History Main / TwoDecadesBehind

* Though set in the 1990s and released in 1994, the world of ''[[ideoGame/EarthBound1994 EarthBound]]'' still bears more resemblance to the Eighties. No one seems to have personal computers, some of the language (in the English version) falls into TotallyRadical territory, and Ness's attire isn't all that different from that of [[VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings his predecessor Ninten]], whose game actually was set and made in the Eighties; most other characters' attire is also quite Eighties-like.

* Though set in the 1990s and released in 1994, the world of ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' still bears more resemblance to the Eighties. No one seems to have personal computers, some of the language (in the English version) falls into TotallyRadical territory, and Ness's attire isn't all that different from that of [[VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings his predecessor Ninten]], whose game actually was set and made in the Eighties; most other characters' attire is also quite Eighties-like.

* ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'': Despite moving along with the times in general the comic strip still had Tintin wear his old plusfour pants up until the penultimate album. Only in "Recap/TintinTintinAndThePicaros" (1975), the final book in the series, do we see Tintin wearing modern jeans trousers.

** His first feature ''Film/TheSwordAndTheSorcerer'' (1981) advertised a sequel during the end credits called ''Film/TalesOfAnAncientEmpire''. However the movie wouldn't see a release until 2010, [[ScheduleSlip a full 29 years after the first movie's premiere]]; by which point ''Sorcerer'' had long been forgotten outside of the BMovie circuit, and by then {{sword and sorcery}} films were dying down in Hollywood in favor of superhero titles.

* Check out some of the Creator/{{Disney}} live-action comedies from the 1970s, where it's apparently still the fifties: milk is still delivered to doorsteps; women are still [[{{housewife}} housewives]]; and the chances of seeing any hippies, punks, or glam rockers are slim to none. Heck, in many cases [[SeventiesHair the sideburns on the male characters aren't even that long]]! Occasionally the writers would slip in something TotallyRadical, but that worked about as well as you'd expect. Children who watch these films (and remember, these are some of the first live-action films they see) often end up [[ModernStasis assuming that hardly any big change happened in the '60s and '70s]]. This still happens today, to an extent; although since the 1990s, this has been more intentional, often in an AffectionateParody intent. One reason given for this is that Creator/WaltDisney was very old-fashioned and conservative as in the case of his immediate successors, and thus, the studio was always a step or two behind the rest of Hollywood until the arrival of Michael Eisner.

** Watching the first few scenes of the original 1984 film, you'll be forgiven for thinking the story takes place in the 1950s instead of the 1980s, based on the way the teenagers are dressed and the small-town pastor's sermons against [[TheNewRockAndRoll the evils of rock music]], as well as apparently every kind of music except for classical music. (Heck, even ''country'' music is implied to be too wild for this town!) The sermons, at least, were TruthInTelevision, since the movie was based on [[RippedFromTheHeadlines a real-life court case]].

* ''Film/HomeAlone'': Peter claims that locks for the doors and electronic timers for the lights are about the best anyone could do for home security. Even at the time the movie was released, home security systems were available, and an affluent family like the [=McCallisters=] would be especially likely to have one.

* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' characters are commonly seen using technology from the 1970s and 1980s. Most notable are Strong Bad's computers and television; it took three upgrades for him to finally get a modern PC, and only one was by choice. Heck, even the site itself never modernized until the retirement of Flash, still looking the same as it did in the early 2000s.

Contrast PresentDayPast, when current culture sneaks into a PeriodPiece, and UnintentionalPeriodPiece, where instead of being behind the times, a work of fiction is all too obviously ''of'' its time. See also RetroUniverse and PurelyAestheticEra. TechnologicallyBlindElders is when this trope applies to characters in-universe.

* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'': Some have noted that many elements of Creator/KenPenders' run make it feel like something from 20-30 years earlier at times, due to his attempts to ape things he was into when he was younger. As game developer and amateur comics historian Bobby Schroeder put it:

* Spoofed with the Robin Sparkles videos in ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', which were supposedly from the mid-1990s [[{{Retraux}} but look as if they were made in 1986]]. Robin explains that "TheEighties didn't come to {{Canada|Eh}} until 1993." The gag continues in a later episode, where Robin is credited in Canada with having invented grunge as a genre... in 1996.

* An intentional case in ''ComicBook/{{Revolutionaries}}''-- when legendary WWII hero [[WesternAnimation/SgtSavageAndHisScreamingEagles Sgt. Robert Stephen Savage]] is brought forth to 1994 by [[MacGuffin the Talisman]], he immediately adapts to his new time period, [[TotallyRadical embracing 90s culture in every way]]. ''Then'' the Talisman sends him in time again, this time to 2017, where the Revolutionaries are rather confused at a WWII legend snarling "[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Eat my shorts]]" and gushing about ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog''. It doesn't stop Sgt. Savage (already a SuperSoldier / {{Expy}} of ComicBook/CaptainAmerica) from being ''great'', though.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyRw2EDQFko A 1995 commercial for Eggo Cinnamon Toast Waffles]] exemplifies this trope to a tee. In it, a kid suggests combining his school with a music video. What follows is a school with its kids dressed at least a decade out of date, wearing spandex and ridiculous amounts of hairspray, topped off with a voiceover by a [[Music/TheRamones Joey Ramone]] soundalike. If the advertisers did their research regarding what was hip when the ad came out, the boys would've all had Music/KurtCobain haircuts and dirty clothes. The girls, meanwhile, would've either cut their hair really short or dressed like [[Film/{{Clueless}} Cher Horowitz]]. Of course, these styles were in the mid-1990s still popular in many parts of the American Midwest, which is supposedly where the "average" American consumer lives; hell, in some cases those styles are still popular in the Midwest ''today''.

