Everything was indeed brown.

There’s this meme from a while ago that observes the fact that the 80’s and early 90’s weren’t as colourful and flashy as most media make them out to be. In fact almost everything ranging from clothing to furniture to advertising was a drab shade ranging between dark brown to orange.

Every once in a while you’d get a toy or a household appliance that would be a bright neon colour and it would be considered hi tech advanced fancy stuff (until it broke the next day).

Nowadays you’d have to look hard for dark brown/orange drab stuff. They make dark brown/orange stuff but it usually is made of a veneer of fancy wood and it’ll cost you an arm and a leg. (And then it breaks the very next day)

258 points · 62 comments · view on lemmy.world

62 Comments

ech@lemmy.ca · 63 pts · 183d (2 replies)

Easier to ignore the nicotine stains.

affenlehrer@feddit.org · 36 pts · 183d (1 reply)

And the burn holes...

RelativeArea1@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 183d

and covert shit stains

Zahille7@lemmy.world · 41 pts · 183d (2 replies)

Personally I feel like it was 50/50. All the interior at-home stuff was drab and gross, but a lot of the outerwear and clothing (not what your grandma would wear) was fairly vibrant.

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 183d (1 reply)

And hangin with mr cooper had squiggly neon lines that were never explained and never referenced.

It's literally all I remember about that show

anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 182d

Trapper Keeper chic

borkborkbork@piefed.social · 32 pts · 182d (2 replies)

You always knew houses with smokers and without. Hit you walking in the door and put a sepia tint on reality - walls, popcorn ceiling, all kinds of shit. But what kids today will never know:

Plastic covered furniture. People covered their couches and easy chairs with plastic. it was wild.

Google it, people had fitted plastic covers made for all their furniture. I don't know if anyone ever took the covers off "oh the pope is coming over let's go all out" attitude but it was a distinct thing.

shneancy@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 182d (1 reply)

yeah that makes sense, my grandma only ever uses the good china for christmas and that's it. the only reason she'd whip it out twice in a year would indeed be if the pope came to visit her

borkborkbork@piefed.social · 2 pts · 182d

at least with the china she's already getting out the dishes. with the plastic, I have no idea how long it would take to strip the furniture, but it's not a quick process lol. it was so strange.

tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 28 pts · 182d (2 replies)

I wore shit like this out of the house, because of how amazingly fucking cool I was

FreddiesLantern@leminal.space · 11 pts · 182d (1 reply)

Holy shit, don’t tell me, you had a powerglove?

tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 13 pts · 182d

Thorry@feddit.org · 23 pts · 183d (6 replies)

You often see the super colorful 80s in pop culture. But at the time there was also another movement going on where everything was black, white, metal and glass. I remember white rugs, a black leather couch with stainless metal, glass and black metal coffee table. Walls painted black or made entirely out of glass bricks. People wearing black and white clothes with sunglasses on. A lot of it was super classy and I wouldn't mind having that in my home again. It was one of the first times in my life I remember home decoration being aligned with fashion, and people doing interior design.

starlinguk@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 183d (1 reply)

I was a teenager in the eighties. I remember a "jungle" trend (khaki), purple paisley, bottle green, grey with abstract prints, light pink and grey t-shirts with the sleeves cut off and lapis blue. I have NO idea where the idea of "it was all neon" comes from.

XeroxCool@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 182d

The idea comes from the fact that there's multiple concurrent trends at any given time. But also the BTTF posters. Also consider how the monochrome movement made neon stand out even more than it did during the vibrant 60s and 70s. And yet, all of this varies greatly by region. We're all seemingly assuming USA, so an NYC/LA experience will not match Birmingham or Dallas

SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 182d (2 replies)

Sounds like the last holdover of modernism before the nineties kicked in. And also expensive.

Thorry@feddit.org · 6 pts · 182d (1 reply)

Yes! I definitely had the huge ass tower of stereo equipment. It was a Philips branded stack and the main volume knob had a little red light on it, when you used the remote to put the volume up or down, it actually rotated the knob! It blew my mind when I saw that, so I just had to have it. It had a dual cassette deck, with fast rewind and fast copy options. A very good CD player, AM/FM radio and an amp with EQ. I think there was an option for records, but I didn't have that, this was the 80s we needed high tech! The CD player had stuff like random order, lead-in, lead-out, etc. Mine was all black with little silver metal trims. Big ass speakers that weren't optimized for volume or bass like these days, but for excellent sound quality and clarity.

I also had the glass shelves with a whole bunch of CDs and one of those towers where you put in the CDs at a 45 degree angle.

Man those were the days.

SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 182d

the main volume knob had a little red light on it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOdrpe1CUJg

RustySharp@programming.dev · 2 pts · 182d

Not to mention the 2000s video game aesthetics, where everything is "gritty" and is a shade of brown & grey. The drabness never went away, they just changed media.

daannii@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 183d

Wood paneling. Everywhere.
Brown carpet. Everywhere.

Anything that had been white was stained by cigarette smoke.

Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 183d (5 replies)

Including all the leaves, apparently.

I heard rumors that the sky was of a grey hue.

I heard it from someone who'd been on a walk on a winter's day.

