Fotomat's Greatest Hits
April 6, 2021 8:45 PM   Subscribe

The Internet K-Hole is back: A vast amount of very amateur snapshots taken from the mid-1970s to mid-1990s, with absolutely no other context provided or needed. Mostly a whole bunch of people I've never seen before... but if I scroll long enough—hours maybe—I will see an image of myself somewhere, I am sure of it. NSFW warning: a minute amount of lite smut compared to the gargantuan size of the collection; however, the second picture in the latest post happens to be of a butt. The one after that it is Lemmy in a hotel room. Then comes the panopoly of randos. [ previously | via ]
posted by not_on_display (106 comments total) 45 users marked this as a favorite
 
Feeling that Kodachrome vibe.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:07 PM on April 6, 2021 [1 favorite]


There is just such amazing hair in so many of these pictures. I don't miss the actual 1980s, but I do miss some of the extravagant fashion choices.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:20 PM on April 6, 2021 [2 favorites]


I've probably spent more time thinking about the NSFW content of IKH than I have about the site in general, just because it's tempting to make it a work time-waster, and the nudie shots are just infrequent enough to lull you into thinking that the mysterious proprietor of the site might have simply run out... then bam, NSFW. And a fair number of them aren't the usual Polaroid candids, but actual commercial porn, as if this mystery person either thinks that the site needs occasional spicing up, or specifically doesn't want people looking at it at work and deliberately salts the ground, as it were.

But anyway, yeah, lots of nostalgia here. If you were an early punk or goth, I think that there's a pretty fair chance that you will show up here, especially if your relatives are the type to dump boxes of old photos into their yard sales.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:52 PM on April 6, 2021 [2 favorites]


Well "Jewish Lesbian Witches" FTW


Also
posted by mbo at 10:11 PM on April 6, 2021 [14 favorites]


Huh, there's a lot of Caltech photos at the top at the moment. The Viking stuff, the arched hallway with the bikes, the rock climbing and juggling guys with the A Jugglr plate.
posted by mwalimu at 10:16 PM on April 6, 2021 [3 favorites]


Production values are so much higher today.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:30 PM on April 6, 2021 [4 favorites]


I'm pretty sure I knew one of the guys in the juggling van photo (and might be able to guess the other guy, although he wasn't a Caltech man).

White socks with a big stripe on the top were not, in retrospect, anywhere near as cool looking as we thought they were.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 10:37 PM on April 6, 2021 [2 favorites]


It's creep shots all the way down.

PS. I got as far as the photo of the pet lion then gave up.
posted by Beholder at 10:42 PM on April 6, 2021


All of that late 70's / early 80's decor makes me homesick.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:53 PM on April 6, 2021 [9 favorites]


I can literally smell the stale cigarette funk in these pictures, accented by the occasional whiff of Jōvan Musk and/or unwashed hair
posted by Doleful Creature at 10:59 PM on April 6, 2021 [15 favorites]


This is like salted peanuts for me. I had to stop.
I will scroll till i get sick.
posted by quazichimp at 11:06 PM on April 6, 2021 [8 favorites]


The detail in the background of the photos is also fascinating and causing me to scroll even more slowly.

Also, this: "What, my Nana's backstage? NANA!! HEY NAAANNNAAAA! Over here! Come here get in this picture with us!!"
posted by not_on_display at 11:10 PM on April 6, 2021 [5 favorites]


Yeah, did the jugglers ever free up their van? And site swaps were invented/popularized at Caltech, in the late 80s/early 90s, first published on the venerable juggling@indycms listserv. I once got to pass 10 beanbags with one of those CalTech dudes, which was amazing as it sounds.
posted by morspin at 11:44 PM on April 6, 2021


Metafilter: there's kind of Alot of Butts.
posted by away for regrooving at 12:51 AM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


I love this elephant in the room. Also, dude.
posted by away for regrooving at 12:56 AM on April 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


2021
posted by away for regrooving at 12:59 AM on April 7, 2021


For me, I did not see any "pro porn" but some nudes. What struck me is every once in a while there would be celebrities, Madonna or Iron Maiden for example. Like, the real people. And they looked no more styled or organised than the randoms. Strange. The one with Madonna, I was "ooh I remember those Bundeswehr shirts, oh she is dressing like Madonna... hey wait a minute that IS Madonna." WTF?

And it seems like in 1985 drinking beer until you puked and passed out was a big thing, I thought it was just me.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:40 AM on April 7, 2021 [8 favorites]


I once got to pass 10 beanbags with one of those CalTech dudes, which was amazing as it sounds.

