I was a middle class teen living in Orange County CA, Fullerton to be exact. I turned 18 and graduated high school the year LTZ released. I was a punk, same as most of my friends. Life entailed:
Booze, pot, cigarettes everywhere. LSD was pretty common. Meth was less common. Coke was rare, but we got some once in a while.
Tons of parties. Big parties virtually every weekend, Fri and Sat. We just didn't have huge banks of TV screens showing weird videos.
Actually not a ton of promiscuity that I was aware of. There were a few guys who got lots of chicks, and there were a few chicks who slept around a lot. But most of us just paired off with someone and "went steady" with them for long stretches of time. We were all getting laid, just not promiscuously with different partners.
VWs, Hondas, Toyotas, Nissans for the kids. Usually used.
Parents were usually around somewhere but they tended to let us be unless we really effed up somehow.
Most of us weren't jaded at all.

I went to an elite boarding school in the northeast. It was a school where lots of kids had extreme levels of money, every bit as much as Beverly Hills. The behaviors this movie shows are completely inconsistent with the ones I saw.

Generally, rich kids are very similar no matter where they live. Yes, the movie accurately portrayed the rich kid cliques and the behaviors they engage in. I am thankful I grew up in the 80s. The music, the clothes, the hair, the dreams, the cultureAmerica was still great. it was a great time to be alive.

The 80's were a god time. I know this not because I remember it, but rather because I don't

Went to Westlake. GREAT TIMES!

No, I was an average lower middle class girl, post college, my own place, my own car, living in Long Beach, CA. Close enuf to LA to matter for clubbing, cpncerts and music, but far enough away to be safe.

I went out to LA to visit a friend in about '83-'84 and I have to say I was shocked. Most things were pretty normal except a little bit on the snooty side but young people seemed to be wrestling with the bisexuality thing.
The friend with whom I stayed was gay and he had a young male friend who was being gay and at times straight, too; he was a doll but intense and didn't connect with me. (He was about 10 years younger than us, I believe.) I felt he didn't really want to be gay but didn't know what he was doing.
I think he told us that he had female friends who were hooking up. It seemed to be the cool thing to do for everyone to have sex with any of their friends. Of course, these were not necessarily wealthy kids. I liked what one guy said about a "homo-aristo" eroticism going on. That has probably always been there.
However, I felt there was more confusion in what was happening than being avante garde. It seemed to me the kids didn't have anyone to say, "No, you don't do that." I mean, it's not like you can keep a kid from doing what he or she wants to do. But I felt they lacked guidance. It was kind of a breath of fresh air to return to a state in which that kind of thing, if it were happening, was not really out in the open. And probably really wasn't happening.

I graduated in '85 & lived in a rich neighborhood on the west coast (not LA). Yes, the movie is accuratetons of parties, booze-pot-coke. You have to realize that cocaine was very expensive, so it was more a once-in-a-while, recreational drug. In my opinion, the hard drugs were in the '70's, & were being consumed by everyday kids. Back then, kids were smoking angel dust, popping pills like crazy and dropping acideven shooting heroin. None of that was going on in my circles, the 80's vibe was all about fun. It was mostly drinking & hitting all the hip clubs to hang with friends.

Agreed. The Pied Piper had finally left and reality set in.

Except Reagan leaving the White House was a good thing.

I didn't live in L.A. But I can tell you that the big 80's is pretty accurately portrayed in the film. It was a very decadent period of time. The rich were rich and they lived like it. The parenting was not that great because mom was out there earning money just like dad was. To compensate they would buy expensive gifts for the kids which is why so many of us had it so good so to speak. It was a crazy decade. But by 1988 the party was over and we all knew it. AIDS, drugs, stock market crashes, Reagan leaving the White House, crack cocaine, and just plain reality had set in. The bill for all of it came in and we're still paying for it to this day.