** Appeared in some comics of the 1990s, with some of Bruce Wayne's high-society friends still saying "old boy" and other faux-British expressions, even though it hadn't been fashionable to say such things since the 1930s at the latest. Of course, since Wayne pretends to be an out-of-touch rich guy and his friends are largely [[UpperClassTwit Upper-Class Twits]], this was probably just [[RuleOfFunny satire]].

* Notoriously, Creator/TimBurton's ''Film/Batman1989'' and ''Film/BatmanReturns'' depicted Gotham City being ''four'' decades behind. Even though it's clear from the context that the stories are occurring during about the last decade of the 20th century, newspapers still cost about 25 cents, a chemical plant still dumps its toxic waste in the river, suburbs are nonexistent (except for Wayne Manor, of course), the town is without solar or even nuclear power, women still have no way to fight back against discrimination in the workplace, fedoras and late-1940s "New Look" dresses are everywhere, criminals fire Thompson submachine guns, and while the cars are at least contemporary, Bruce Wayne thinks nothing of having Alfred drive him around in a very old-fashioned 1930s Rolls-Royce. Some of this can, of course, be justified by PurelyAestheticEra.

* Some of the portrayals of out-of-touch seniors in ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'''s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk Amazon Echo Silver ad parody]] seem a little out-of-date themselves...like Creator/KenanThompson wanting to know how many people Satchel Paige[[note]]dead since 1982[[/note]] struck out the night before and Echo playing swing when another character says he wants to hear "black jazz". Those would have been funnier in the 1980s, not the 2010s.[[note]]Of course, it doesn't help that most of the actors aren't made to look "Greatest Generation" age as the bit claims[[/note]]

* A lot of the guys' hairstyles early in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' are very '90s (but probably were still in style in 2002). Buried within the strip's ArtEvolution, Elliot's mullet and Justin's two-level bowlcut have been changed to styles which are less FrozenInTime, while Tedd's iconic, grape jelly-colored shoulder-length curtains stayed for years until he gave himself an ImportantHaircut. Of course, in-universe [[WebComicTime just over a year has passed]].

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' debuted in 2010, but features cell phones and video games that look straight out of TheEighties. [[JustifiedTrope Of course]], the series ''is'' set [[AfterTheEnd a thousand years after an apocalyptic war]]; technological progress may have gone in some strange directions. One proposed explanation for this is that The Mushroom War was the Cold War ending badly, explaining the '80s tech.

-->'''[[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]]:'' The interesting thing about ''Forever'' is that you can practically cut it in half, and see the entire fourteen years of shooter evolution it was trying to keep up with, like the rings of a tree stump.

* Similarly, by many accounts ''VideoGame/DukeNukemForever'' could have been a fine game if it had actually come out when it was supposed to (constant shifting of ''when'' that was notwithstanding). Instead, it features gameplay design elements (not to mention references) that by its 2011 release were almost a decade old even at most recent.

* In ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', it appears that Bella lives in the early nineties where they don't have pop-up blockers yet. {{Justified|Trope}}, since she is also supposed to live in the town where time stood still and is implied to be HopelessWithTech. Also, the clothing, especially Bella's, likewise seems to be 90s-era {{Grunge}}; however, that might not be very surprising, considering it's set in some podunk town in Washington state, which is where the whole Grunge scene got kick-started.

** This trope is discussed in the article, "[[http://www.cracked.com/article_19753_7-ridiculously-outdated-assumptions-every-movie-makes.html 7 Ridiculously Outdated Assumptions Every Movie Makes]]". The example that most fits this is #2, which discusses how high school pranks are often seen as extremely funny in movies, but in real life nowadays students will get arrested for less. Pre-Columbine, the pranks would not have been perceived this way. But even pre-Columbine, there was far less tolerance for high school pranks than there used to be. This is due mostly to the birth of the Self-Esteem Generation (basically anybody born from about 1975 to 1995 was a part of this), the various child/teen-related social issues that sprung up during the '80s (AIDS, molestation, etc.), and the fact that by about 1980 school teachers could no longer enforce physical punishment on students. In fact, one of the central points of ''Film/DazedAndConfused'' (made in 1993) is to glorify the comparable freedom teenagers had during the mid-'70s.
** Cracked itself might actually count as an example. Since the majority of their writers and their audience are in the late-'20s and early-'30s demographic, the majority of their articles reference Eighties pop culture, with references to the likes of ''He-Man,'' ''[=ThunderCats=]'', and the Eighties versions of ''Transformers'' and the like.

** The Simpson family dutifully goes to church every Sunday, even in later seasons where Marge is the only strongly Christian Simpson. Once upon a time (between the 1930s and 1960s), even families that weren't religious would go to church at least for appearances' sake, but this had largely disappeared by the 1970s, as social mores changed. And by the 1990s, religious people would increasingly not consider themselves as "practicing" believers (as in, actually participating in faith-related activities). These days, it's easier to find practicing Christians who ''don't'' attend church regularly than it is to find non-religious people who do, if there are any of the latter.

