LA Teen Clubs, 1983

Adult anxiety about teen recklessness has always been in style. In this video from 1983, slightly nervous newscasters discuss Los Angeles teens who go to clubs like the long gone Dillon’s in Westwood. “If most of this looks like phases these kids are going through, it is. By the time they are in their early twenties, most of them will take on the appearance of people with jobs and responsibilities and they will put aside the look of a teenager and wonder how they ever dressed this way,” one newscaster asserts with cool condescension. Who knows what actually became of these kids, but hopefully they never stopped looking so cool.