80s CONSUMER CULTURE A CHC 2D Canadian History Presentation

YUPPIES by far the biggest change sociologically was the recognition of young people working in professional jobs (like law or medicine) who did not want life in the suburbs these urban-loving young workers were called young urban professionals (or yuppies) in the press yuppies came at the same time that the baby boomers had begun focusing on giving their children the same things they had as children

NO WAR the combination resulted in a new type of conservatism that focused on material things — made possible by the fact that there was no major war occurring this decade part of what made these material things attractive was the increase in income that was coming from the booming economy part of what made these material things attractive was they used new technologies to make life easier and a key part of what made these material things attractive was that they were shown on television

PRODUCTS a key example of this was the sportscar Magnum P.I. and Miami Vice drove Ferraris, Dukes Of Hazard drove a Dodge Charger, and Knight Rider drove a modified Pontiac Trans Am Pontiac, however, had to change the name of the car for actual sale because too many people were asking for the built-in features of the artificially intelligent K.I.T.T., like a button that accelerated quickly and allowed for jumping over things

CABBAGE PATCH the biggest consumer phenomenon of the decade was the Cabbage Patch doll the premise of the doll was that each baby was born in a cabbage patch and needed parents an adoption certificate came with each doll, which was supposed to be unique

CABBAGE PATCH they were the hottest Christmas present of the year the dolls, however, could not be produced fast enough it came to a point that radio stations would announce in the morning which stores had received dolls overnight there was pushing and shoving to get the dolls as mothers fought to make their daughters happy by getting one there was pushing and shoving to get the dolls as mothers fought to make their daughters happy by getting one in one famous moment, a girl had the doll taken out of her hands by another mother in the store in one famous moment, a girl had the doll taken out of her hands by another mother in the store

TRIVIAL PURSUIT the hottest item out of Canada was Trivial Pursuit Horn & Abbott were reporters at the Montreal Gazette who got bored of buying new Scrabble games every time they lost some tiles and decided to make their own game they sold shares to whoever they could, and even paid off some of the employees with those shares it started off costing more per copy than what it sold for by the end, each share was worth millions… and the company sold to Hasbro Toys

NEW COKE not every product succeeded Coca-Cola famously changed their formula in 1985 to “New Coke” but consumers did not like it it didn’t help that spokesman Bill Cosby’s first commercial for the New Coke said it was sweeter when it was supposed to be less sweet

NEW COKE because it wasn’t changed in all districts, Americans were driving across the border to Mexico to get the old formula Coke reintroduced the classic formula with a new spokesman: Max Headroom, the first computer- generated character

PET ROCK not every item made sense either one of the popular phenomenon was the “Pet Rock”

NEW BUSINESS on the home video front, consumers were stuck choosing between VHS and Betamax Betamax was better but didn’t have entries from all the studios like VHS did in the end, VHS won the “format war” however, to buy a movie on video was quite expensive Star Wars cost over $100 for the VHS ($250 today) so some entrepreneurs got a bright idea

NEW BUSINESS approaching the studios, they offered to buy copies at a higher price so long as they got permission to rent out the copies for a profit this was the invention of the video store local and national chains began to appear all across North America the price of movies on VHS did not drop until the end of the decade, when WB decided to see what would happen if Batman was sold at $10 a tape