It sounds painful.
posted by thelonius at 3:12 AM on April 7, 2021 [9 favorites]


So many people have been alive.
posted by Balthamos at 3:50 AM on April 7, 2021 [14 favorites]


In a manner of speaking.
posted by y2karl at 4:10 AM on April 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


These are your parents back when they still had fun.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:14 AM on April 7, 2021 [7 favorites]


Wood paneling, everything is orange, brown or green...yep, this was my childhood. If I ever own a house, I would legit like to have a wood-panelled basement because back in the day that was always the fun room in whoever's house you were at.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:29 AM on April 7, 2021 [9 favorites]


Welp, there's another mark on my "So you're getting old" meter: I just caught myself tilting my head trying to look around the attractive person in a bathing suit to get a better look at the (I think) gen-1 rx-7. MOVE, I NEED TO SEE THE WING MIRROR.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:59 AM on April 7, 2021 [19 favorites]


I love seeing the old school goths. Inspiration, to be sure, though I have neither the time or desire to get my hair like that.
posted by SansPoint at 5:23 AM on April 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


NO WAIT THERE'S A JENSEN INTERCEPTOR LATER!
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:23 AM on April 7, 2021 [5 favorites]


I don’t mind the butts at all, but the toddler in the micro bikini struck me as straight child abuse. Wtf.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:47 AM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


Ah yes, there it is again, that absolutely exquisite note of grief which only Internet K-Hole can hit.
posted by EatTheWeek at 6:01 AM on April 7, 2021 [15 favorites]


I like the Christmas photos of kids with new shredder guitars. Now to spent two hours a day trying to learn sweep picking when you can't play "Happy Birthday" yet.
posted by thelonius at 6:12 AM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


I keep meaning to put a site like this up with shit I find in people's records. The number of people who hid naked Polaroids inside their album jackets is astounding. The weirdest thing is checking the condition of their records in their homes while their in the next room and finding nude pictures of them from 40 years ago.
posted by dobbs at 6:20 AM on April 7, 2021 [7 favorites]


Is there a word, perhaps in German, for simultaneously wanting to wallow in these and flee the room screaming?
posted by jquinby at 6:29 AM on April 7, 2021 [10 favorites]


> The number of people who hid naked Polaroids inside their album jackets is astounding.

I too have found some interesting shit inside album covers (ancient dried-out nuggets of weed a few times), but never a naked Polaroid.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:50 AM on April 7, 2021


These photos illustrated to me how what you remember isn't really how it was like in many cases.

As mentioned above, the outlandish 80s fashions are pretty jarring. I don't remember them being so hideous when I was living through that time period.
posted by drstrangelove at 6:50 AM on April 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


So white.
posted by sudogeek at 6:51 AM on April 7, 2021 [6 favorites]


The best part of this photo might be the spare D batteries.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:53 AM on April 7, 2021 [4 favorites]


I don't care if you're just posting for a picture, get the guitar out of the water.
posted by Gray Duck at 7:05 AM on April 7, 2021 [3 favorites]


I was a literal baby in the 1980s but I just found someone in here who looks so much like me that I'm genuinely kind of freaked out.
posted by theodolite at 7:14 AM on April 7, 2021 [3 favorites]


L-i-v-i-n.
posted by heteronym at 7:36 AM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


Real telephones!!
posted by JanetLand at 7:44 AM on April 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


Wow, Robert Smith really photobombed a lot of these. He got around.
posted by Snowishberlin at 7:52 AM on April 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


Real telephones!!

Lounging around the house, hoping that Dog will answer
posted by thelonius at 7:54 AM on April 7, 2021


Girl with Michael Jackson / E.T. poster is the apotheosis of the collection.
posted by Nelson at 7:57 AM on April 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


Agreed, but this one is a contender.
posted by JanetLand at 8:02 AM on April 7, 2021 [7 favorites]



Agreed, but this one is a contender.
posted by JanetLand at 10:02 AM on April 7 [1 favorite +] [!]


