For better or for worse, the 80s was an era of bold choices. From plastic-wrapped furniture to gravity-defying hairstyles, the decade was packed to the brim with loud statements. Not all of them were good statements, but they were definitely still loud. We’re taking off the rose-tinted glasses and looking at 20 things that really weren’t it – from the mullet to parachute pants.
20. The Mullet: A Haircut That Divided
The mullet infected the 1980s like a bad case of head lice. This criminal combination of short front and long back ruined family photos and professional headshots alike. The style spread from suburban dads to rock stars, proving bad taste knows no boundaries. The mullet became the ultimate symbol of an era when people completely lost their minds about hair.
19. New Coke: A Recipe for Disaster
Coca-Cola’s 1985 decision to reformulate its signature beverage stands as one of the decade’s most notable corporate miscalculations. New Coke tasted so bad it sparked riots in the streets. Customers hoarded old Coke like it was liquid gold. The company crawled back with Coca-Cola Classic, but the damage was done. Thanks for nothing, New Coke.
18. Shoulder Pads: Power or Ridiculousness?
Shoulder pads turned normal clothes into football uniforms. Women’s business suits ballooned into ridiculous rectangular shapes that made everyone look like they were playing dress-up in their dad’s suit. The padding got so thick you couldn’t fit through doorways. This “power look” just made everyone look stupid.
17. Leg Warmers: A Dance Studio Staple
Leg warmers made zero sense outside of dance class. These glorified tube socks showed up everywhere – malls, schools, even formal events. They were hot, itchy, and collected more dirt than a vacuum cleaner. Thanks to “Flashdance,” teenagers everywhere thought they looked like dancers. They didn’t.
16. Pac-Man Overload: Too Much of a Good Thing
Pac-Man invaded every aspect of life until people couldn’t take it anymore. The character’s dopey face appeared on everything from underwear to soup cans. Kids got sick of the endless “wakka wakka” sound effects. This marketing overkill proved you could ruin anything with enough exposure.
15. VHS Late Fees: The Rental Nightmare
Video stores turned movie night into a stress fest with their ridiculous late fees. Return your tape 10 minutes late? That’ll be $5. Forget to rewind? Another dollar. The fees often cost more than the movies themselves. Video stores became the loan sharks of entertainment, squeezing every penny from forgetful customers.
14. Rubik’s Cube: A Colorful Challenge
The Rubik’s Cube tormented millions in the 1980s with its evil, impossible design. This six-sided torture device turned kitchen tables into graveyards of broken dreams and twisted childhoods. Kids spent countless hours spinning the cube into more confused patterns while their parents lied about “solving it in college.” The cube’s only achievement was proving how much time people would waste trying to line up colored squares, only to give up and peel off the stickers in defeat.
13. Max Headroom: A Confusing Character
Max Headroom assaulted TV screens as a glitchy, stuttering nightmare claiming to be entertainment. This so-called “computer-generated” character looked more like a mannequin dipped in plastic having a seizure. His forced wit and jarring delivery made viewers’ heads hurt, while his cyberpunk aesthetic screamed “trying too hard.” The show’s attempt at social commentary got lost in the headache-inducing presentation, proving some TV experiments should stay in the lab.
12. Tab Soda: A Taste to Forget
Tab Soda poisoned taste buds throughout the 1980s as Coca-Cola’s cruel joke on diet-conscious consumers. The drink’s secret weapon, saccharin, made everything taste like metallic medicine for hours after drinking it. Even desperate dieters couldn’t stomach this chemistry experiment gone wrong. Curiously, Tab maintained a dedicated fanbase that really enjoyed the drink – but it wasn’t enough of one to keep Coke from nixing the product.
11. Swatch Watches: Love Them or Hate Them
Swatch revolutionized the watch industry in the 1980s – though some would say this was largely by flooding the market with gaudy timepieces that looked like they came from gumball machines. These Swiss-made monstrosities turned wrists into billboards for bad taste with their eye-searing colors and patterns. The company convinced people to collect multiple pieces of plastic junk instead of investing in one decent watch.
