Quality cereal box toys. Saturday morning cartoons. Cassette tapes. Action figures that genuinely look like the people they’re supposed to be. What do these things have in common? They play a large role in childhood. They are golden. And they happened in the 80’s.

Imagination. Adventure. Exploration. What do these things have in common? They are golden. And they are gone.

The cancellation of the Space Program in 2010 marked the final demise of exploration of the infinite world into a world that is now all-known. We have maps of the world down to every island, every river, every tree. We know them all. We know where they are. We know their names. We can look up their websites and blogs and podcasts. With a single click we can see and read and know anything and everything we want from the comfort of an ergonomic chair at just the right height for us to stare into vibrantly colorful 24″ screens. There is no longer anything to discover or truly explore. It’s all been seen and done before. Gone, even, is a child’s hopeful and exciting imagining of what could be out there, what could be new. Children dream about becoming police officers or firefighters – why? To become a hero, to help people. But why did children dream of becoming astronauts? For the adventure; the idea of discovery, of the unknown. Gone.

With it, the ideal childhood flees. Sunny Saturday mornings spent on a couch watching cartoons and afternoon pick-up baseball games and backyard jungles for favorite action figures to conquer are replaced by screens screens screens and screens between. Internet, Prime Time TV, the latest blockbuster video games; 4″ screens carried around in pockets everywhere: there is no escape. From waking to falling back asleep to a restless dreamland, childhood is no longer the tranquil land of discovery and imagination that it once was.  It is sucked into cyberspace and is over before it begins.

Anyway, that is why the 80’s were golden.  Enough technology to have Saturday morning cartoons, portable canned music, action figures, and movie theaters, but adventure and The Unknown were still incredibly present. Now… in the words of a certain pirate, “The world’s not smaller. There’s just less in it.”

Reasons the 80’s Were Golden (OR: Why I’m Bitter About the Space Program)