Pre-internet A-B testing?
posted by hwestiii at 8:18 AM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


i don't want to use the word homesick as that's not right. and nostalgia isn't right either. so i'll go with timesick.

these pics make me feel like i'm reading a douglas coupland novel. i often get the feeling that smart phones and the internet and the immediacy of knowledge and the immediacy of social networks and the vacuous echo of social networks has made us too smart, too worldly, to membery of the global community-y (in a bad way), and yet wayyyy too inwardly focused....

and this sort of thing makes me long for when neighbors and cousins were there as lifetime fixtures, not short term irritations or tolerances. Maybe, as an authentically midwestern, middle aged dad, i'm just genetically predisposed to feel that way.

think i'll go read microserfs and/or generation X again.
posted by chasles at 8:30 AM on April 7, 2021 [13 favorites]


This is the kind of thing I will leave open in a browswer and go look at throughout the day in short bursts. I mean . . .
posted by archimago at 8:33 AM on April 7, 2021 [3 favorites]


The utter incomprehensibility of time.
posted by From Bklyn at 8:51 AM on April 7, 2021 [5 favorites]


You know, I've taken no small comfort in the fact that I was born in a time where there wasn't a panopticon surrounding my childhood and adolescence, and that the regrettable moments were lost to the mists of time and memory.

But no.

THIS IS HUBRIS AND IT BREAKS THE TIMELINE MAN. WE WENT TOO FAR.
posted by jquinby at 8:52 AM on April 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


For when you've reached the end (is there an end?)...

...more of this kind of thing at Foundphotos, which I haven't looked at in a long time, because I got the impression it had gone to sleep, but still seems to have continued updating in the meantime.
posted by illongruci at 9:02 AM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


Genuine question: why are we all ok with this? 'Found things' sites always leave me with a very icky feeling of privacy invasion. Why is it ok to say "I found this person's thing, therefore I have the right to publish it as my own on a public site"?
posted by sleepcrime at 9:08 AM on April 7, 2021 [4 favorites]


Yeah, at least one of these pictures has a little boy with a sign with (presumably) his name on it.
posted by jquinby at 9:12 AM on April 7, 2021


Did this site really go away at some point? I've had it in my RSS feed for years, and it only occasionally popped up once in a while anyway.
posted by briank at 9:12 AM on April 7, 2021


Genuine question: why are we all ok with this? 'Found things' sites always leave me with a very icky feeling of privacy invasion. Why is it ok to say "I found this person's thing, therefore I have the right to publish it as my own on a public site"?

I'm thinking, at this point, to quote Van Morrison: "it ain't why (why why etc), it just is. That's all there is to it, that's all there is about it."

Once the first mechanism produced the first still image, what did you expect to happen by this point? Make of it what you will.. if it's not okay to you, then it's not okay to you. For me it's like stepping into a stream.
posted by elkevelvet at 9:15 AM on April 7, 2021 [5 favorites]


i don't want to use the word homesick as that's not right. and nostalgia isn't right either. so i'll go with timesick.

I was born in 1970, so a lot of these people are people who were 18-25 when I was like 12-16. When I was at Shoney's or a pizza joint or a sammich place with my obviously lame-o family, these were the couples out for a cheap date. Likewise, in line in front of us at the theater in the mall or the Brandon Twin, maybe doing a little light PDA. Driving around like they were somebody, wherever they wanted to go. They all seemed so effortlessly, hopelessly cool.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:24 AM on April 7, 2021 [22 favorites]


Gosh, we looked so different in the 60s...
posted by y2karl at 9:58 AM on April 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


This is like my entire childhood. That crocheted brown, yellow and orange afghan? My mom made that. Pictures of girls with Farrah hair on sofas holding cats? Could be me or any of my sisters. Each picture looks so familiar except all the faces are different.
posted by ceejaytee at 10:18 AM on April 7, 2021 [7 favorites]


I just want to color correct ALLLLLLLL of them
posted by jscalzi at 10:48 AM on April 7, 2021 [11 favorites]


So far I've found my doppelganger and the doppelganger of an old girlfriend. I've got to keep going until I find one with both of them to see if they turned out any better.
posted by whuppy at 10:52 AM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


the best art doesn't spark just one emotion or insight (and I think the K-Hole is definitely a work of art) -- it invades us in various ways, from various angles. One thing I'm definitely getting from the K-hole right now is a firm reminder of just how unfinished we are when we're young, going through our changes. The changes never stop, of course, but that phase from birth to say age twenty-five is particularly driven by them. And everything from age eleven or twelve onward, the bulk of these changes (if we're doing it right) are happening outside the prying eyes of adults in general, parents in particular ... even it's just downstairs in the rec-room with its tired shag rug, fake wood panel walls and whatever b-grade monster movie is on channel 11 tonight.

