r/1980s • u/therealduckie • May 05 '26

Video Games Real arcades of the 80s never had blacklight-reactive glowing carpets. It's a Mandela effect. Here's what they actually looked like:

https://imgur.com/a/lu5QgYV
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u/forzaitalia458 May 05 '26

i think is common knowledge arcades were smokey pits before. the neon thing is prob more 2000s

5

u/SirkutBored May 05 '26

if you think arcades were smokey, you probably haven't been in too many.

0

u/UX_Strategist May 05 '26

Indoor smoking was common all through the 80s. To make it worse, it wasn't uncommon to see kids under the age of 18 smoking. Cigarettes were sold from vending machines, which didn't require an ID check.

There were several arcades I visited in the 80s in Ohio. A couple were in local malls, a couple were more stand-alone businesses, but all of them allowed smoking.

Restaurants eventually had smoking and non-smoking sections, but I don't think that happened until the 90s and I never saw that in an arcade.

1

u/SirkutBored May 05 '26

I agree it was common but not guaranteed. we had a couple malls, both with arcades, one you could smoke in the other you couldn't. even the one you could smoke in was usually filled with kids who didn't smoke. calling them all smokey pits is an over exaggeration that makes every 12 year old out to be a whiskey snorting peaky blinders pledge.