Kevin Bacon Explains The 80s To Millennials [VIDEO]
Kevin Bacon, star of The Following, recently addressed to the Millennials how they don’t know anything about the 80s. Kevin specifically starts with anyone born after the year 1985, since the Millennials, or Generation Y, have no specific year range. It is generally ranged with people born in the early 80s to the early 2000s.
Created by Mashable, the video starts with a very serious vibe, similar to 80s public service announcements about Russia (which I will get to later in this article). The video adjusts from a black screen to Kevin Bacon who explains how society has seriously declined on knowledge about the 80s. Therefore, the video is known as “80s Awareness”.
The first issue Kevin explains is dating. Before social interaction media and cell phones, men had to exclusively talk to the women they wanted to date. If an address was not given during information exchange, the White Pages were utilized. Then after all that work (which probably includes talking to the potential date’s mother for ten to fifteen minutes), they would be rejected.
That is a very summarized explanation of what Kevin explains dating was like in the 80s, but his explanation about Russia is even better.
Back then, Russia was known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or the U.S.S.R. for short. They were the biggest threat to the United States and were the other half in, known in textbooks, as The Cold War. Not fought with guns and soldiers but with politics, The Cold War was a military game of chess between the only two countries, at the time, with nuclear capabilities. Certain moves brought both countries to the brink of World War III. This includes the United States establishing nukes aimed at Russia in Turkey, a country right next to them. In retaliation, Russia placed their nukes in Cuba, a small island country only fifty miles south of Miami, Florida. That event would be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Bacon adds comedic flair to The Cold War by explaining how a buddy of his was skateboarding to Blockbuster, but never made it because he was nuked. The mentioning of Blockbuster is probably another reference to the 80s since video stores were extremely popular. Blockbuster was considered the “big dog” of VHS rental places, followed by Movie Gallery. Both don’t exist anymore because of Netflix and Redbox.
The ending brings it full-circle. Having the video pan to the right as a means of “not paying attention” was smartly done. The Baby Boomers consider the Millenniels a generation that can’t pay attention for more than two minutes. It is funny that Mashable would include this in their video. The end bit about parachute pants may be ironic, though they do feel comfortable. I personally had a pair when I was a kid.
There was one thing missing that Zap2It brought up at the end of their report that would have made this video even better. Kevin Bacon should have mentioned how in the 80s, kids had to walk to school, in the snow, uphill, both ways.
[Image via Youtube screencapture from Mashable]