It's not the destination, it's the journey but you kill the journey if you try to isolate particular moments, try to present them as proof (or truth) of anything beyond well, you gotta keep moving, keep growing.
posted by philip-random at 10:52 AM on April 7, 2021 [7 favorites]




I was obsessed with the K-Hole a few years ago. Time to renew the obsession. I read an interview with the creator somewhere, I'll have to see if I can dig that up too... Thanks for reminding me this existed!
posted by signsofrain at 11:12 AM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


I read an interview with the creator somewhere, I'll have to see if I can dig that up too.

I know there was one on Vice
posted by thelonius at 11:22 AM on April 7, 2021


from more than five years ago ...

5 Years Later, We’re Still Addicted to Internet K-Hole

Arguably the best found photo site on the web recently reemerged on Tumblr, so we talked to the site's founder about maintaining its allure for half a decade.
posted by philip-random at 11:22 AM on April 7, 2021


bound for glory

I'd say I was probably there, but it would've been Canada Club not Jim Beam.
posted by philip-random at 11:28 AM on April 7, 2021


I got to the end.
Close to the end - Heavy metal holidays

Closer to the end - wild aunt
The End - Tattoos and Ronald Reagan

Lots of these shots are definitely of their time, but others are timeless:
flying
McDonalds

I like the random pets, but I hope the cat is not the cause
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:43 AM on April 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


Genuine question: why are we all ok with this?

I think there's a wide gap between "I am fine with this and would create a site like this if I ran the entire internet" (not my personal feeling) and "This is not ok and I will start calling the relevant authorities until it gets removed from the internet." (also not)

Speaking just for myself, and as someone who had fielded these questions from time to time about people feeling the same way about people even talking about other people on MetaFilter, I think that social mores on how much this is ok will vary widely. And people tend to impart some of their own personal feelings and/or values, along the lines if "I'd be horrified if I found a picture of myself on here" or "There is a chance that putting a picture of a kid up along with their name could get back to them and then they'd be horrified to find it online" or "I bet that woman doesn't know that her butt is on the internet and she would not be okay with it"

I think my feeling is more "I can't do anything about the fact that these images are online. I am curious about photos of people that appear to be from a time frame that I remember but also that wasn't widely photographed. I would like to look at these pictures." and kind of ends there. I'd feel differently if I felt more of them were porny or more of them were toddler-in-a-bikini types of pictures. And if you read the Vice article philip-random links to, they always comply with takedown requests but a lot of the people who have seen themselves in the blog kind of like it. I think if I found myself in that blog I'd think it was amusing, so I am probably projecting some of my own feelings. From that article....

I like how long the posts were and how uncool and old Blogspot is.

* slowly crumbles into dust *

posted by jessamyn at 12:34 PM on April 7, 2021 [8 favorites]


I got to the end.

inspirational \m/
posted by illongruci at 12:42 PM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


What struck me is every once in a while there would be celebrities, Madonna or Iron Maiden for example.

James Hetfield from Metallica shows up a lot. Is this a teenage him with a poster of Lita Ford?

Lita Ford and ???
posted by illongruci at 12:50 PM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


So far I've found my doppelganger

Same, and it really freaked me out. I couldn't tell if our eyes are the same color, and he had a slightly better beard than I do, but that was me, a decade or two earlier. He also had a better bow for wrapping presents on his face than I do, but that's another story.
posted by Snowishberlin at 1:12 PM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


bound for glory

I'd say I was probably there, but it would've been Canada Club not Jim Beam.


Notice the spare D-cell batteries. Pretty sure I had that model tape deck/boom box and it would eat through batteries.
posted by wigner3j at 1:12 PM on April 7, 2021


Yup, I still love this. It's like if Terry Richardson wasn't a creep.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:27 PM on April 7, 2021 [4 favorites]


So much male gaze. I can’t look at images of women anymore and not see it.
posted by photoslob at 1:36 PM on April 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


illongruci: "
James Hetfield from Metallica shows up a lot. Is this a teenage him with a poster of Lita Ford?