** A 2012 strip (in which Hi indulges in a little in-my-day lecturing to teenage son Chip [[WhatAreRecords while listening to old vinyl records]]) prompted some discussion on Blog/TheComicsCurmudgeon about how implausible such a gag is in 2012, since vinyl stopped being the dominant music format some three decades prior, which should make Dad a lot older than the fortyish guy he's depicted as to have amassed such a collection in his youth.
** Another one depicts Chip's room with posters of Music/BobDylan, Music/TheWho, and Music/LedZeppelin. As the Comics Curmudgeon commentary puts it, this guy is not the mom's son, but her ''dad'' with those musical tastes. Most modern teenagers would not be fans exclusively of 40 and 50 year old music, so this trope is in effect.

** Despite coming from 1999, Fry's favorite music and video games are mostly from the early to mid-Eighties (although this would line up with his childhood years, in keeping with his general {{manchild}} qualities). An "Anthology of Interest" episode features a video game-focused plot, and barring a single mention of "[[VideoGame/ZeroWing all your base are belong to us]]", every game featured or referenced (VideoGame/DonkeyKong'', ''VideoGame/SpaceInvaders'', ''VideoGame/PacMan'', ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}'') is OlderThanTheNES.

** Despite coming from 1999, Fry's favorite music and video games are mostly from the early to mid-Eighties (although this would line up with his childhood years, in keeping with his general {{manchild}} qualities).

* ''WesternAnimation/BettyBoop'' is an OlderThanTelevision example, being a flapper throughout TheThirties when flappers were more popular during [[TheRoaringTwenties the '20s]].

** Despite being set in a far future, and despite the fact that Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew have been dead since the 1990s and Henry Kissinger is no longer politically active, the series constantly pokes fun at these politicians from the 1970s, as if there haven't been other mockable politicians around ever since.

Setting your work TwentyMinutesIntoThePast can avoid this issue. Due to the PopularityPolynomial, sometimes out of date trends can [[{{Retraux}} still come across as cool]] and add interest to a modern setting. Having a character be a FanOfThePast is smoother way to integrate old trends into a current or future setting.

** The most glaring discrepancy is that of the early years of Homer and Marge, who (according to the show's original early '90s {{canon}}) graduated from high school in 1974 and married in 1980, with Bart being born in 1981 and Lisa about two years after that. That timeframe obviously became completely unworkable long ago (by the mid-2010s, neither of them would have even been born in 1974), and yet flashbacks to Homer's adolescence will still show him with SeventiesHair, and Marge still likes {{disco}} music. Things got [[AnachronismStew more complicated]] when the season 19 episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS19E11That90sShow That '90s Show]]" {{retcon}}ned the timeframe of Homer's and Marge's romance as having taken place in the '90s, at the height of the Grunge era. Yet in the following seasons, this was disregarded by the show's writers.

* The abandoned 4th season of the Hungarian cartoon ''Animation/MezgaCsalad'' is a layered example. Its two completed episodes feature the characters from the original 1968 season, still inexplicably the same age (at least a few of them got a wardrobe update), trying to buy their first home computer and discover the digital world. This was already a dated topic by the end of the 90s when home [=PCs=] became widespread, but the episodes are from 2005. Worse, since this ill-fated {{revival}} was still helmed by the original writers (who at the time were in their 60s and 70s), the humor and general style of writing seemed to be stuck in the mid-1900s, with lazy puns like mistaking a computer mouse for a living one and even a [[AsianBuckTeeth buck toothed]], yellow skinned, slant eyed, [[AsianSpeekeeEngrish heavily accented]] racist Chinese caricature who wanted to eat the family dog (for what it's worth, such jokes [[ValuesDissonance were very common and topical]] even during the 2000s as Eastern Europe experienced an influx of Asian businesses and immigrants). This out of touch thinking also lead to the series' cancellation. The creators insisted on expensive, hand drawn traditional animation that was simply unfeasible in the country at the time even with digital tools, as [[Creator/PannoniaFilmStudio their studio]] had been on a massive downward spiral since 1990.

** Buzz Lightyear has shades of this, as well. The creators claimed to have based him on the coolest toy of their childhoods, which was the original twelve-inch-tall Toys/GIJoe, and he overall comes off as a far more advanced version of those old action figures, with a host of gimmicks and features all packed into a single design. By the 90s, boy-aimed figures of that size and ilk were vanishingly rare, with the industry having shifted in the direction of a large number of much smaller figures after the success of Kenner's ''Franchise/StarWars'' (typically between three inches and six inches tall) and focusing more on a "[[GottaCatchEmAll collect them all!]]" strategy.

** His first feature ''Film/TheSwordAndTheSorcerer'' (1981) advertised a sequel during the end credits called ''Film/TalesOfAnAncientEmpire''. However the movie wouldn't see a release until 2010, [[ScheduleSlip a full 29 years after the first movie's premiere]]; by which point ''Sorcerer'' had long been forgotten outside of the BMovie circuit, and by then sword and sorcery films were dying down in Hollywood in favor of superhero titles.

* Parodied in ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' as a RunningGag with [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep The Waitress.]] Despite being in her thirties and forties, the Waitress consistently fails to keep up with modern technology, her cellphone is at least a decade old, and she isn't familiar with the internet.

* The Series/EurovisionSongContest is often about twenty years behind what is actually popular ''in Europe'' simply to garner as much mass appeal as possible (and perhaps for the {{Camp}} factor). Lampshaded in ''Love Love Peace Peace'', a 2016 interval act describing a perfect Eurovision song:

* The clothing worn by the Mystery Gang in ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo'' was fashionable in 1968-69 when the series began, but became increasingly more anachronistic and odd-looking as TheSeventies progressed into TheEighties. Daphne's mini-dress and Alice band, right for a stylish teen in 1968, alongside Fred's groovy cravat, froze the show into a perpetual 1969, alongside the psychedelic paint job on the Mystery Van. This has a LampShade hung on it in the first movie, where Fred contemplates his cravat for a moment, shakes his head, drops it back into a draw and then dresses appropriately for the 2000's.

