 So I'm really excited for this interview 80s dude Timmy on Instagram at back to the 1980s with a Zed. One of our new Life After Ambassadors who has joined the Nostalgia party and a huge fan of this page. So I'm so excited. Timmy, how are you? Welcome. Thank you. I'm doing great. Great to be here. Well, I love, love, love, love your page as do tens of thousands of other people. Tell me about your Instagram page. Why did you start it? Why Nostalgia? What did you want to do with it at first? When I first started it, it was an outlet for me to show off my 80s collection and why I love the 80s and also get to talk to other people who love the 80s like minded people. And it was also a way for me to stop driving my wife crazy. I was driving her crazy constantly talking about something about the 80s, whether it was hair bands or music or movies. So I was able, that was my outlet to where I was able to talk to people who loved it also. It was just, it's just fun. Why do you love the 80s? What is it about the 80s that you love so much? Well, growing up in the 80s, it was just such a fun time to be on my BMX bike riding. We could start in the morning time and take off and go ride until dark. The street lights were coming on. It was time to go home. It was a free time, time to hang out with friends. The music, I love the music. New music is probably my favorite thing of the 80s, that sound. I can hear a song from the 80s and it just, I'm all of a sudden just that feeling comes back to me how I just, I feel it and I love it. And the movies are great. I never get tired of them. I watch them over and over. I listen to them over and over. But yeah, I just love the 80s. It was a magical time. Is that what you remember most about your childhood when you think back? It's the freedom, the music, the movies? Yes. So growing up as a child in the 80s, we didn't have a whole lot growing up, but it made me appreciate everything that I have now and it made me want to collect everything because it was a lot of things I wanted at the time I couldn't get. Now that I'm older, I'm able to do that and I want to collect those things now. It just takes me back to the memories I had, like I say, hanging out with friends and with my buddies and talking about girls and just fun times. It was just a great time. Pretty social media too. In a way, our social media was when we were on our bicycles riding down the road and we're wondering where all our friends are at. Well then you look in the yard over here and as you're passing it and all the bicycles laying in the yard, oh that's where they're at and stop and hang out. Backyard football games, no pads, no helmets. You told you about your collection and that's really one of the things too that drew me to your Instagram account. I was so impressed and very envious of your collection. So did that, is a lot of that from from your childhood that you've carried over? Was there a point in your adulthood that you said you know what I want to recollect all these things that I grew up with? A lot of what you see on my page I did not have growing up. I do have very few items for when I was a kid. Trading cards, sports cards were huge for us back then, stickers. I still have a lot of my sticker, the scratch and sniff stickers. I love those. Every time I went to the store it was either I had to have a pack of stickers or a pack of trading cards. Those are some fond memories right there and I actually still have all those. I do have a few of my toys. I got my original trapper keeper. I love trapper keepers. So from there it just grew and I wanted to collect. I wanted it to grow more and more and I don't focus on just one thing from the 80s because I know there's certain pages out there that may be only Star Wars fans or maybe only BMX. I like it all. I want to collect it all. I can't get enough of the 80s and as you can see by my room I'm a collector of all things 80s. It's just fun. Now I do have a lot of my sister's toys and she was born in 1983 and she passed away and I have all her original toys over here in the corner and I will collect those and they will be in my room forever. What was her favorite item in her collection and what is your favorite item now in your collection? You'll let me get it. I'll show you. She had several things and I think Rainbow Brite. I remember Rainbow Brite. Rainbow Brite Care Bears. She had Care Bears. I've got that and then also Glow Worm, Pound Puppies. She loved all that stuff and she took care of it and so I have inherited that and it will stay in my collection forever. Now as far as my favorite toy, if you'll allow me again. Please by all means. This is my favorite toy, Optimus Prime. I mean to me he is the ultimate 80s hero. When you think of hero you think of Optimus Prime and who doesn't love Optimus Prime? He's just so cool and the guy who voiced him made him even better so yeah Optimus Prime is my favorite. Now some of the pictures that I see on your Instagram you're very Marty McFly'd up fashion wise. Are you an advocate for being 80s fashion in everyday wear or is that just a special occasion? No I actually have parachute pants that I throw on every once in a while. Original from the 80s. I can still fit in those. I have a stonewashed Levi's blue jean jacket, the original with the red tag right here and I've actually got a couple Levi's jackets. I've got a light blue one. I like I love light blue jeans. I don't like the dark. I love the light and stonewash is one of my favorites and so yeah I actually do wear 80s clothing out and I've got swatch watches, original swatch watches that are right over there and I wear those also and early on when I was doing this before I started my page people would kind of laugh and make fun but then as my page grew I could say like-minded followers that are like me they