Lita Ford and ???
"

I don't think that one is James Hetfield, but I really think this one could be.
posted by team lowkey at 2:08 PM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


I also found my doppelganger. Like, that is MY FACE at that age. I had to look real close at the furniture and art in the room to make sure I really didn't remember ever being in that room as a child.
posted by rhiannonstone at 2:12 PM on April 7, 2021


Wow, Dudley Do-Right's Emporium - this was the Jay Ward gift shop up on the Sunset Strip where I got my sweatshirt of Sherman & Mr. Peabody, closed now, for a long time.
posted by Rash at 3:35 PM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


I just want to color correct ALLLLLLLL of them

A friend of mine explained to his children that the Three Stooges were only in black and white because color wasn't invented until after he was a teenager. Which they believed until the first started going to kindergarten.
posted by y2karl at 3:56 PM on April 7, 2021


> A friend of mine explained to his children that the Three Stooges were only in black and white because color wasn't invented until after he was a teenager.

Woah, you knew Calvin's dad?
posted by not_on_display at 5:45 PM on April 7, 2021 [3 favorites]


It's my highschool yearbook with dachshunds in Terry cloth.
posted by clavdivs at 6:59 PM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


Is it though? That last post was like 6 months ago. The one previous was one month before that, but the one before that was a year before. I'm a big fan, but 3 posts in over a year is hardly "back".

Mostly, I like it because I keep expecting to show up in one of the photos some time.
posted by jwest at 8:45 PM on April 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


The internet k-hole is why I, reasonably or unreasonably, always put old photos I don’t need through the shredder. Yes, I know this person isn’t going to come to my house and scan my mom’s old albums, but still it gives me the creeps.
posted by 41swans at 10:45 PM on April 7, 2021


Woah, you knew Calvin's dad?

Oh, ouch. Nope. And as much as I followed Calvin and Hobbes back in the day, I'd never seen that particular strip before this. But after checking the dates, this leaves me in a bit of a quandary.

Howard's son is in his 30s, I was told that story but when? And this is someone I've known since 1967. I guess I'd rather leave the chance of the great minds think alike option open and leave it there.
posted by y2karl at 12:17 AM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


not_on_display: A vast amount of very amateur snapshots taken from the mid-1970s to mid-1990s

... in the US, mostly. And/or by and of US Americans.

It all looks profoundly US American to me. I would be interested to see Elsewherian or international versions of this.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:16 AM on April 8, 2021 [2 favorites]


If you look out for the Labatt's beer and Export A smokes you will notice a few Canadians in the mix, but easy to miss.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:36 AM on April 8, 2021 [2 favorites]


Yeah, that's what I said: it all looks profoundly US American to me.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:50 AM on April 8, 2021


Thorzdad: "These are your parents back when they still had fun."

Maybe your parents but this was my generation.
posted by octothorpe at 4:52 AM on April 8, 2021 [3 favorites]


I’ve been refreshing this site since 2016. Glad to see it’s back.
posted by bendy at 4:57 AM on April 8, 2021


See, this is a true chronicle of what happened when you let hippies have children. That's right. I am old enough to let bygones be bygones, as long as you promise not to bring up Disco.

Long Live Rock And Roll!
posted by mule98J at 7:39 AM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]



These are your parents back when they still had fun."

Maybe your parents but this was my generation.


and we did have fun
posted by philip-random at 7:40 AM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


I read somewhere that it was getting harder and harder to cast period pieces set in America during the 60s and 70s because we are just a discernably chunkier population in 2021.

Finding enough background actors who physically look like the people in these photos is a difficult task for American casting directors because the population just isn’t built like that anymore.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:03 AM on April 8, 2021 [4 favorites]


How was mooning ever a thing? I mean, on the one hand it seems crazy that it ever existed and on the other I wouldn't be surprised if Herodotus mentioned it in The Histories...
posted by gwint at 8:16 AM on April 8, 2021 [4 favorites]


Hippocleides comes to mind.
posted by y2karl at 8:30 AM on April 8, 2021 [2 favorites]


Wow, this is a strange scroll for a metalhead kid born in ‘69.

I can tell the pix of Iron Maiden on stage are around 82 or 83, because it’s their Number of the Beast era. That one guy who wore ALL the spiked and bullet belts is (I’m pretty sure) “Nasty Ronnie” Galletti from the Florida band Nasty Savage. The British band Rock Goddess’ actual photo from the back of the “Hell Hath No Fury” album is in there too next to Ronnie.

And yes, I have checked; if there is a variety of Iron Maiden shirt in this collection, I owned it at one time. Also the “Metal Up Your Ass” Metallica shirt with the knife in someone’s hand stabbing up out of a toilet. My mom hated that one.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:37 AM on April 8, 2021 [8 favorites]


I am old enough to let bygones be bygones, as long as you promise not to bring up Disco.

Ahem. No one rocked harder than Chic.