** Krusty himself became an example as years went by, as while he was (alongside with Pennywise) a key factor in the decline of portrayals of good-natured clowns, the modern perception that ''all'' harlequins are evil makes him a relic of another era. His many parallels with Creator/JerryLewis don't help either.

** The Simpson family dutifully goes to church every Sunday, even in later seasons where Marge is the only strongly Christian Simpson. Once upon a time (between the 1930s and 1960s), even families that weren't religious would go to church at least for appearances' sake, but this had largely disappeared by the 1970s, as social mores changed. And by the 1990s, religious people would increasingly not consider themselves as "practicing" believers (as in, actually participating in faith-related activities). These days, it's easier to find practicing Christians who ''don't'' attend church regularly than it is to find non-religious people who do, if there are any.

** The most glaring discrepancy is that of the early years of Homer and Marge, who (according to the show's original early '90s {{canon}}) graduated from high school in 1974 and married in 1980, with Bart being born in 1981 and Lisa about two years after that. That timeframe obviously became completely unworkable long ago (by the mid-2010s, neither of them would have even been born in 1974), and yet flashbacks to Homer's adolescence will still show him with SeventiesHair, and Marge still likes {{Disco}} music. Things got [[AnachronismStew more complicated]] when the season 19 episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS19E11That90sShow That '90s Show]]" {{retcon}}ned the timeframe of Homer's and Marge's romance as having taken place in the '90s, at the height of the Grunge era. Yet in the following seasons, this was disregarded by the show's writers.

Currently, a show 2 decades behind would be set around [[TurnOfTheMillennium the late 90s or early 2000s]], meaning that the Internet would just have become mainstream and smartphones would be pretty much non-existent, though early cellphones would be common. Occasionally, far more extreme examples can exist, with shows set 3 or more decades behind, such as the example at the top of this page.

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' has a "future history" covering the millennium between the game's initial publication in 1984 and the 31st century. It presumes the existence of the Soviet Union well into the 21st century. This history has not been modified to take into account the collapse of the USSR, even in the most recent publications. WordOfGod is that ''[=BattleTech=]'' is the future of TheEighties, not the future of today.
** Also {{subverted|Trope}} at the same time just given the nature of the game universe: Even though the above is true, since the players are going to be spending all of their in-game time anywhere on a spectrum of dates from AD 2525 to AD 3145 depending on group preference, it's 99.99999% certain that the question of whether Soviet collapse happened or not in the ''[=BattleTech=]'' universe is never going to come into play in any given game of ''[=BattleTech=]''.
** The comment that ''[=BattleTech=]'' is the future of TheEighties more or less defines it perfectly. The integral [=FTL=] communication system utilized in the setting is little more than a glorified interstellar [=FAX=] machine. Battlefield warfare and technologies are more along the lines of the early Cold War and late World War methodologies (especially in regard to weapon performance). Digitizing of mechanical components never became prevalent. When looking at the earlier editions of ''[=BattleTech=]'', and seeing the technological fluff changes made in more recent versions, one can really see how much advances made in the '90s really changed society.
[[/folder]]

* Check out some of the Creator/{{Disney}} live-action comedies from the 1970s, where it's Still The Fifties: milk is still delivered to doorsteps; women are still housewives; and the chances of seeing any hippies, punks, or glam rockers are slim to none. Heck, in many cases [[SeventiesHair the sideburns on the male characters aren't even that long]]! Occasionally the writers would slip in something TotallyRadical, but that worked about as well as you'd expect. Children who watch these films (and remember, these are some of the first live-action films they see) often end up [[ModernStasis assuming that hardly any big change happened in the '60s and '70s]]. This still happens today, to an extent; although since the 1990s, this has been more intentional, often in an AffectionateParody intent. One reason given for this is that Creator/WaltDisney was very old-fashioned and conservative as in the case of his immediate successors, and thus, the studio was always a step or two behind the rest of Hollywood until the arrival of Michael Eisner.

* ''Film/TheCraft'', released in 1996, looks like it was written in c.1984-85: has one teenager refer to another as looking like [[Series/WKRPInCincinnati Loni Anderson]], who was best known during the late 1970s and 1980s, and was already on the wane by the late 90s. The comparison was true, however. Others may point to the open racism of the popular girl and her lackeys as this trope, but is actually more of a case for [[RealityisUnrealistic realty is unrealistic]].

* Played with in ''Film/NapoleonDynamite'': While the movie is stated to be set in 2004 (present-day at the time of shooting), almost every character's fashion sense seems to be stuck in the eighties or even seventies, Napoleon uses his trusty Walkman to great effect, a fair deal of 80s music is heard (Alphaville's "Forever Young", Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time", etc.) and cordless phones (not to mention cellphones) are absent. Clearly overlaps with AnachronismStew, since Kip is stated to chat online with "chicks" via a 90s style dial-up connection (as [[LampshadeHanging pointed out]] by Uncle Rico) on a computer which uses floppy disks as a storage medium, and Summer uses a Music/BackstreetBoys song to accompany her election skit. When the film's writers were asked when the story was set, they replied, "Idaho".

