Flashback: July 13, 1989

Welcome Back

It’s July 1989. You’re dodging heatwaves, rewinding mixtapes, and watching your tan lines fade under fluorescent lights at your summer job.

The Berlin Wall is still standing—but not for long. Compact discs are outpacing cassette tapes. Nintendo is dominating the living room, and “cool” is being redefined by whatever Michael Jordan is wearing on his feet.

This was the last summer of the '80s—and you could feel the shift. The neon was fading just a bit. Mall hair had one more season. And somewhere between the radio and MTV, a new decade was quietly warming up.

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

Mixtape Memory Lane 

• “Batdance” – Prince
  More of a collage than a song, but somehow it worked—and we played it on loop.

• “Good Thing” – Fine Young Cannibals
  Fast, sharp, and catchy enough to feel like it came out of nowhere.

• “Toy Soldiers” – Martika
  A haunting ballad disguised as a pop hit—this one hit harder than expected.

• “Buffalo Stance” – Neneh Cherry
  Hip-hop, house, punk, fashion—this track threw it all together and made it cool.

• “If You Don’t Know Me by Now” – Simply Red
  For the grown-up feelings you didn’t want to admit you had.

👆 Watch the full throwback video playlist on YouTube Music.

Screen Time Rewind 

Summer '89 was anything but quiet on screen. In theaters, the Bat-Signal lit up the sky (and the box office). Tim Burton’s Batman, with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson, wasn’t just a hit…it was a full-blown cultural moment. The merch alone could fund a small country, and Danny Elfman's moody score set a new bar for comic book adaptations.

The summer of 1989 was the year blockbuster movie season went mad, with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Ghostbusters II also battling for box office supremacy.

Over on TV, summer meant syndicated reruns and weird experimental cable. MTV was shifting from 24/7 music videos to personality-driven programming (Club MTV, Yo! MTV Raps). Nickelodeon was building its slime empire.

A Current Affair and Geraldo were turning daytime talk into full-on spectacle. This was the era of shoulder pads and shouting matches…think of it as proto-reality TV.

Meanwhile on prime time TV, Cheers was still the king of Thursday nights. With Sam and Rebecca keeping things steamy behind the bar and Cliff and Norm holding down their stools, the show was in its seventh season and showing no signs of slowing down.

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

Life Reboot: Money

Summer Hustle Mode

Back in the summer of '89, the minimum wage was $4.25 an hour…enough for a cassette, a slice, and maybe a movie if you caught the matinee. If you were hustling back then, it probably meant babysitting, mowing lawns, flipping burgers, or running the register at the mall (RIP Orange Julius).

Fast forward to 2025, and the side hustle scene has gone digital. GenXers now find themselves driving for Uber between Zoom calls, selling on Etsy, ghostwriting with AI, or coaching side gigs on TikTok. A hustle is still a hustle, it just upgraded from roller skates to apps.

Whether you're renting out a spare room, building an online course, or just decluttering and listing stuff on Facebook Marketplace, the principle hasn’t changed: extra money equals extra freedom. Even if it doesn’t cover your whole lifestyle, it can soften the blow of inflation, give you more choices, or finally fund that “just for me” thing you keep pushing aside.

Bottom line: You don’t need to go viral, you just need to go consistent.

Results Rewind

Results from last week’s poll:

What was your summer vibe in 1993?

💿 Cruising around with friends, CDs on repeat — 38%
🍕 Late-night pizza runs and Blockbuster rentals — 27%
💵 Working a part-time job and blasting the radio — 22%
🍻 Backyard hangouts and whatever was in the cooler — 13%

Visual Feature is sponsored by Practical Advice from the Scriptures.

Visual Feature: THEN vs. NOW

Life Reboot is sponsored by La’Merde Designs.

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

Visual Feature is sponsored by Practical Advice from the Scriptures.

It’s Been Real

Whether you spent 1989 flipping burgers at the food court, cruising around with mixtapes blasting, or lining up to see Batman for the third time, this week was part of your origin story and it still shapes who you are.

If The GenX Edit brings back the feels, forward it to a friend, hit that subscribe button, or post your own throwbacks using #TheGenXEdit. Let’s keep building this nostalgic time machine together one Thursday at a time.

To borrow a line from Gotham’s most infamous villain: "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" Yeah, we did…and we’re still dancing.

See you next week.