Memoir
/ˈmemˌwär/ noun. a record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation. Usually memoirs. an account of one's personal life and experiences; autobiography. the published record of the proceedings of a group or organization, as of a learned society.
Week twenty is nearly here! Yo, yo! Fads…each generation has them. When we’re in the midst of these fads we we're making a statement, we're projecting our individuality, we're feel like we're a part of a revolution. They make us feel like we’re helping to shape a new world. The ironic thing about fads is that they sometimes teach us the most lessons about our character and identities in hindsight. I’m looking very forward to learning more about yours!
Memoir Monday has grown so much that I won’t be able to comment on everyone’s posts anymore (and get my own work done) but I’ll still be supporting your posts with reblogs, votes, and shares on my other social media accounts (X, Facebook, etc.).
For all of those who’ve regularly participated in Memoir Monday - keep going, you’re making great progress in chronicling your very own life story for future generations to enjoy.
For those who missed the inaugural post explaining what the Memoir Monday initiative is all about you can find it here.
Now for next week’s Memoir Monday prompt:
Which fads did you embrace growing up?
My answer:
As much as some of us don’t like to admit it, most of us follow trends during our teenage years and I was no exception. Thankfully for me, I was a teen during the 1980’s before everyone had a hi-resolution camera in their pockets. There was very little photographic evidence of our shenanigans.
Fads, for the most part, are a harmless right of passage. They're all about discovering your true individuality.
The eighties were a strange time, there were a multitude of underground movements converging at once — punk, metal, hip-hop, synth-pop. Disco was in the middle of dying a painful death in the early 1980’s and rap was poised to take it’s place in popular culture.
Growing up in the inner city of a medium sized Midwestern city, hip-hop was the fad that I embraced the most as a teen. The mullet hairstyle (business in the front and party in the back) was the epitome of boys hairstyles from around 1983 to 1986. My sophomore yearbook picture below is proof. I kept that mullet until early 1987. At its best (or maybe worst?) my hair fell down to the middle of my back.
Earlier in my high school days we wore gold chains, Adidas track suits, shell-toe Adidas shoes with colorful fat laces, Kangol hats, and the ultra-square Cazal glasses like DMC from Run DMC.
Rap was still very much underground in the early 80’s in the midwest. Back then there was no gansta rap, aside from The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, rap music was pure party music.
No major radio stations played rap in the early 1980's outside of New York City. There was one, low-powered station in Columbus, CTNT, that broadcasted from deep inside one of the most downtrodden neighborhoods of the city. We had to hook up a coaxial cable wire to our radio to listen, which added to the attraction. A DJ would mix the latest rap records from New York City and scratch live on the air for a few hours once a week, I think it was on Tuesday afternoon. We’d all gather around the boom box to listen. It was so new and different that it felt like a cultural revolution in that particular moment in time.
Little did we know that hip-hop would eventually grow to become a multi-billion dollar industry and would influence mainstream culture for many generations to come.
My friends and I embraced all aspects of hip-hop - graffiti, break dancing, rap music. I was an introvert so standing behind turntables and drawing graffiti was what I was most comfortable with. I bought two turntables, a mixer, and digital reverb from Radio Shack with money I earned from my paper route and made my own mixtapes, none of which survived. Above and below are a couple pieces of graffiti that I drew and still have. Back then I apparently thought that, “graftionists of hip hop ruled”, I can barely read my own tags anymore.
No one quite captured our attention like the Beastie Boys. I think it was mainly because we felt we could identify with them. My friends and I went to a predominantly black high school and sometimes felt like outcasts.
What our underdeveloped pubescent brains didn’t fully comprehend was the Beastie Boys were just playing a role, cartoonish personas developed by there label to sell records. Nevertheless, when their album Licensed to Ill was released, it became the soundtrack of our sophomore and junior years of high school.
My friend Matt and I dressed like the Beastie Boys (him Ad Rock, me MCA), sometimes acted like them, and that year and a half was an unforgettable party. We would show up at the dances of some of the wealthier private schools in our area dressed in full B-Boy attire to try to meet girls. It must’ve seemed like we came from another planet to many of them. We would also crash college parties on The Ohio State University campus, sometimes climbing into windows so they wouldn’t turn us away at the door. There was alway so much beer.
Around the middle of my junior year of high school it all came to an abrupt end. Our hip-hop era began to fade into oblivion. My friends and I were starting to grow up. I honestly think it was our girlfriends who saved us. Many of us started settling down in "serious" relationships, getting part-time jobs, and feeling the pressures of adulthood already knocking on our doors. But for a couple of carefree years we were like celebrities (in our own minds) and probably left a trail of confusion wherever we went. I wouldn't have wanted to grow up during any other era. It's weird to think we were right there on the front lines when the cultural phenomena of hip-hop was born. Whether they make us smile or make us cringe, fads are a part of our individual stories and we wouldn’t be the people we are today without them.
Rules of Engagement
- Please reblog this first post and share on other social platforms so we cast the widest net possible for this initiative;
- Pictures paint a thousand words. Include pictures in your posts if you have them;
- Answer each Memoir Monday prompt question in your own post. If possible, the prompt question will be published in the week prior so you'll have the entire week to answer and publish your own post;
- Have fun with it, don't worry about getting behind, or jumping into the project at any point after we've begun; and
- Lastly, be sure to include the tag #memoirmonday.
It's that simple.
At the end of the next twelve months we'll have created something immensely valuable together. It's so important to know our "whys" in life and there's no better way to do that than this.
Someday all that will be left of our existence are memories of us, our deeds, and words. It's up to you to leave as rich of a heritage as possible for future generations to learn from. So, go ahead, tell your stories. I can't wait to read them.
Be well and make the most of this day. I want to sincerely thank all of the participants thus far. I've really enjoyed reading your posts!
~Eric Vance Walton~