* ''Film/TheCraft'', released in 1996, looks like it was written in c.1984-85: has one teenager refer to another as looking like [[Series/WKRPInCincinnati Loni Anderson]], who was best known during the late 1970s and 1980s, and was already on the wane by the late 90s. The comparison was true, however.
Others may point to the open racism of the popular girl and her lackeys as this trope, but is actually more of a case for [[RealityisUnrealistic realty is unrealistic]].

* ''Film/TheCraft'', released in 1996, looks like it was written in c.1984-85: has one teenager refer to another as looking like [[Series/WKRPInCincinnati Loni Anderson]], who was best known during the late 1970s and 1980s, and was already on the wane by the late 90s. The comparison was true, however. Also, the popular girl is openly racist, and her friends seem to be as well. At the very least, they back her up. This would not happen in the '90s at ''any'' school, [[RealityisUnrealistic let alone the affluent California school in the film]].

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Many expats working in Japan or China complain of antiquated office equipment such as fax machines, the inaccessibility of [=ATMs=] during certain hours, the nonuniversal nature of some cards that [=ATMs=] won't accept (especially foreign ones), and extremely slow Internet despite Japan being a technological mecca. China has restrictive banking of bureaucratic stamping, analog police records, and use pen and paper, and in rural China some farmers continue to use old Mao-era tractors. More rural places don't have [=ATMs=] and everything is done with cash, or even old bronze aged merchant scales. Some Chinese live in ancient mud huts that have existed since the Ming Dynasty. UsefulNotes/{{Shanghai}}'s Bund apartments are still inhabitable.
* These fads often crop up at least once per decade (see also: PopularityPolynomial). In the 2000s, 1980s nostalgia became a big cultural fad, with dance clubs hosting sporadic "'80s Dance Nights" and singers like Music/LadyGaga and Music/KatyPerry unabashedly embracing '80s fashion and music styling. Similarly, during the '90s, '70s nostalgia swept the nation. Hence films like ''Film/DazedAndConfused'', shows like ''Series/That70sShow'' and the fact that, at the time, you couldn't walk into a dance hall without hearing the blaring sounds of [[Music/TheVillagePeople "YMCA" and "In The Navy"]], and people (mostly girls) started wearing bell-bottoms again. In TheNewTens, while '80s nostalgia is still going pretty strong thanks to stuff like ''Series/StrangerThings'' and ''Film/IT2017'' receiving a SettingUpdate with the kids' story taking place in the '80's, '90's nostalgia is increasingly taking hold, although '90s-themed period pieces seem to be far less common than those based on the '70's and '80's, probably because the '90s are a much harder decade to accurately represent. 2000's nostalgia will probably kick in sometime after 2020.
** Among Generation Z, nostalgia for the early 2000's has already started, with the revival of PopPunk in TheNewTwenties being an example. It will probably be a while before 2000s nostalgia is as "mainstream" as 90s nostalgia, however; this has more to do with the age of the writers of popular media and entertainment, which tends to be 5 to 12 years older than typical college students.
* Take a look at your own grandparents. If they haven't gone completely casual for the sake of comfort or safety, they probably dress about 20 years out of date. (Their casual wear is probably outdated as well.) In TheEighties, many grandmothers wore polyester dresses that looked more suited to TheFifties or TheSixties. The [[DiscoDan aging Casanova who dons a polyester Disco suit]] (complete with chest medallions) before going out on a date is also a common image from media of that era. In the 1920's, it was common in movies to portray old women wearing clothing with long skirts that wouldn't have looked out of place in the 1890s. Before the age of electricity, television or the movies, fashions dispersed ''very'' slowly. It wasn't uncommon in Renaissance Europe for people out in the countryside to dress in fashions that were about 20 years behind the clothing worn by people at court.
* Everything about UsefulNotes/NorthKorea is basically this, especially because they're [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny an autocratic state complete with propaganda (and gulags) straight out of the eras of Stalin or Mao]], and are ''still'' fighting the Cold War thirty-odd years after everyone else has given up. And that they [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking still don't have Internet]]. If you examine the country in greater detail things get even more out of date. It is not uncommon to find trains from the Twenties or weapons from the Fifties still being used, even among comparatively more advanced hardware. Linguists have also noted the phenomena of divergence between the forms of Korean spoken in North and South Korea. Isolation and cultural divergence has led to (North) Korean perpetuating the styles and forms of the language as spoken sixty or seventy years ago. (North) Korean also lacks lots of the more-recently evolved words and phrases (neologisms) which have been coined or adapted from other languages to describe modern technology or socio-cultural evolutions. Put into Western terms, imagine a part of Britain divided by an arbitrarily chosen line, behind which people still speak like an Ealing Film character or a BBC announcer from the 1940's and which lacks phrases like ''home computer'', ''mobile phone'', or even the ever-changing youth slang of the decades since 1950.
* Some computer programmers favor command-line interfaces from the '70s and '80s, especially those using {{UsefulNotes/UNIX}}-like operating systems. They also prefer minimalistic desktop environments/window managers that look like they could be from the '80s and '90s. This isn't because of nostalgia or their being 20 years old. If used by experts, [=CLIs=] can do things faster than with graphical environments. So even another two decades in the future programmers will still likely be using command-line interfaces in many situations.
* Besides their record of racial oppression, the white minority government of UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica during UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra also had very conservative sensibilities, meaning that South Africa was culturally out of step with the rest of the world for a long time. How bad was it? Television wasn't introduced there until 1976!