10. Parachute Pants: A Statement Gone Wrong
Parachute pants cursed the ’80s with their insufferable swishing sound and blinding nylon sheen. These glorified trash bags made everyone sound like they were trying to start a fire with their thighs. Break dancers might have needed them, but suburban kids wearing them to math class looked like lost astronauts. The pants’ migration from street culture to shopping malls proved that no style was too ridiculous for ’80s fashion victims.
9. ALF: A Polarizing TV Show
NBC’s “ALF” became a hit show with (some) audiences in the 80s. Many fans loved the sarcastic alien puppet and his suburban adventures with the Tanner family, making the show a ratings success. Others just couldn’t get past ALF’s budget-friendly look and sometimes harsh humor. Like the character himself, the show landed on Earth and split audiences – you either welcomed him into your living room or changed the channel.
8. Plastic Sofa Covers: Comfort or Discomfort?
Plastic sofa covers turned comfortable furniture into sweaty torture devices in countless ’80s homes. These transparent terrors stuck to bare legs like shrink wrap and announced every movement with embarrassing squeaks and crackles. Getting up from these plastic-wrapped prisons meant peeling yourself free like a human band-aid. Only neurotic parents could justify turning their living rooms into life-sized leftover containers, sacrificing comfort for the sake of keeping the good furniture “nice” for guests – and then leaving the covers on when guests actually did show up.
7. Hair Metal Bands: More Style Than Substance?
Hair metal infected the ’80s with bands that spent more time on hairspray than songwriting. Groups like Mötley Crüe and Bon Jovi put on good shows – but there were plenty of wannabes. Instead of talent and practice, many of these glorified cover bands had only eyeliner and aqua net. As far as they were concerned: anyone could become a rock star if they looked the part. They didn’t.
6. Pogo Ball: A Toy That Disappointed
The Pogo Ball tricked kids into thinking they could bounce their way to playground glory, delivering only scraped knees and twisted ankles instead. This wannabe skateboard-pogo stick hybrid sent children face-first into concrete as they struggled to balance on its stupid inflatable donut. The toy’s only reliable feature was its ability to roll away the moment you stepped on it. Parents wasted money on these death traps only to watch them deflate in garage corners, collecting dust with other abandoned fads.
5. Lawn Darts
Lawn darts were basically weighted metal spears sold as family entertainment. Somehow combining the worst aspects of darts and javelins, lawn darts were effectively lethal projectiles. Perfect for ruining barbecues. It took actual deaths for enough of an outrage to build over the realization that giving kids weighted missiles might be a bad idea.
4. Synth Pop: A Polarizing Genre
Synthesizers ignited fierce debates in 1980s music circles. Rock purists saw them as artificial shortcuts that replaced real instruments and musicianship. Meanwhile, artists like New Order and Depeche Mode embraced synths to create fresh sounds that defined the decade. The divide grew as traditional bands added keyboards to stay relevant – some fans celebrated the evolution while others mourned the loss of “authentic” rock. Even mega-stars felt the tension: Genesis faced backlash when Phil Collins steered them toward a synth-heavy sound, though it brought them their biggest hits.
3. Spandex: A Fabric of Exaggeration
Spandex terrorized ’80s fashion by turning everyone into walking sausage casings. This cruel synthetic material exposed every bump, bulge, and body flaw while making people look like they’d been vacuum-sealed into their clothes. Gym wear escaped its natural habitat and infected everyday fashion, forcing everyone to witness strangers’ anatomical details in horrifying clarity. Spandex proved that just because you can squeeze into something doesn’t mean you should, creating a decade of fashion victims who confused compression with style.
2. Fake Fruit: Tacky Decor
Fake fruit arrangements cluttered ’80s homes with the most useless decorations ever created. These plastic abominations, usually dusty and faded, fooled absolutely no one with their waxy surfaces and impossible colors. People actually spent money on purple grapes that could survive a nuclear blast and apples that looked like they came from a toxic waste dump.
1. Paper Fortune Tellers: A Classroom Disruption
Paper fortune tellers plagued ’80s classrooms like a contagious disease of folded paper and wasted time. Kids obsessed over these predictors, creating countless numbers of what was basically just a paper Magic 8 Ball. Teachers suffered through endless confiscations while students transformed perfectly good paper into prophecy machines that always ended in either marriage to the class nerd or dying alone.