Jesus_666@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 183d (2 replies)

In the 80s the sky was the color of a dead TV channel and it was overcast.

In the 00s the sky was the color of a dead TV channel and it was clear.

Today nobody knows what a dead TV channel is supposed to look like.

Zanshi@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 182d (1 reply)

Today dead channels are either blue or black with a floating "no signal" because the signal is not analog anymore

Jesus_666@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 182d

Honestly, given that TV viewership is falling and people are increasingly using on-demand services instead of tuning in, I'd argue that 404 error pages and NXDOMAIN browser error pages are in the process of replacing the dead channel conceptually.

bstix@feddit.dk · 4 pts · 182d (1 reply)

That song was written in 1963 in New York.

Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 182d

The prevailing colors of winter probably didn't change much in the 20-30 intervening years, though 🤷

over_clox@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 183d (3 replies)

Pressure wash the smoke/nicotine stains, sun dry it for a few days, and replace the indoor Incandescent lights with white LED lights..

Its probably not nearly as dark and drab if cleaned up and placed under good modern white lighting..

mholiv@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 183d (2 replies)

Do - do you like the 5000k bulbs? Do people consider cool white lighting to be modern?

moonshadow@slrpnk.net · 6 pts · 182d

There's no way, no one likes the 5000k bulbs. They're for BMW drivers and aliens performing abductions

over_clox@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 182d

Oh to hell with 5000k bulbs, that's just too damn blindingly bright white! I just mean sensibly whiter and brighter than the inherently yellow color of incandescent bulbs.

foodandart@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 183d

My grandparents had that sofa - same print pattern but in a blue-gray. Holee shit.

kahjtheundedicated@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 183d (3 replies)

In the not-so-distant future we’ll look back and say everything the 2020s really was just grey, wasn’t it?

starlinguk@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 183d

Grey, black and beige.

stelelor@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 182d (1 reply)

We already do. It's all grey, greige, white, off-white. If feeling adventurous, add taupe accents and light wood. "Soothing" my ass, it all gives mental institute vibes.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 182d

they call it millenial grey for a reason. ugh.

Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 182d (2 replies)

I can smell the potpourri.

Themosthighstrange@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 182d

I can smell stale smoke

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 182d

No, that's fondue.

twistypencil@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 183d (1 reply)

This does not track with my reality

FreddiesLantern@leminal.space · 4 pts · 183d

Thank you for your multiverse theory confirming comment. 🙏

Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 183d

The biggest point a relative of mine made when building a house in the mid 90s, at which point people were getting colorful with home decor again, was that there was NOT going to be anything brown in it, haha.

Zier@fedia.io · 7 pts · 183d (2 replies)

60's Paisley, tie dye & macrame 70's Brown, orange & golden yellow. Plus a little beige. 80's Neon, black, sparkly, & hairspray. 90's pastel colors plus burgundy and forest green.

FreddiesLantern@leminal.space · 4 pts · 183d (1 reply)

Turns out I grew up among hand down materials from the previous decade.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 182d

they're remembering what was at the tail of the decades, so hey

Lojcs@piefed.social · 6 pts · 182d (2 replies)

Lasagna couch

db2@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 182d (1 reply)

*Davenport

Adderbox76@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 182d

*Davenport

Chesterfield actually. "Davenport" was a name brand of chesterfiled-style-sofa that became popular enough to become synonymous (Like Kleenex became synonymous with tissues, or Chapagne became synonymous with almost any bubbly wine)

Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 183d (2 replies)

In the 90s we had..

Blue couch, black chairs, gray carpet, etc

I dont recall anything brown, except a couple of wooden furniture pieces like my bed, which was from like .. 1930ish (with a new mattress)

SGforce@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 183d

My dad had bright pink inflatable furniture from the 70's. Grandma's house looked like OP's pic.

starlinguk@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 183d

I had a bright orange sofa and yellow walls.

fibojoly@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 183d (1 reply)

New presidential couches?!

FreddiesLantern@leminal.space · 3 pts · 183d

“We’ve got the best 👌brownest couches 🛋️ you’ve ever seen 👀 I gotta say 👐,.. Epstein.”

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 182d (1 reply)

i was going to say, this is the worst representative couch. i remember a lot of stripey couches with oranges.

FreddiesLantern@leminal.space · 3 pts · 182d

It’s a random picture I found.

I mostly remember brown green velvety material with lots of oak. A sort of mocka colour like the picture.

After that during the 90’s I had the luxury of growing up with fancy black leather couches. ❤️

buzz86us@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 182d

Ugh this was my mom's furniture

GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 182d
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lightnsfw@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 182d

My grandparents had this exact couch and 2 chairs with the same pattern.

acme401@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 182d (2 replies)

The sky was yellow and the sun was blue

Battle_Masker@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 182d (1 reply)

I thought leaves were brown and the sky was gray

acme401@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 182d

Depends on what drugs you took

SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 182d

Ngl i saw the thumbnail and thought it was like dinner rolls or some kind of bread

artiman@piefed.social · 2 pts · 182d

i sat on this exact couch

hanrahan@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 182d

Good for Trump for when he shits himself again

three@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 183d
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bacon_pdp@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 182d
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