* Continental Europe went through this during the Second World War. The Nazi occupiers censored everything from the U.S.A. and the U.K., causing the people to fall behind five years of American popular culture. A prominent example: many Hollywood stars of the 1930s remained popular and well-known in Europe because people still remembered them, while many of the new stars introduced during the early 1940s didn't quite catch on. This also explains why Creator/LaurelAndHardy, for instance, have always remained far more popular and well known there than Creator/AbbottAndCostello and Film/TheThreeStooges.
* Some post-war dictatorships in Europe during the second half of the 20th century like Spain (1939-1975), Greece (1967-1973), Portugal (1930-1974), and the various communist countries of Eastern Europe (1945-1989) were also instrumental in keeping their people stuck in traditions and not allowing every new influence inside their countries. When the regimes finally fell, the countries had a lot of technological and modern stuff to catch up to.
** In the case of Spain, the clock wasn't just stopped -- it was ''turned back'', with Franco expressly mentioning that he wanted to erase every influence of Liberalism rooted in Spain since the '30s... the '''18'''30s. The Catholic Church being given an influence and privileges it had not enjoyed since the First Carlist War caused an ironic rift with the Vatican when John XXIII became Pope and the Church itself became far too liberal for its local stalwarts. Perhaps the worst legacy of the regime is that, because it was so long-lived, many people abroad still see those outdated attitudes as a [[TorosYFlamenco normal part of Spanish culture]], rather than an anomaly that was forced from the top down, and they are shocked to discover that Spanish society has long moved past them in the [[OlderThanTheyThink decades]] since the dictator died.
** Ironically, this has led in some cases to {{nostalgia|Filter}} for the days of communism in former Eastern Bloc countries not merely among communists (for obvious reasons), but also among right-wing traditionalists and reactionaries, who see the Iron Curtain as having kept out the "decadent" culture of the West. Some on the Western far-right have taken a similar view; the American white supremacist Richard Spencer, for instance, is [[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/22/alt-right-dont-belong-american-conservatism-jamie-weinstein quoted]] as saying that communism protected Russia from what he regards as an even greater menace in Western liberalism, leaving behind a nation where it was still the '50s in terms of its social mores. The Western Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm also noticed it, pointing out in his 1994 book ''The Age of Extremes'' that the state socialism of the Eastern Bloc, with its strict control of civic and cultural life, clamped down not just on dissent but also on the various subcultures that, in the more dynamic and capitalist West, were allowed to flourish into the new social movements, and so in communist countries, whatever cultural norms prevailed around the time of the revolution were frozen in place for decades.
--->'''[[https://books.google.com/books?id=2YXEDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT566&lpg=PT566&dq=Where+comparisons+were+possible,+as+between+West+and+East+Germany,+it+seemed+that+the+values+and+habits+of+traditional+Germany+had+been+better+preserved+under+the+lid+of+communism+than+in+the+Western+region+of+economic+miracles&source=bl&ots=4HKth3XDxN&sig=ACfU3U0DFuHB0HFZ3wU_fwMc0Z-j5945jA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj1yYmnka_wAhVJZc0KHbPFBA4Q6AEwAHoECAcQAw#v=onepage&q=Where%20comparisons%20were%20possible%2C%20as%20between%20West%20and%20East%20Germany%2C%20it%20seemed%20that%20the%20values%20and%20habits%20of%20traditional%20Germany%20had%20been%20better%20preserved%20under%20the%20lid%20of%20communism%20than%20in%20the%20Western%20region%20of%20economic%20miracles&f=false Hobsbawm:]]''' The [communist] system insulated its citizens from the full impact of Western social transformations because it insulated them from the full impact of Western capitalism. What change they underwent came through the state or through their response to the state. What the state did not set out to change stayed much as it had been before. [[BecameTheirOwnAntithesis The paradox of communism in power was that it was conservative.]]
*** Even more ironically, the aforementioned clamping down on dissent in the Soviet Union and its satellite states meant less diversity of political thought, which in turn caused its ideas of socialism to stagnate. This meant some of the most significant 20th century developments in socialist thought actually came from non-socialist countries, which resulted in Soviet-style Marxist socialism itself being seen as "stuck in the past" by socialists elsewhere.
* Being a bit behind on the rest of the world is often mocked as being something that's only unique to Third World countries or isolated dictatorships. In reality many innovations and trends take some time to leave their country of origin and become famous, popular or actively used in the rest of the world. Some examples:
** Many television series have only been imported by certain countries after two or three seasons or long after the series in their entirety has ended. For instance: ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' was only broadcast on Belgian television in 1995, almost five years after the first season debuted in the U.S.! And this is especially strange, since some of the neighboring countries, like France, were already broadcasting it as early as 1991. ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' had already ended in the United Kingdom before it first premiered in the U.S.A. in 1975, nearly six years after it premiered in the U.K. and had already taken Western Europe by storm. ''Series/FawltyTowers'' (1975-1979) got its U.S. premiere in the second half of the 1980s.
** Music/TheBeatles were already popular in Great Britain in 1962, before they went global in 1964.
** Reggae music had been popular in Jamaica since the late 1960s, before it finally caught on outside the Carribean in the mid-1970's.
** ''ComicBook/{{Tintin}}'' was already popular in Europe in the 1930s, before it was finally exported to the U.S.A. in the 1950s.
** ''ComicBook/TheSmurfs'' were introduced to their native Belgium in 1958 and a big hit in Europe by the 1970s. Only when Hanna & Barbera turned it into [[WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs1981 an animated TV series]] in 1981 did the little blue people become huge in the Americas as well.
** It took decades after ElectronicMusic had gained popularity in Europe and elsewhere for it to finally break out of a niche, club-oriented market in the United States and become mainstream there in TheNewTens (even though some electronic genres, most notably [[HouseMusic house]], were originally [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff created in America]]).
** This delay in importing media can result in an ImportFilter; if a country only exports the media that falls in the 10% of good content, and do so with the 10% of many decades all at once, people in the other country may assume that media in the first country is ''all'' good, even if they're only being spared the bad stuff.
* Life in Cuba also feels two decades behind. Since the revolution of 1959, many old-timer cars are still in use and since the fall of communism in 1989, it really feels as if time stood still there.
* UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}} in Ukraine is another, more eerie example of a location where [[FrozenInTime time stood still]]. After the nuclear disaster in 1986 all residents were quickly deported outside the danger zone and left everything behind. Today Chernobyl is a ghost town where many things still remind visitors of a typical Soviet city, with flags, statues and pictures of Lenin and the Red Banner.
* The enthusiasm for vinyl is an interesting example. Even though [=CDs=] are more durable and have a much crisper and clearer sound, [=LPs=] are still collected by aficionados out of NostalgiaFilter.
** There's another big reason for the resurgence of vinyl, and that's the LoudnessWar. While [=CDs=] definitely do have the potential to have better quality than vinyl records, the reality is that, since the 1990's, it has become increasingly common in the music industry to release songs that feature maxed-out volumes and non-existent dynamics, a major pet peeve for audiophiles. For technical reasons, this type of mastering is possible on magnetic and digital formats but not on vinyl (as the grooves would cause the needle to jump or skip), which along with the general perception that vinyl is the audiophile medium, results in extremely loud [=CDs=] and digital downloads but more reasonably mastered [=LPs=].
* The Morris, Minnesota Police Department has put out [[http://www.ci.morris.mn.us/pd/Safety.shtml#1900TelephoneNumbers this warning]] about calling 1-900 phone numbers. 900 numbers disappeared in the [[TheNineties late nineties]].
* Take a look at the specifications of the electronic hardware (CPU power, resolution of the [=CCDs=] of their camera(s), etc) used by spacecrafts, manned or not, and you'll find they look outdated even by the standards of the epoch of their launch. The reason of this is two-fold: 1) Since space is one of the harshest environments known[[note]]If not ''the'' harshest[[/note]] and you cannot (yet) send a technician to, say, Mars to fix something that has broken, the most resilient, thoroughly tested, and reliable, not the latest, hardware is used, and 2) Manufacturing an -upgraded or not- instrument ''ex-profeso'' for a space mission costs ''a lot'' of (very scant) money, takes time, and would require a redesign of the spacecraft, its software, etc, that means even more money and time.
* A lot of Windows installations in businesses are at least one generation behind the latest version. Many companies held onto Windows XP for a long time until Microsoft finally dropped support in 2014. Even when XP was first introduced, a lot of businesses were still rolling out Windows 2000. The simple reason is similar to the NASA example: most corporate IT departments favor reliability over novelty and newer OS versions will have more bugs that need to be worked out than the tried-and-tested older version. Case in point: the standard IT answer if a user wants to know when the company's upgrading to the brand new OS? It won't even be '''considered''' until about 6 months after the first service pack is released.
** This doesn't apply to the Microsoft Office applications, however. Most Microsoft workers either have either the latest release of Windows, or an even more recent beta not yet available to the public, turning work computers into beta tests when applicable (not causing serious problems with what work is being done).
* A lot of expats can find themselves out of sync with the culture of their home countries when they return, though nowadays the Internet makes it easier to keep in touch with what's going on back home.
* Due to the advanced age of many of the justices, U.S. Supreme Court decisions have often reflected an outdated understanding of how things happen:
** In his dissent from ''[[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7116241821647881014 United States v. Thirty-Seven Photographs]]'', a 1971 case about the Customs Service's confiscation of the titular objects as obscene, Justice Hugo Black writes that "it gives little comfort to an American bringing a book home to Colorado or Alabama for personal reading to be informed without explanation that a 74-day delay at New York harbor is not 'undue'". By that era Americans were returning from trips overseas via planes, not ships.
** At the end of that decade, ''[[http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/442/735.html Smith v. Maryland]]'' held that it was constitutional for police to collect what we would today call telephone metadata (basically, at the time, length of calls and number called) without a warrant, since, as Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote, "it is doubtful that telephone users have any expectation of privacy over the numbers they dial." While he was correct that the technology that made billing possible at the time meant that users had to be able to infer that at least the long-distance numbers they called were recorded, his understanding might have been colored by having grown up in the era when human operators always answered whenever you picked up - someone who grew up in a dial-tone era might have been less likely to infer this.
** The Court's justification for letting the Paula Jones lawsuit that ultimately led to Bill Clinton's impeachment and trial was that "it is unlikely to take up much of the President's time." That was written in the mid-1990s by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had last practiced law in the early 1960s; whatever they may have thought of Clinton and the lawsuit, lawyers of the era who were familiar with what litigation had become could not help but laugh at that statement.
* This [[http://www.vulture.com/2016/10/2016-why-are-we-obsessed-with-the-80s.html Vulture article from 2016]] theorises why 1980s nostalgia has persisted throughout the early 21st Century. To name just two factors: Generation X "showrunners and creators and executives — and audience members! — are at a place where their own personal history has merged with 'nostalgia'", which happened to be during the 1980s; and the mass availability of the Internet which "disrupted the every-20-years cycle that used to be the standard."
