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The more I hear people use the phrase ?old school,? the more it sends a shudder down my spine as I realize just how easily we can throw those words around. We?ve all used it and abused it, and I want to know how this adjective made its way into our vocabulary, and are we as college students, circa 20-years-old, even old enough to be labeling things as ?old school??
Most of us are babies of the mid to late ?80s, which means that we?ve had our share of memories from that decade, like the emergence of David Bowie as a film star in the haunting children?s movie ?The Labyrinth? or the popularity of the Easy-Bake Oven that became one of the most dangerous toys ever invented for children. Or maybe you can even think back to the most primitive video game ?Pong? in which hitting a ball back and forth between two paddles on the TV screen was something to talk about. Why did it take us so long to realize this was the world?s lamest video game?
Now two decades later, we can look back at the memories of our childhood for whatever time we spent in the late ?80s to early ?90s, and it becomes obvious that few of us ever really got to experience the stereotypical lifestyle of the ?80s. Though we may have worn the occasional slap bracelet or listened to ?The Right Stuff? by the New Kids on the Block, did we ever really get to experience something of true ?old school? reputation?
Fashion is the first place in which I realize just how little appreciation we have for the trends from before our time. A girl wearing a cheap plastic neon headband 20 years ago would be commended for her superb fashion sense. But wearing the same thing 10 years later, she?d be shunned by society for her out-of-date style; then today someone would probably look at her and say something along the lines of, ?Oh, look how vintage you are!? Vintage? A trend that?s only 20 years old can be considered ?vintage?? That can?t be right.
It all comes down to one major facet of our society that our childhood has been tainted by: technology. Yes, computers have gotten smaller and smarter, and cell phones are no longer the size of a brick like Zack Morris? on ?Saved by the Bell,? but I?m truly shocked by the things that we have completely eliminated from our society because of the more technological alternatives.
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