I think it's an illusion. If you look at culture today, there are a bunch of influences from the 80s. (For example, Taylor Swift's latest album is titled '1989' and has an 80s-influenced feel to many of the songs.) In the 80s, there was a bunch of 50s influence. Billy Joel had released "Uptown Girl" and the rest of an album of almost doo-wop pop hits. Grease was a hit movie in 1978, just a few years earlier. You could still catch shows like Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and Hee-Haw on TV. So I think it's just a matter of what you remember. I watched and listened to all that stuff and the 50s still seemed like ancient history to me. (My parents were barely teenagers in the 50s!)