Somewhere, there’s a photo of me from the mid-80s: feathered curls, dramatic eyeliner, earrings that absolutely matched something, and hair reinforced with enough Aqua Net to qualify as structural engineering.
Here. The photo is here.
And no, I wasn’t blonde back then—this was the 80s, my hair already had enough going on. Blonde Julie came later as an upgrade.
1980s me was skinny, smart, awkward, and trying very, very hard to fit in. But she was also already a tech girl — even if she wouldn’t have called herself that yet.
Back then, the library card catalog was my Google. Research meant flipping index cards, not typing into a search bar. Computers rotated through our math class in two-week increments, and the Apple IIe existed mostly to play Oregon Trail or accidentally delete someone’s hard-earned progress by kicking out the power cord.
And somehow, in the middle of all of that, I became the first editor in my school to use a computer to produce the yearbook. Not all of it — just the text — because we still did all the layouts by hand, photos trimmed by hand and marked with a grease pencil, borders glued down one corner at a time. But even that tiny sliver of digital creation felt like a glimpse of the future.
It was the first moment where something in me quietly said:
Technology can make this better.
Technology is mine.
So what would that version of me — eyeliner-heavy, Aqua-Net-armored, card-catalog-powered 1980s Julie — think of AI today?
Let’s explore.
What 1980s me would think of AI today
1. “Okay, but where’s my flying car?”
We all assumed by now we’d be swooping around town like it was totally normal.
AI is cool, but it’s not exactly hovering. But driverless cars is kinda cool and I’m not sure even Marty McFly saw that coming.
2. “This feels like a Magic 8-Ball that got a college degree.”
Ask it a question, get an answer —
except now it uses complete sentences instead of “Ask again later.”
3. “If this thing autocorrects me without permission, we’re fighting.”
Editor-in-chief energy doesn’t fade.
1980s Julie would not tolerate a machine taking liberties with her commas.
4. “Is this going to mess with my breakdancing movies?”
Let’s be clear: I wasn’t out there breakdancing —
I was a master spectator, fully committed to watching other people spin on cardboard in the driveway.
But if AI dared interrupt Breakin’ or Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo?
Absolutely not. We would have had words.
5. “Can it do hair? Because these bangs aren’t holding themselves up.”
AI can build an app, summarize a meeting, and generate an image,
but it cannot recreate the architectural marvel that was 1980s hair.
The Walkman → AI pipeline
If you were a teen in the 80s, you already know:
The mixtape was our original user interface.
You curated.
You timed the record–pause–record with precision.
You knew exactly how long the intro to each song was. No way a DJ was going to get in the way talking over the music.
Honestly? Prompting AI is the grown-up version of that.
You’re telling the system what vibe you want and what you’re trying to build, then refining until it feels right.
1980s me would absolutely believe she invented prompt engineering after making her first perfect mixtape.
The yearbook layout tragedy (and triumph)
Let’s talk about yearbooks in the 80s.
You haven’t lived until you’ve:
- trimmed photos by hand
- marked cropping lines with a grease pencil
- redone entire pages because someone blinked
- held your breath hoping the ink didn’t smear
- prayed the paper cutter was sharp enough to matter
- survived at least one X-Acto knife “learning experience”
If 1980s me saw today’s AI generate:
- layouts
- captions
- summaries
- image cleanup
- content groupings
- and entire spreads in minutes…
She would have levitated.
Straight through the ceiling tiles.
But here’s the real part
The humor is fun, but the truth is simple:
1980s me already knew who she was.
She loved:
- stories
- technology
- experimenting
- figuring things out before instructions existed
- building something real
- helping people understand things
- making messy stuff make sense
- being curious, even when she felt awkward
Everything I do today — teaching, building, creating, explaining, enabling — is just a grown-up version of what that girl was already doing with an Apple IIe and a stack of yearbook templates.
AI wouldn’t intimidate her.
It would make her eyes go wide.
She’d lean in, fascinated.
And then she’d say:
“Okay. Let me try.”
So what would 1980s me really think of AI?
She’d look at it the same way she looked at the camera in that photo —
a little skeptical, a little amused, a little unsure,
but totally ready.
Big hair.
Big eyeliner.
Big dreams.
Big future she couldn’t see yet.
And honestly?
She’d be proud of how it turned out.
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