see me I try to be real I am who I am when I talk about the 80s or love the 80s that's who I am I really live the 80s and so now these people when they see me out they don't laugh anymore they know I'm serious. Why do you think nostalgia is so big at the moment and important for people? Well I can say for me and I've talked to other people too because I do get a lot of messages people thanking me for what I do. I think the older that we get and how maybe times are different now we look back on those times and wish that we could relive those days and I can't tell you the times people message me and say they want to go back they want to go back and I tell them well I'm still living it just live it just do it but I understand what they're saying so it's a time where they have memories and it was a time they loved growing up and so I think nostalgia is big because it's a remembrance of who we were and how fun we had it and how great we had it that's really well put because it is sometimes I think it's it could be quite hard because it's a fine line between are we living in the past and everyone says live in the present and think about the future but with what you're doing you can embrace it and still be in it and I don't think it's a negative at all to as long as you still live in the present it's appreciating the past and it is this glorious time before we you know we had our whole lives ahead of us and times were simple and our biggest worry you know wasn't what we have now to worry about and it was just this magical glorious internet free time in our lives where we just hung out with friends and it was just great it was great I totally agree and um I mean I sit and I think about it the 80s was a time where our generation made BMX huge you know BMX was at the top and skateboarding um so many other video games were starting big at that time we didn't have online gaming or anything like that and games were simple back then we had two or three little buttons on the controller which my mind can I can get that um but yeah the and and computers were starting so I just think the 80s was a time that really started a lot of great things going back to your collection is there one thing that you don't have that you would love to like your holy grail of items okay yes so for me transformers are my number one toy that I love to collect but I like thundercats also I would love to have the thundercats layer the actual play set the castle they have and and that is a very expensive um item to get a whole love it's kind of rare and it's getting harder harder to find but I would love to have that and what do you hope to do with your collection your instagram page where do you want to build it to what do you where do you see the long term with it so when I first started I thought maybe in five years I might have a thousand followers I had no idea that there was that many people who love the 80s which thank you and I appreciate that so much um it's because of you I get to keep doing this I would like in the future for my page to to grow and to get bigger maybe start getting more and more sponsors because uh with sponsors then that would allow me to spend more time on my page and make it even better and better for all you guys and I could spend and just hang out in the 80s and talk to you guys I just think it's great honestly I would love to have and start an 80s museum and those of you that do know I mean know that I love to do restorations of old DMX bikes and even toys star wars toys I restore those and I bring them back to life so I would love to have an 80s museum and a restoration a place for me to do my restorations in the back um to me that would be a dream maybe even have like an 80s cafe right off of that I've got big dreams maybe one day I'm gonna ask your top three bands and three movies in a minute but favorite 80s tv shows favorite 80s tv shows magnum pi number one the a team number two and the third one wow you know there's so many good ones I look around my room and um the third is be a hard choice I would say duke's a hazard top three movies that's pretty easy for me that would be the goonies wow you guys realize what we could do back to the future history is going to change and et et phone home top three bands you love top three bands that would be death leopard bonjovi I would say cinderella have you met anyone from goonies back to the future et death leopard I did go see death leopard in concert um a couple of years ago they came to town with journey a journey is another one of my top bands I love journey I have met elliot from et and I got pictures with him and got his autograph and that was really cool what is one thing that people don't know or would be surprised to find out about you well this is kind of funny but um so everybody knows I'm stuck in the 80s I do like other things besides the 80s but mostly we just talk about that on my page but I love 90s country I love 90s country music so in the 80s well let's just say early 90s the 80s was still kind of going 90 90 91 92 well uh grunge music hit and it kind of killed the 80s so I kind of switched over to 90s country at that time let me think clay walker um travestritt alan jackson guys like that brookson dunn tracy laurance you can do a 90s country museum next to your 80s museum I could if uh if people if my followers would like that I don't know if they would sometimes I'll post something from early 90s and they'll they'll let me know right away that's not from the 80s 80s dude timmy back to the 1980s with a zed on instagram um it has been an absolute pleasure and I hope to one day see your collection in person it looks magnificent it's been great talking to you and I hope to meet you in person one day also that would be awesome for you to come to my house and see my rooms take the guided tour