Do You Know These Things That Generation X Should Know?

Nobody listened to this campaign, as a cursory glance around a room full of 1980s Wall Street traders would prove. The government still kept it running for years.

A Walkman finally replaced the heavy boombox as the portable music of choice. Unfortunately, as headphones were still way behind, everyone could still hear your music, it just sounded terrible.

Passing notes was risky because they were usually spotted and naturally, they'd have your handwriting in them, even if you weren't the one caught holding them. The best teachers knew when to pretend not to see them, however.

A mixtape was a sign of true love. Romance, friendship, filial - you could say it with a mixtape. You had to wait for the song on the radio, which proved how much effort you put in!

This was the seminal event of all Generation X-ers' young lives. Even if you were 7, you remember it. The wall has now been down for longer than it was up!

The motto was, "Be kind, rewind!" Some stores imposed a fee if you didn't rewind. Since getting a movie was a real hassle, people couldn't do much about this - but got revenge years later by all switching to Netflix.

This puzzle defied many people for years. These days, you can just hop on YouTube to learn that there is a method that always works. Fast "cubers" typically need mere seconds to solve it.

This sweet movie was one of the main hits of the decade. It is about an alien who needs to tell his friends where to find him, if he can just get a signal. Unfortunately, it was long before you could get a decent cellphone.

This song was ubiquitous for Generation X. Love it or hate it, you could not escape it.

Pac-Man was an arcade game that came to early home computers and consoles in the '80s. You run around eating little pellets that give you points, while ghosts try to chase you and eat you in return!

She-Ra was a powerful superhero-type character in the Filmation series. Her show is being rebooted in 2018!

Jelly shoes were semi-see-through plastic shoes that are now understood to be hideous. For a while there, they were the height of fashion.

Everyone had a Skip-It in the '80s. The fancy ones could count the number of skips so you could use them for exercise - and some had a heavy enough ball on the end that you could also use them to whack other kids' ankles while feigning innocence.

A slinky is one of the most satisfying toys in the world - until it refuses to go down the stairs and then it just sits there. Then, it is one of the most frustrating toys you can own.

Doc Martens were the only boot. Sure, you had moon boots for the snow, but you were just waiting to get back into your Doc Martens.

Transformers began as a toy that was super cool because it was a car that turned into a robot warrior. These days it is also a very successful movie franchise directed by Michael Bay.

Many of the best snacks of the Gen Xers' youth are no longer with us. Popsicle has survived, thank goodness!

Napster is all legitimate now, but when it started, it was a scrappy pirating service. The modern version is not the same thing, really, but it bought the trademarks to sound cool.

Dot matrix is a method of printing, and became a brand. It was enormously successful until replaced by the laser and inkjet printer.

"Heathers" was a hugely successful movie about teen bullying, taken to an extreme. In 2010 it was adapted as a musical.

Rick Moranis is certainly not a Brat Pack member. The Brat Pack were a group of up-and-coming beautiful actors who appeared in a series of coming-of-age movies.

Fraggles are relations of the Muppets. They live at Fraggle Rock and they are amazingly chilled out, according to their theme song.

Teddy Ruxpin was a stuffed bear with a cassette player. You would put a cassette in the back and the bear would "tell" you the story contained on the audiobook inside.

A slap bracelet was very satisfying to put on! You would slap it against your wrist and it would stick to itself with a magnet.

The Dewey Decimal System is a way of tracking books. Before you could just scan them, they all had their own reference card and a system for locating them. Generation X were probably the last group of kids to learn it in school.

This was the fashionable way to carry makeup. You can still get them for a mere $20, though they aren't as robust as the old ones.

Bert and Ernie were long suspected to be a couple, but in the '80s, that wouldn't have been possible on TV. It's likely the makers of "Sesame Street" never intended anything else, but these days, it's fun to imagine what could have been!

This text-based game nearly always ended with your character dying of dysentery. The goal was to navigate the Oregon Trail and get to ... Oregon!

This device was the equivalent of a pronunciation YouTube channel or website. You typed in a word and it would speak the correct pronunciation.

Floppy discs are so named because they were actually floppy, though they were in a plastic sheath that protected them. The earliest ones known to Generation X were five inches and a quarter in size and contained practically nothing by today's standards.

Schoolhouse Rock explained what a bill was and how it became a law. It disguised civics as a fun cartoon, so kids would sit through it!

Trapper Keepers are so wholesome that it's hard to believe they were really cool. They are literally a file folder with sections for different pieces of work. These days, you just put it all in Google Drive.

If you are Generation X, you probably got email around the age of 14-20. That meant you had to go someplace to check it, since no mobile device had it.

The pound symbol meant a currency symbol in the UK, but in the US it was what we now call a hashtag. The change was made in the last 15 years with the rise of social media.

A T-shirt clip was a tacky way to make your shirt cling. As fabrics have grown more sophisticated, fitted shirts that actually conform to more bodies are much more easily made.