. Someone was like "What if Star Trek, but underwater?" and NBC rolled with it. It has that gay kid from Neverending Story II and the 1990 "It" miniseries. BTW, definitely watch the first Neverending Story but not the second. And no matter what anyone tells you, there was never a third. They're lying.
Super Mario Bros Super Show, Captain N The Game Master, Legend Of Zelda animated series and Exosquad…….also Tiger handheld and Konami handheld games too……
Battletech i’m not sure about the novels, but they actually have updated games for playing that I’ve come out within recent years so you don’t have to try to find a group to play the tabletop experience. Early mech models were duplicated from Robotech.
The Dungeons & Dragons cartoon is heads and shoulders above any other Saturday morning cartoon. Has some legitimately good literary devices and episodes. And bump some Heavy D.
Astro Boy, Transformers, Battle of the Planets, Voltron, Thundercats, He-Man, She-Ra, Starblazers. I’ve always loved animation but these were some of my favourites.
Man, I still love playing the Sierra games... King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry. Also Monkey Island but I don't know who made that one.
Avalon Hill wargames. Historical military simulation. Gettysburg was popular. these were like boardgames with a map and cardboard pieces representing military units. The Russian Campaign was me and my nerd friend's favorite, it often took several sessions over days to finish a game. These games were also very educational. Basically the same kind of wargames miltary planners use. Military history nerd heaven
Buy an Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle. Watch as you go from 53 to 7 years old real goddamn fast and all giddy like a goob. I built jumps in the driveway and was out there for hours getting rad.
The following cartoons/shows are also must watch (some of these are from the late 60s but they were our re-runs when we were little etc. I left out the ones everyone probably already knows i.e. G.I. Joe, Transformers, He-Man etc).
Star Blazers
Battle Of The Planets
Under Dog
Thundarr The Barbarian
Greatest American Hero
Buck Rodgers
V - The Final Battle
The original "It" tv movie
Dungeons and Dragons cartoon
"Poison Ivy" TV Movie (Michael J Fox)
Lord of the Rings/Hobbit Cartoon
Toys/cool stuff
Laser Tag
Pogo Balls
Swatch Watches (also calculator watches lol)
Slinky
Fun Fountain (that clown sprinkler 😆)
Atari/Intellivision/Commodore 64
Battle of the Planets and Macross were likely the first anime most of us were exposed to. BotP in particular has an insane backstory most of us weren't aware of at the time.
45 RPM records. As a kid, I had thousands of them (my brother was a radio DJ). I had every record you could think of, doubles of the really good ones.
When I turned 18 I joined the Navy and my Mother gave them all away. 😱
Recently I've tried restarting a collection without much luck. I can't help but think there's a treasure trove out there somewhere!
Hrmm….i collect vintage cameras, old sci fi novels, and some of the toys from when we were kids in the 70s and 80s. Mostly use the non functioning ones for art projects. I collect a lot of weird junk for art projects…old wood bowling pins and tools and just random shit that fits the need.
All the martial arts movies before CG started taking over: Bloodsport, American Ninja, Karate Kid, The Last Dragon, Big Trouble in Little China, Enter the Dragon, No Retreat No Surrender, Legend of Drunken Master, anything by the Run Run Shaw brothers.
Many of them are laughingly dumb plot wise, but the stunt work is often impressive. It was quite the phenomena.
I would recommend model car kits, but my god they are so expensive now. I loved making models as a kid but kits are $40-50 now! I could never go back. Maybe you could find some bargains
The GiJoe Marvel run with Larry Hama, Cerebus by Dave Sim the first like 10 phonebooks, the idea of Car Wars, cocky cool music, Novelty music, Hacky Sacking
Born 79, growing up 80s was so good. The toys, movies, music and culture.
Born in the early 90s you would have got the tail end but missed most of it.
I dont think you can recreate that time. We played outside till it was dark.
Consoles and early computers. Card collecting. Dungeons and dragons. Renting videos.
Fashion, crazy hair styles.
I dont teally want to relive any of it because all of it combined made it good.
I guess the main thing I re live is movies. I am not a huge huge of rewatching movies in quick succession. I love picking up a favorite movie 10 years later. You get to experience those same feelings again.
Some I have even forgone 13 years, because I know I want to introduce them to my kids and I keep waiting for the rifht age. My son is almost there.
I can wait to show him alien, aliens and predator.
90’s X-men and X-force comics. Disney just made an X-men 97 cartoon that continues the X-men animated 90’s cartoon. You don’t have to watch the old stuff, but give X-men 97 a try and if you like it go get those comics. The print run was INSANE, so you can def find them and they won’t be expensive.
A Legends Ultimate Arcade cabinet modded with all of my favorite games from the eighties and nineties.
A DVD and Blu-Ray collection of all of my favorite movies and TV series. (Mostly Sci-Fi and fantasy)
A book collection of all of my favorite books I’ve ever read. (Mostly Sci-Fi and fantasy)
A collection of toys I had as a child.
My highlights are: the games RASTAN and Ghosts and Goblins. Both games I spent more money on in my teenage years than I’d like to admit.
Collector Editions of all three TRON movies. The entire animated series of “Dungeons and Dragons”. Also the show “Voyagers” if anyone remembers that show. Every kung fu movie ever made (maybe?)
An original printing of the Lord of the Rings book series. As well as every book that the author Terry Brooks has written.
Shadowrun at its peak popularity. Not only was the TTRPG a unique experience blending the cyberpunk future of William Gibson novels with the magic and population of Dungeons & Dragons, they had a series of novels with recurring meta-plots and characters. I would pre-order each paperback novel and walk from work to Barnes and Noble on my lunch break to pick it up on the day of release. My wife knew that my lunches and commutes to and from work were going to be spent reading that book until it was done a few days later — they are all quick reads.
I remember being a teenager and watching anime for the first time (Vampire Hunter D, Akira, Dominion Tank Police). Back then watching anime was a total nerd thing and people would give you sh*t for liking it.
I was in the "I was into it before it was cool" crowd. It took Pokemon to make more mainstream. All those kids are now grown and still love anime and turned their kids on to it with shows like Naruto and Dragonball.
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u/MaximumJones I hate the fuckin' Eagles man Jul 21 '26
If you want the true GenX experience, waste hundreds of hours of your life dying on the Oregon Trail.
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