Pop Goes The Future

I grew up in the seventies and eighties. Movies, music, and television were the shared cultural experiences. Now we can add the internet to that list, which makes the choices available in all categories stretch almost to infinity. There is more TV than you can watch. There is more music than you can listen to. But back then, the number of movies was shorter. Movies like 2001, Star Wars, Blade Runner, Alien, and even shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation all played a part in shaping my idea of the future. Add Robocop, Back to the Future II, Ghostbusters, Tron, The Last Starfighter, and Terminator, and you’ve almost covered every angle. Us geeks then grew up with, and obsessed over, the details of this stuff. This obsession was fuelled and extended by games, action figures, and then finally by the invention of the VCR which let us watch the future until the tape wore thin and the designs and the concepts became emblazoned on our minds’ eye. These vestiges of popular culture, these visions of the future, were artificially inherited. They became part of our genes, they became the new lenses through which we saw the future. And as we grew up, we saw opportunities to bring that future back to life: tablet computers, wireless transmissions, three dimensional printing… The designers and engineers that were geeking out over this stuff back then are trying to make it real now. The Tricorder exists, as does the Nike Air Mag. 3D printers are just the prototypes for future Replicators. And there is a lot more to come. The pop culture designs and images from our nostalgic past, which are about the future we are experiencing now, creates this strange sensation of modernized déja vu.

What I’m really trying to say is that whenever I see a forklift I think of Ripley fighting the mother Alien in her exco-skeleton [Aliens]. Whenever I see a water tower being renovated, I think of the second, ‘unfinished’ Death Star [The Empire Strikes Back]. Whenever I see someone with too much eye shadow I think of Pris, the ‘basic pleasure model’ replicant from Blade Runner. And whenever I see a bluetooth headset I think of the communicator badges in Star Trek TNG. This retro-sci-fi-vision has yet to be identified as a psychological illness, but it certainly affects the way I see the present.

I’m curious what other generations ‘see’ from seminal moments in their relived pop culture experiences. Any insight is welcome in the comment area.