The 1980s delivered some genuinely revolutionary tech and trends—along with a few spectacular duds that make today’s gadgets look like alien technology. From music players the size of textbooks to phones that required actual physical labor, these 20 relics shaped the decade before progress left them gathering dust. Curious which retro “essentials” made the cut and why they’re now about as useful as a chocolate teapot? Buckle up for this nostalgic ride through obsolescence.
20. MTV
MTV once ruled music discovery before reality TV hijacked the airwaves.
MTV dominated youth culture in the 1980s, serving as the main channel for music videos and the ultimate tastemaker. Those “I Want My MTV” commercials weren’t just marketing—they were cultural battle cries. Fast forward a few decades, and suddenly you’re watching reality shows instead of Guns N’ Roses videos.
YouTube and streaming platforms now deliver music videos instantly, making MTV’s original format feel like trading a vintage guitar for a plastic ukulele. The channel that introduced countless bands eventually grew up and moved out, leaving digital platforms to throw the wild music parties.
19. Shopping Malls
Malls served as the original social networks, complete with food courts and teenage drama.
Some sociologists report that up to 80% of American teenagers in the 1980s considered malls their primary social destination. For a generation that wasn’t swiping right, cementing friendships over pretzel bites and Orange Julius was peak bonding. These retail hubs functioned as analog social networks, long before anyone thought about “like” buttons.
Online shopping’s rise turned bustling social centers into ghost towns worthy of B-movie sets. What used to buzz with after-school meetups and weekend hangouts now sits eerily quiet, prime real estate for zombie apocalypse films rather than teenage social scenes.
18. Neon Clothing
Neon fashion screamed “I’m here to party” louder than any social media post ever could.
“I Want My MTV” wasn’t just a jingle—it was a lifestyle manifesto, and neon clothing served as its uniform. Splashed across windbreakers and jelly shoes, these radioactive hues announced your presence like a walking highlighter. Today’s retro parties prove some fashion statements boomerang back with the persistence of a bad rash.
Anyone attempting to rock a neon tracksuit at the gym now risks blinding fellow fitness enthusiasts. Fashion’s cyclical nature makes neon’s comeback feel less like nostalgia and more like the universe trolling us all over again.
17. Walkmans
The Walkman turned personal music into a clippable status symbol that announced your cool factor.
Clipping a Walkman to your belt basically broadcast to the world: “I have personal music and you don’t.” The satisfying click of a cassette locking in delivered ASMR before TikTok existed. Picture this: untangling headphone cords before a school dance, only to discover dead batteries.
Smartphones may dominate music consumption now, but the Walkman pioneered portable personal soundtracks. Rewinding tapes with a pencil became a core memory, making us feel like stars in our own music videos decades before “stories” became a thing.
16. Answering Machines
These devices let you screen calls like a pro before caller ID ruined the mystery.
Answering machines once provided essential call-dodging capabilities, allowing you to decide whether someone deserved your immediate attention. Those outgoing greetings became performative art, mixing professionalism with personality years before social media turned everyone into walking brands.
Caller ID delivered the killing blow, revealing who was calling before you picked up. These screening champions faded into obscurity, replaced by voicemail and messaging apps that stripped away the theatrical element of avoiding unwanted conversations.
15. Video Rental Stores
Friday night Blockbuster runs were family expeditions with higher stakes than choosing a college major.
Missing out on new releases felt like personal betrayal, thanks to everyone else deciding Friday was movie night. The ritual involved browsing endless rows of tapes, enduring the disappointment of every copy of The Goonies being checked out, and that distinctive stale popcorn aroma that defined the experience.
Picture Netflix, but requiring you to leave the house. The hunt for elusive titles, agonizing over just 2 movie choices, and the sting of late fees created drama that made selecting entertainment feel genuinely consequential.
14. Arcades
Quarters made kids temporary royalty in neon-lit kingdoms of beeps and bloops.
Local arcades, with their siren songs of electronic sounds, transformed allowance money into gaming glory. Standing in line with 25 cents, waiting for your Street Fighter turn like it was the DMV, built character and competitive spirit simultaneously.
The clink of quarters hitting metal trays provided the soundtrack to adolescent dreams. Landing high scores felt like lottery victories, complete with sweaty-palmed strangers witnessing your dominance. Online gaming lacks that real-world thrill of physical victory celebrations.
13. VHS Tapes and VCRs
“Be kind, rewind” wasn’t just a slogan—it was a public service announcement for civilized society.
VHS tapes let you watch movies at home, assuming you owned a VCR—that clunky box making your TV stand look like a failed tech experiment. The satisfying “thk” sound of inserting tapes came with prayers that previous renters hadn’t treated them like coasters.
Rolling dice at video stores meant grabbing scratched copies and hoping for the best. You’d fast-forward through previews, watching tapes blur like time warps until movies started—maybe. Streaming eliminated that charming Russian roulette of rental entertainment.
12. Rotary Phones
Dialing once required precious minutes and serious finger commitment, one rotation at a time.
Explaining to Gen Z that “dialing” involved waiting for mechanical rotations feels like describing ancient rituals. Anyone who’s waited for that dial to lazily circle back to zero after hitting a 9 understands the patience these devices demanded.
Calling for pizza meant hoping lines weren’t busy—no redial buttons existed. Busy signals required starting the painstaking process over. Character-building? Absolutely. Efficient? About as much as accidentally super-gluing your fingers together. A far cry from todays smartphones.
11. Boom Boxes
These shoulder-mounted stereos turned every sidewalk into a personal concert venue.
Boom boxes were the ultimate spectacle—blasting tunes from your shoulder like musical badges of honor. If your mixtape was fire, everyone within a 10-block radius knew it. These portable stereos required batteries and back strength but delivered neighborhood-wide soundtrack capabilities.
