Flashback: December 1, 1983

The Dance Begins

It is December 1, 1983. Ronald Reagan is in the White House, the Cold War is still simmering, and so is everything else.

The Christmas shopping season has arrived, and the malls are buzzing. Kids are running around in neon sweatshirts from Chess King, Orange Julius is sticky underfoot, Spencer Gifts is glowing like a blacklight fever dream. Every toy store is overflowing with the Big Three holiday obsessions: Cabbage Patch Kids, Care Bears, and He-Man.

Outside, payphones are ringing, quarters are clinking, and the smell of Hot Sam pretzels hangs in the air. Back home, every bedroom has a stereo with dual cassette decks ready for weekend mixtape duty. It’s peak 1980s… Madonna is climbing the charts, Return of the Jedi is still in theaters, and the culture feels like it’s accelerating by the week.

MTV is barely two years old but already reshaping everything it touches. And tonight, something extraordinary will happen just after midnight… Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video will premiere and change music videos forever. “Thriller” becomes more than a music video. It becomes a moment. A movement. A memory burned into the mind of every GenXer who was alive to witness it.

Let’s rewind.

This Mixtape Memory Lane is sponsored by 50 Ways to Keep Your Lover.

🎧Mixtape Memory Lane 

“Say Say Say” – Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson

Two megastars at the height of their powers. This was glossy, radio-ready pop and it wrapped around the fall of 1983 like a warm blanket. The chemistry was effortless, and DJs kept it in constant rotation.

“Uptown Girl” – Billy Joel

Billy Joel leaned into a Four Seasons–style throwback, and it landed perfectly. His ode to Christie Brinkley was sugary, catchy, and optimistic enough to make every kid think they had a shot at an uptown girl someday.

“All Night Long” – Lionel Richie

Lionel Richie bottled sunshine, steel drums, and pure joy into one track. It was everywhere in late 1983… malls, skating rinks, weddings, and school dances. If you were alive, you were singing “fiesta, forever,” even if you didn’t know the rest of the words.

“Crumblin’ Down” – John Mellencamp

Heartland rock with grit. Mellencamp’s anthem felt like blue-collar rebellion wrapped in a stadium chorus, the kind of song you blasted in the car and pretended you weren’t turning down when you got home.

“Islands in the Stream” – Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton

A country-pop duet so smooth it felt like it floated. Kenny and Dolly turned effortless harmony into a cultural moment that crossed every genre line. This wasn’t just a hit… it was a warm embrace set to music.

“Love Is a Battlefield” – Pat Benatar (Bonus Track)

Pat Benatar delivered an anthem with attitude… bold, dramatic, and backed by an iconic music video that became the emotional soundtrack for anyone who ever felt like life was a fight.

👆 Watch the full throwback video playlist on YouTube Music.

📺 Screen Time Rewind 

December 1983 was a wild time at the movies and on the small screen, a moment when violence, nostalgia, and holiday cheer all fought for your attention.

At the box office, Scarface had just premiered on December 1, unleashing Al Pacino’s ferocious Tony Montana. The f-bombs, the excess, the mountain of cocaine… it sent every parent group into panic mode and every teenager into instant obsession. Critics wrinkled their noses, but GenX made it a legend.

Terms of Endearment offered the opposite mood entirely. Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger delivered a mother-daughter gut punch that would dominate awards season and send audiences out of the theater wiping their eyes.

And tucked between those extremes was A Christmas Story, which had opened just two weeks earlier on November 18. It didn’t explode at the box office, but Ralphie’s quest for his Red Ryder BB gun was already quietly burrowing its way into the culture. Nobody knew it would become the Christmas movie of the next four decades.

On television, new shows were staking their claim. The A-Team was ruling Tuesday nights on NBC, with Mr. T turning “I pity the fool” into a national catchphrase.

Over on CBS, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, which had premiered that October, gave viewers a suburban mom-turned-spy and just enough charm to become a sleeper hit.

Saturday mornings belonged to The Smurfs, The Dukes, and the newly launched Inspector Gadget, the holy trinity of cereal-and-cartoon bliss.

Saturday nights were still sacred ABC territory: The Love Boat setting sail at 9, and Fantasy Island whisking viewers off to moral-lesson paradise right after.

