SMELLS LIKE GEN X BLOG
Explore the written archive for 70s nostalgia, 80s nostalgia, and 90s nostalgia across music, movies, TV shows, toys, fads, commercials, trends, and the weird pop-culture debris that never fully left your brain.
Use this page as the main written gateway into Smells Like Gen X: start with a decade hub, follow a topic lane, search the archive, or jump straight into the latest post.
Looking for a specific year, song list, movie countdown, TV ranking, toy post, fad archive, commercial rewind, or category lane? Search the archive directly instead of scrolling the whole feed.
The blog works best when you use the decade hubs as your map. Start with the 70s, jump into the flagship 80s hub, or head into the expanding 90s archive.
Start here for 70s songs, movies, TV, toys, and the slower, stranger, more analog version of Gen X memory.
Big hooks, bigger movies, iconic toy aisles, prime-time TV, mall culture, and now the full 1980–1989 fads archive in one decade hub.
Alt-rock, sitcom empires, CDs, snack-branding overload, holiday toy panic, and the polished late-era Gen X archive.
These topic lanes route into the main category hubs, so visitors can browse the archive by what they actually care about.
Start here for year-end countdowns, chart rewinds, radio nostalgia, and the songs that permanently colonized your brain.
Dive into year-by-year movie countdowns, box office rewinds, poster-wall nostalgia, and video-store-era comfort watches.
Network giants, sitcom empires, Nielsen-era countdowns, forgotten shows, and the TV memories that still feel weirdly personal.
Holiday toy panic, weird products, year-by-year toy posts, and the kind of childhood plastic that still lives in your head rent-free.
Schoolyard crazes, mall fads, bad hair decisions, logo flexes, and the short-lived obsessions that defined everyday Gen X life.
Dive into classic commercial rewinds, catchphrases, mascots, cola wars, beer ads, Super Bowl spots, and the campaigns that completely colonized Gen X memory.
These are the strongest written entry points into the current Smells Like Gen X archive.
The strongest decade page on the site right now, with clear paths into songs, movies, TV, toys, fads, commercials, and broader 80s nostalgia.
One of the most distinctive lanes on the site now that the full 1980s fad run is live. Great for fast nostalgia hits and everyday-memory weirdness.
Classic ad campaigns, mascots, cola wars, beer slogans, and the TV spots that got so big they stopped feeling like ads.
Fresh nostalgia, deep cuts, countdowns, weird trends, and beautifully unnecessary rewinds across the Gen X archive.
From Raiders of the Lost Ark and On Golden Pond to Superman II, Arthur, and Stripes, these were the top movies of 1981. Take a Smells Like Gen X rewind through the biggest box office hits that helped define the early 80s multiplex.
Read more →From The Empire Strikes Back to 9 to 5, Airplane!, and The Blues Brothers, these were the biggest movies of 1980. Dive into a Gen X rewind through the box office hits that helped kick off the decade with sequels, satire, star power, and pure multiplex chaos.
Read more →The top TV shows of 1989 captured late-80s prime time at a turning point: glossy sitcom comfort still ruled, but Roseanne brought a sharper working-class realism, 60 Minutes stayed a giant, and the whole TV landscape started feeling less polished and more lived-in.
Read more →From The Cosby Show and A Different World to Cheers, The Golden Girls, Growing Pains, and Murder, She Wrote, these were the TV shows that ruled American living rooms in 1988.
Read more →From The Cosby Show and Family Ties to Cheers, Murder, She Wrote, The Golden Girls, and Moonlighting, these were the TV shows that ruled American living rooms in 1987.
Read more →From The Cosby Show and Family Ties to Murder, She Wrote, Cheers, Miami Vice, and Dallas, these were the TV shows that ruled American living rooms in 1986.
Read more →From Dynasty and Dallas to The Cosby Show, Family Ties, 60 Minutes, and Murder, She Wrote, these were the TV shows that ruled American living rooms in 1985.
Read more →From Dallas and 60 Minutes to Dynasty, The A-Team, Magnum, P.I., and Cagney & Lacey, these were the TV shows that ruled American living rooms in 1984.
Read more →From 60 Minutes and Dallas to Magnum, P.I., Dynasty, Simon & Simon, and The A-Team, these were the TV shows that ruled American living rooms in 1983.
Read more →From Dallas and 60 Minutes to The Jeffersons, Three’s Company, MAS*H, and The Dukes of Hazzard, these were the TV shows that ruled American living rooms in 1982.
Read more →From Dallas and The Dukes of Hazzard to 60 Minutes, MAS*H, and The Love Boat, these were the TV shows that ruled American living rooms in 1981.
Read more →From 60 Minutes and Three’s Company to Dallas and The Dukes of Hazzard, these were the TV shows that ruled American living rooms in 1980 according to Nielsen.
Read more →DON’T MISS THE REWIND
Countdowns, forgotten media, weird rabbit holes, and peak Gen X nostalgia across every category.