Picture strolling down Main Street with your boom box thumping, turning the world into your personal music video. Spontaneous block parties erupted—no permits required, just good vibes and questionable lyrics. Small wireless speakers handle the job now but lack that raw, untamed boom box spirit.
10. Trapper Keepers
These Velcro-fastened organizers were the original status symbols for pre-teen life management.
For Gen X students, Trapper Keepers weren’t just school supplies—they were low-key flexes. Colorful, over-the-top designs transformed these Velcro-closed binders into fashion statements that screamed organizational mastery, even when contents resembled chaotic Jackson Pollock paintings.
The promise was simple: turn backpack chaos into organized bliss. Reality involved Velcro fasteners creating constant classroom noise and overstuffed designs resembling burst piñatas. At least you looked cool while failing spectacularly at staying organized.
9. Aquanet Hairspray and Big Hair
Hair became architectural marvels that defied gravity and probably violated EPA regulations.
In the 1980s, hair wasn’t just hair—it was a statement attempting to touch the sky, sculpted with Aquanet into immovable fortresses against gravity and good taste. Modern influencers wouldn’t stand a chance against that level of aerosol commitment.
Fitting into convertibles with sky-high hair required engineering degrees. Those follicular architectural marvels turned every strand into structural achievements. Today’s flexible, touchable styles pale in comparison to those gravity-defying monuments to excess.
8. Dot Matrix Printers
These angry mechanical bees disguised as printers taught patience through pixelated torture.
The sound alone questioned your sanity. These clunky, noisy workhorses delivered pixelated print quality that made cave paintings look crisp. Operating them became crash courses in patience—skills now reserved for therapy sessions and IKEA furniture assembly.
Racing to print reports before deadlines meant enduring sounds like angry bees attacking typewriters. 15-minute waits to watch text slowly materialize on multi-part forms built character, if character means accepting that instant gratification wasn’t always possible.
7. Parachute Pants
These swishy fashion statements announced arrivals and departures with symphonic precision.
Some fashion historians predict parachute pants will storm TikTok with the force of a thousand swishes. Practical pockets overflowed with essentials while the signature swish-swish symphony announced your presence long before visual confirmation.
Anyone who rocked parachute pants understood subtlety wasn’t the goal. If they’re making comebacks, designers better reinforce those seams—the next generation will dance their way through them with unprecedented enthusiasm.
6. Water Beds
These vinyl water bags promised luxury but delivered maintenance nightmares and potential indoor floods.
“Floating on luxurious, sloshy clouds” was the promise until reality introduced cold water temperatures and constant maintenance requirements. Springing leaks transformed relaxing bedrooms into slip-and-slide disasters, redecorating with 200 gallons of unplanned interior water features.
Anyone who’s wrestled unexpected home repairs knows the unique panic of waking to soggy carpets and furniture islands. For deep sleep seekers, maybe stick with beds that won’t spontaneously redecorate your space with indoor pools.
5. Floppy Disks
These 1.44 megabyte squares held entire digital lives until a single scratch destroyed everything.
Remember when complete digital existence fit into 3.5-inch squares? These technological marvels were crucial for file sharing and game saving—until they weren’t. Relying on floppy disks was like using carrier pigeons when everyone else had email.
Floppy disks carried the constant threat of deletion via scratches or stray magnets. Losing hours of work to corrupted disks delivered unique pain—like watching meticulously built Sims houses burn because you forgot electric bills. Cloud storage eliminated those fragile storage nightmares.
4. Fax Machines
These screeching document transporters made sending papers feel like vintage email with sound effects.
Sending documents in minutes felt revolutionary until paper jams introduced you to fax machine symphony concerts. Once crucial for quick document transmission, these relics succumbed to instant messaging that cuts through communication like hot knives through butter.
Urgent contracts required feeding papers into machines, enduring dial-up modem sound effects, and praying recipient machines had adequate paper supplies. Scanning and emailing documents now feels as simple as snapping selfies—no papercuts, toner cartridges, or drama required.
3. Camcorders
These shoulder-busting video cameras captured memories in potato quality but with golden charm.
Shoulder-mounted camcorders delivered video quality rivaling abstract art, complete with shaky zooms and heavy breathing soundtracks. Every family event became narrated by someone’s respiratory patterns echoing through built-in microphones.
Gen Z shoots 4K footage on pocket-sized devices, trading film crews for phone booths in convenience. Those blurry, old-school videos retain certain charm—reminders that perfection isn’t always the point, sometimes it’s just about capturing dogs chasing tails.
2. Pagers
These Milky Way-sized devices made you feel important until smartphones eliminated the callback hunt.
Before sliding into DMs, important people carried pagers—little devices about candy bar size that provided the only away-from-landline communication option. Receiving beeps delivered secret agent thrills, signaling demand or at least urgent medical consultations.
These pre-smartphone relics required callbacks and commitment to chase signals while hunting payphones with pockets full of change. The same urgent messages now delivered instantly to wrists once involved frantic searches and spare change management.
1. Phone Book
These thousand-page paper bricks served as original social networks before Google’s digital takeover.
The Yellow Pages represented massive paper connections to your community—flipping through endless pages felt like workouts, each turn promising business discoveries. Reaching for those hefty volumes now feels as absurd as using carrier pigeons for email communication.
Google dethroned phone books like tech-savvy usurpers, replacing column navigation with instant query results. While you once spent minutes searching for numbers, digital searches deliver immediate answers without the satisfaction—or papercuts—of analog discovery.
Last modified: December 3, 2025
About the Author: Eric L.