We didn’t stream, we didn’t binge… we waited all week for these stories and then talked about them the next day at school or work, like they were part of our shared language.

This Life Reboot is sponsored by La’Merde Designs apparel.

Life Reboot: Mind

When Your Memory Starts Playing Tricks on You

In 1983, remembering things felt effortless. Phone numbers lived in your head, birthdays were automatic, and you could memorize entire songs after hearing them twice on the radio. Your brain wasn’t just sharp… it was fast.

Now you walk into a room and forget why you’re there. You mix up words you've said for decades. You rely on your Notes app the way our parents relied on sticky notes. And underneath it all is the quiet worry: Is this normal?

The truth is simple. Midlife memory changes are real and incredibly common, shaped by aging, stress, sleep, and how much new information your brain has to process every day… not by decline.

If that sounds discouraging, it doesn't have to be. The good news is that there’s a lot you can do to help your brain stay sharp, and most of it starts with small, daily changes.

1. Give Your Brain Novelty - New tasks force the hippocampus to build fresh neural pathways. Learn a new skill, take a different route home, switch up your playlists, or use your non-dominant hand for small tasks. Tiny changes spark big improvements.

2. Sleep Like You Mean It - Deep sleep is where memories get organized. Adults who consistently get 7–8 hours show stronger recall and better cognitive flexibility. Protect your bedtime the way you protect your paycheck.

3. Make Your Stress Smaller - Cortisol disrupts memory when it sticks around too long. You don’t need a retreat… you need a reset. Walk for ten minutes, step outside, or take thirty seconds of slow breathing. These small drops in stress help your brain think clearly again.

4. Say It Out Loud - Speaking reinforces memory because the brain uses more systems when you say something versus when you just think it. Read important things out loud, repeat names, talk through your to-do list. It works.

5. Feed Your Brain What It Actually Needs - Omega-3s, leafy greens, berries, and antioxidant-rich foods help protect brain cells. Hydration matters too; even mild dehydration can cause foggy thinking. Add something from this list every day.

6. Write Things Down Without Guilt - Lists, alarms, and planners aren’t crutches… they’re cognitive support systems. Free your brain to focus on what matters.

7. Move Your Body to Strengthen Your Mind - Aerobic exercise boosts blood flow to the brain and encourages new neuron growth. A brisk 20-minute walk can improve memory consolidation for hours.

The Takeaway

Your memory isn’t failing. It’s adapting. You can’t reclaim the mental speed you had in 1983, but you can build a steadier, stronger brain for the years ahead by giving it novelty, rest, fuel, and structure.

Visual Feature: Pop Culture Clips

Michael Jackson’s Thriller (1983)

There are music videos.
There are short films.
And then there is “Thriller.”

Premiering just after midnight on December 2, 1983, it stopped time. Kids rushed to the TV. Adults did too. Michael Jackson dancing with zombies felt like nothing we had ever seen before. The red jacket. The choreography. Vincent Price’s voice. Every part of it was iconic. This wasn’t just pop culture. It was a cultural reset.

Full Short Film (Official 4K):

Making of Thriller (1983):

Life Reboot is sponsored by La’Merde Designs.

Mixtape Memory Lane is sponsored by 50 Ways to Keep Your Lover.

The Final Moves

So here we are, forty years after “Thriller” turned living rooms into dance floors and Michael Jackson proved a music video could be a full-blown cinematic event.

We were watching Mr. T save the day, quoting Scarface on the playground, and believing that anything that mattered would show up on MTV.

What made that era unforgettable wasn’t just the entertainment… it was how fully we lived it. We waited for our favorite shows, we danced to whatever came on, and we remembered everything because there was nowhere else to store it. Looking back, the magic wasn’t in how perfect life was… it was in the way the smallest things grabbed our full attention.

This week reminds us of something we lose as adults: those moments that jolt us awake. A song that hits at the right second. A movie that feels bigger than it should. A memory that closes the distance between who we were and who we are now.

If this rewind pulled even one old snapshot back into focus, share it with someone who once practiced the “Thriller” choreography in their bedroom or recorded songs off the radio on a Friday night. And if you haven’t subscribed yet, now’s the perfect moment to join us every week.

Vincent Price warned us back then about the darkness rising, the things buried coming back to life. He called it, “the funk of forty thousand years”.

Funny how memory works the same way… See you next week!