Is it sad that life is kind of like that now in LA? Within in some circles, obviously not all teenagers are living that kind of life butyeah I'd say that this film is pretty damn accurate.
I am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been

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Not in LA, but NY. Yes, it was accurate but exaggerated. What you don't see in this movie is the leftover "cool" vibe of the '60s and '70s, cool meaning, hip, not hipSTER, knowing good music, a keen/sharp sense of humor, lots of witty banter, and a sense of light-hearted PARTY. This film and many other set in the 80s, even made in the 80s, makes everyone look venal and stupid, and that wasn't the case. Parents "absent" is hilarious to me. Parents weren't "absent," parents were living their adult lives with their adult friends, at their own parties (that generation very much enjoyed cocktail parties etc), doing their own things, taking trips and vacations, and "kids" were regarded more like independent human beings than they are now. There weren't these overly-enmeshed family units. Parents did their stuff, their offspring had their lives, and YET there was more interaction like, dinners together every week night, and the best TV in the house, the one with cable, would be in one room and everyone would watch, and it wasn't like "Oh, let's put on the least offensive children's programming or let Jenny and James watch MTV it was whatever the adults wanted to watch unless the kids could lobby them otherwise. But when the weekend came, from the time you were 14 or so, you were more or less on your own, if you wanted to be. Being a good parent didn't mean crawling up your kids' asses or knowing every goddamned detail about their lives. Kids went to school, fought their battles on their own, had their friends, cut school, smoked pot, popped pillsand MOST wanted NOT to get caught because then they WOULD have parents crawling up their assso people weren't like they were in the movie being THAT obviously beep up. Also drinking age on the east coast at least was 18 in many states, and 19 in others. And yes there was tons of coke, but most people didn't get into trouble with it because it was too expensive and more of a special occasion type of party fun, tho a special occasion would often materialize most weekendssomeone would have some and if you were lucky they would share. I know 3 people got messed up on coke2 in the small wealthy preppy private liberal arts college I went to; and 1 from high school. One in college was so much like Julian (and looked like RBJr) - I wonder what happened to himhis father owned a major NY sports teamhe used and dealt and owed money to shady characters and ended up forging checks. I think he is an investment broker now. A girl who overdid it seemed like someone with mental health issues anyway, and the guy in HS also was a ne'er do well. Wealthy and good looking but always did everything to excess, even as a little kid he was just too much. So, yourlist is accurate. Oh, the boys with boys thing? Don't know about that. I mean, some prep school/boarding school guys sometimes even now,I believe, have some slightly odd aristo-homoerotic thing going on, but not public school guys. And girls with girls? that was later, more '90s. "Promiscuity" wasn't termed that, btw. There was very little AIDS among straight wealthy/uppermiddle people until the late '80s/early 90s, so it was just a matter of sleeping with your friends or people you liked if you felt like itnot grotesque or degrading or guys seducing girlsgirls were far more influenced by feminism in a good way, so if they felt like being sexual with someone, they would do so. If you met someone and were connecting you might sleep with them if you both felt like it.

Danny Bonaduce, who does fit into this category, says in his book, "Random Acts of Badness," that this was very accurate. He said they were all pissed off not because of the accuracy of what was described, but the fact that none of them got any royalties.
If you read Imperial Bedrooms, it starts off with a description of why the movie was changed so much when it was adapted to the big screen.

Bitter much?

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I was born in the mid-80's, so in response to the title's question, the answer is no.
Welcome to my Nightmare- Freddy Krueger

Yes, that's entirely accurate, but also include that the girls sometimes slept with other girls.
Please tell us more.

Not LA here either, but West Coast (San Francisco) and graduated from high school in the 80s. I also wasn't rich but hung around with rich kids and that's one way it was different (and this could just be a San Francisco thing). Although the social structure existed, we didn't have the separatism. Rich and poor kids hung out together.
It is accurate in the amount booze, drugs and sex and how available it all was. But at least in our circle it wasn't as sordid and melodramatic. Nobody teetered on the edge of oblivion. We got high and had sex.
We got a lot of the drugs from our parents. Parents who weren't sharing with their kids were getting their stashes stolen by their kids.
It got old, though. I do miss it every so often, but I wouldn't go back.

I wasn't a rich teen by any stretchand I didn't live in LA (I lived in Miami) but my high school boyfriend ran in circles exactly like the ones in the film. Miami was the cocaine capital of the world, and while I never touched the stuff, everyone I knew did. It was common place for these little rich kids to have their parents jet off to God-knows-where and leave them alone in their huge houses. They'd have mega-parties with trays full of cocaine on the dining room table. Every time I watch this movie, it reminds of those days.

Thanks for answering, guys! Any more info? Wish I was a fly on the wall back then

Yes, that's entirely accurate, but also include that the girls sometimes slept with other girls.

My cousin was on a sitcom in the early 80's and he said that Hollywood at that time was amazing to be a teen.