See also
posted by y2karl at 3:59 PM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


How was mooning ever a thing?

I STILL wonder that. And yet also, it still very much exists, though I assume slightly less so because people don't want their ass on the internet, some people anyhow.

I, too, would like to see other non-US/Canada versions of this kind of site.
posted by jessamyn at 4:13 PM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


...I assume slightly less so because people don't want their ass on the internet, some people anyhow.

A breakdown by age would be revealing, methinks. When one is young and unaccomplished is also when one is often least wise, more if not most narcissistic and one's ass is at its most photogenic -- so hence the temptation. That anything posted online is carved in stone forever is often a thought yet to sink in.

At any rate, it certainly does give new meaning to the phrase putting one's ass on the line.
posted by y2karl at 4:50 PM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


I think I got an 80s triple here: Two kids on a huge ATV about to drive into the worlds largest pair of floating pants. (a) Kids on ATVs, (b) unintended perceptual illusion.... AND (c) AN OVERSIZED "CHOOSE LIFE" T-SHIRT!

Ah. the spell is released. I can visit other websites now.
What's that you say? Acid Sweat Lodge? That sounds interesting...
posted by not_on_display at 4:59 PM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]




Leave out all of the style choices and the weird voyeurism for a moment. Personally I'm just glad we all got over the incessant use of unconfigured flash photography indoors.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:52 AM on April 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


rum-soaked space hobo: "Leave out all of the style choices and the weird voyeurism for a moment. Personally I'm just glad we all got over the incessant use of unconfigured flash photography indoors."

They didn't have a lot of choice back then. Most people just had cheap instamatics with built-in flashes and drug-store 200 or 400 film . It's kind of a trendy look now; people buying disposable cameras or using vintage 80s point-and-shoots to get that look.
posted by octothorpe at 5:21 AM on April 9, 2021


How was mooning ever a thing?

I STILL wonder that. And yet also, it still very much exists, though I assume slightly less so because people don't want their ass on the internet, some people anyhow.


I am told by a reliable source that residents of Block Island, Rhode Island still moon the last ferry boat on Labor Day weekend as a farewell to the tourist season. Blurry video is here.
posted by JanetLand at 5:50 AM on April 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


Mooning is at least as old as Chaucer, and probably as old as clothing. Hell, I've seen other primates do something that might as well be mooning. They just don't have instamatics. Usually.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:52 AM on April 9, 2021 [1 favorite]


Also, I've been taking my time looking at details, and there are a lot of non-US pictures there which aren't apparent untill you look at food labelling, door handles, the types of painted lines on the streets, and so on. Not many BIPOC, agreed, and it'd be neat to see snapshots from cultures even further afield, but still, the thing that sucks me in is the context within the pictures: what beer are they drinking, what cereal, what style of clothing, etc.
We always think we live in the "normal" decade and wonder what future people will look at us like, and are always appalled and delighted at what [the decade you grew up in] featured.
posted by not_on_display at 2:58 PM on April 10, 2021


Pirate-bartender , I was also in a metal band for a while and was born in 1969. The vibe of the the 80s hopeful metal dudes is incredibly similar to my memories. Metallica, Iron Maiden , slayer, charvel guitars, jean jackets with patches. I miss that time.
posted by freecellwizard at 3:11 PM on April 10, 2021 [3 favorites]


Lots of my 80s NYC metal happened in Brooklyn, @Freecellwizard.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 3:44 PM on April 10, 2021


Makes me wonder now how many metal bands were out there in the mid 1980s! I was in one too, had the denim with patches and sharpie'd up, had the feathered hair and the slayer t-shirt, the Mexican-made Fenders... and then I somehow transitioned into the punk/grunge/hippie aesthetic. And stayed there for about 30-35 years. But the Metal and late-punk/goth/skate stuff really resonates with me, because it's all my friends' doppelgangers, and as I worked at a Fotomat (featured on the Wikipedia page, my pic of my home store, thanks jessamyn!) I would steal film and free pictures all the time, so I have literal mounds of grainy pictures like these just waiting to be scanned and labelled.
posted by not_on_display at 5:38 PM on April 10, 2021 [2 favorites]


Hey looks like some fan was lucky enough to see Metallica when Dave Mustaine was still in the band!
posted by not_on_display at 11:20 PM on April 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


Hey looks like some fan was lucky enough to see Metallica when Cliff Burton was still in the band!
posted by not_on_display at 8:58 PM on April 13, 2021 [2 favorites]


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