Those responsible for this first wave were born and raised in the decade itself, and time had given them just enough space from the politics and decadence to allow for a certain rosy tint by the time Y2K rolled around.Įnter Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The headline has given away where I think those roots lie, so let’s get straight into investigating why I think Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is ultimately responsible for society’s current ’80s obsession.Īs Diak stated in the opening quote, ’80s nostalgia has been seeping into our culture since as far back as the turn of the millennium. Whether it’s the straight-faced homage to Kingian horror in Stranger Things or the more flamboyantly tongue-in-cheek parody of American Horror Story: 1984, it’s hard to deny that the world is in love with the glamour and excess of the decade.īut what is the origin of this last decade’s sudden burst of nostalgia? Stranger Things is often cited as the obvious starting point for the slew of ’80s-inspired media in the last 5 years, but I think the likes of Stranger Things are symptoms, not a cause. Reverence for the 1980s has been a huge part of our culture over the last decade.

Nicholas Diak, Lost Nights and Dangerous Days: Unraveling the Relationship Between Stranger Things and Synthwave For the artisans, musicians, writers and other creative types of the generation, elements of their youth found their way into their output and ’80s retro began to take off.”

Late-stage Gen-Xers and Millennials that had grown up in the ’80s had reached adulthood in the 2000s. “Starting in the 2000s, after the success of the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, attitudes towards the ‘80s shifted from parody and ambivalence to that of homage and reverence.

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