4 Things People Who Grew Up in the '80s Need to Stop Bitching About

I was born in 1981, which gives me a lot to complain about. For instance, I got to spend my early adulthood watching Houston's economy tank in the wake of the Enron failure, 9/11, two wars and now the Great Recession. That was not how John Hughes told me I would be spending my twenties, and since passing 30 awhile back, I've become a little bitter about that.

But to my fellow children of the 1980s? You brave souls between 25 and 35 who were my posse during the era of friendship bracelets, MTV, hairspray and Saturday Morning cartoons? I've got to tell you that you have become really freakin' annoying since you found jobs that allow you to complain on the Internet all the ding-along day.

We've got real things to worry about, but all I see in my newsfeed and in the comment section of entertainment stories I peruse for work is a dedication to word-punching every single thing about modern pop culture. I've had enough. It's time for us all to grow up and stop complaining about...

"Raping My Childhood"

Thank South Park for this, but don't blame them too hard. They're not the ones that ran the joke into the ground and tried to make something more important out of it than it deserved.

Every time a movie spends millions of dollars trying to cash in on things that were popular in the '80s, like Transformers and G.I. Joe, there's a mad rush to condemn it before it even gets started. God forbid someone makes any significant changes, such as when Michael Bay decided that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would actually be Teenage Alien Ninja Turtles. "He's raping my childhood!" will be the inevitable response.

Look, remakes are a fact of art and life. Beowulf is at least as old as the 8th century, and 1,300 years later when they wanted to make yet another movie in 2007, Angelina Jolie wanted in. Granted, it should bother us that we're delving into what were essentially toy commercials to generate modern film, but that hardly constitutes "raping your childhood."

All that such a project can really do is make you appreciate your original love for something more against what you consider an inferior adaptation. I am Legend being a parade of leaky colostomy bags didn't make Last Man on Earth any less of an awesome movie, or Richard Matheson's novel any less profound.

Your childhood cannot be raped, and if you're still trying to live out your two-decade-old adolescent fantasy life in modern movies, then you need some serious help. Besides...