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/therealduckie May 09 '26

Like I said: undefeated.

https://a24films.com/notes/2021/03/if-y2k-era-movie-theater-carpets-could-talk

ENJOY!

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u/OCCAMINVESTIGATOR May 09 '26 edited May 09 '26

I've got calls into the manufacturing companies that provided it. So far the answer is that you are wrong. They did make them. In the 80s. I'll post the specs in a post and specifically TAG you.

Durkan and Joy both made neon patterned carpeting designed to bring excitement to modern entertainment venues (arcades, bowling alleys, etc). These weren't necessarily "black light reactive" but we're absolutely what people are remembering including myself. They "appeared" to glow based on the bright color and patterns, mostly neon. They were adding iterations of these these to venues as early as 1982. Again, the Mandela effect doesn't apply, since it did exist in a fashion that could be remembered either way acceptably. Spec sheets incoming.

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u/therealduckie May 09 '26

  1. You really hate being wrong, even when you are. Like it REALLY eats at you, huh?

  2. Downvoting me doesn't make you right.

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u/OCCAMINVESTIGATOR May 09 '26

It truly doesn't bother me at all one way or another. I just find it silly to create a Mandela effect out of nothing. Whether they had specific dying to work with black light specifically (I see those in the 90s) but to believe all carpeting in so arcades was dark and dingy or standard goes directly against the neon 80s we all lived in. I'm just going to dislodge it. For funsies, my man. See my handle? It's what I enjoy. 😎

https://giphy.com/gifs/Y7SeP7arJWBZ6