This '80s high school video is like, totally making us question teen looks back then
By Greg SullivanSept. 12 2024, Updated 1:34 p.m. ET
Stumbling onto an old video can bring about some disorienting revelations. A video from the late eighties, simply captioned, "Students in a 1987 high school," was recently posted to Reddit and X, leaving many people on the internet scratching their heads and wondering why high school students from that era appear so, well... old.
The video was shared to Reddit by user _roldie and features scenes of students in a classroom, moving through the halls, and making funny faces, all in the clothes and hair-dos of the era. Laid over the video is the famous line from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off": "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it," over the track "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears.
As viewers watched the footage, many couldn't believe these were high school students. X user @somefunandjames, remarked, "It truly never makes sense to me how teenagers in any decade before Y2K, always looked VASTLY older than what we looked like growing up. Like we(born in the early 90s)looked like kids. These people are adults." One commenter, leodog13, shared a bit of insight. "Class of 1989. We were all trying to look older. That way you wouldn't get carded getting booze."
@pennytweets97 concurred, suggesting, "(...) it's mainly the hairstyles. and they wanted to look older I think ppl weren't trying to look young." littleliongirless agreed, adding "If your bangs were not going both up and down, like dudette, do you even aquanet?"
@jbrower73, who was a freshman in 1987, provided some insight into the beauty standards of the time: "I was a freshman in 1987. Our makeup was different. We didn’t use concealer/bronzer/highlighter/etc. It was basically a liquid foundation, pressed powder, blush, eye shadow, eyeliner, and mascara. No blending, primer, etc, or YT videos to teach us how ;)"
The buzz around this gnarly video shows just how much our ideas about teenage looks have flipped. From the big hair to the bold makeup, '80s high schoolers definitely had a different groove.
This article was originally published on June 3, 2024. It has since been updated.
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