** Writer and journalist P.H. Davies comes to [[https://www.xennial.co.uk/blog/2017/7/3/why-xennials-are-taking-over-the-world a similar conclusion]], going as far as describing the 1980s as "the new 1950s".
** Similarly, Creator/LindsayEllis analyzes this phenomenon (albeit, going more by a "Thirty Year Cycle" than a twenty-year one) in her video essay [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Radg-Kn0jLs "Stranger Things, IT and the Upside-Down of Nostalgia"]], pointing out that people in general tend to look to the past as a way to make sense of the present, and with the way things have been in the middle of TheNewTens, nostalgia provides both some sort of comfort for simpler times and as a mirror to the present.
* A common problem with Creator/RockstarGames. While their games tend to be innovative and of very high quality, the sheer time their games spend in development (8 years [[VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2 in one case]]) means their games lack some features/aspects/improvements that have become the industry standard on the meantime. To name a few examples, their games didn't have proper checkpoints until 2010, and as other open-world games have started giving players more freedom in how they want to tackle things, Rockstar's missions get [[{{Railroading}} more and more linear]] in each game. To put this in perspective, compare their games to those of Creator/{{Ubisoft}}, who also make games in both modern and historical settings; ''[=RDR2=]'''s mission design is closer to 2011's ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood'' than 2017's ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOrigins''.
* Despite losing the videotape format war to VHS in 1980, Betamax tapes still managed to outlive its competitor for another eight years before being discontinued in 2016. This may seem bizarre since Betamax recorders had already ceased production in 2002, along with DVD becoming the dominant home media format a year later. Thing is, Sony's hugely popular ''professional'' video format Betacam used the exact same tape design.[[note]]Betacam has a better magnetic formulation and is rugged for greater tape speed, but otherwise they are physically identical and compatible; however, the recording format is completely different.[[/note]]
* Surprisingly, the medical profession is inclined to use outdated technology. For example, many doctors and nurses still have pagers, because they're considered more secure than cell phones. (Although some ''have'' switched to secure texting.) Faxing is also commonplace throughout hospitals and clinics.
** Medical equipment also tends to run on software that would eventually be antiquated, and as such it isn't uncommon for them to be powered by the likes of Windows XP or 7 due to the fact that any driver or firmware updates would have to be certified by the manufacturer, making updates to Windows 10 and above difficult if not impossible. Not to mention that replacing such equipment is of no small expense, forcing hospitals and other medical facilities to hold on to their legacy equipment (though at the cost of putting themselves at risk for security issues such as ransomware).
* In general, embedded computers used to control industrial equipment such as ATM machines, CNC mills, cash registers and the like are more often than not have to end up using antiquated hardware and/or software for decades on end, case in point entertainment systems on aircraft [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7707016.stm using Windows 3.1]]. Like with the medical equipment example above, this is more often than not due to companies not willing to invest in something new as it takes considerable time, money and expense to replace their systems.
** This accounts for why some hardware manufacturers have attracted a niche by selling [[https://www.bressner.co.uk/products/motherboards industrial motherboards]] with vintage slots such as ISA and PCI to be used on expensive specialised add-on cards that were never updated to support newer standards.
* Museums often have problems keeping their exhibits up-to-date when ScienceMarchesOn and information previously considered accurate is re-evaluated and the consensus changes. For example, ''Brontosaurus'' was exhibited at many museums as late as the mid-1990s, despite many researchers making the case for it being just another species of ''Apatosaurus'' as early as 1903. Ironically, a 2015 study made a convincing case that ''Brontosaurus'' existed after all... exactly twenty years after the American Museum of Natural History finally "corrected" its ''Brontosaurus'' exhibit in 1995.
* Due to the Emergency Alert System being a public service designed to save lives, it's not uncommon for cable clusters or TV stations to use certain EAS equipment well after others have phased them out. A Vast Broadband cluster in South Dakota [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVHV2T6hnf0 was still using the Monroe Electronics "grey screen" equipment common in the early-to-mid 2000s well into 2018]], and [=WVCY-TV=] in Milwaukee [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmwINuS9v84 was still using Keywest/VDS equipment well into 2021]] (albeit now in conjunction with a [=SAGE=] Digital Endec).
* At least in the United States, there exist some stores (specifically independently-operated dollar stores and discount card stores) that still sell items from several decades prior. [[https://dinosaurdracula.com/blog/best-99-cent-store-ever/ This article]] from ''Website/DinosaurDracula'' describes such a store on the Atlantic City boardwalk in New Jersey.
* Some local Creator/{{PBS}} affiliates show promos and shows that are no longer seen on most national PBS stations:
** WFYI is a major example of this. For instance, as of July 2022, [[https://youtu.be/s1JRfQTBKIA the station still airs a promo]] featuring a character from ''Series/BetweenTheLions'', which stopped playing on PBS in 2011.
** The kids' subchannel of KLCS is probably the biggest example of this.
*** The channel airs many old shows that most PBS affiliates do not regularly air, including ''WesternAnimation/WordGirl'', ''WesternAnimation/MayaAndMiguel'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheBerenstainBears''.
*** The channel has yet to air ''WesternAnimation/ElinorWondersWhy'', ''Series/DonkeyHodie'', ''WesternAnimation/AlmasWay'' and ''WesternAnimation/RosiesRules'' despite airing promos for them. They also do not air the ''Family Night'' block.
*** They're notably the only PBS channel to air {{public service announcement}}s in between programs, and those suffer from this trope. Not only do some of them promote a now-defunct site called smallstep.gov, but one series of [=PSAs=] featured characters from Creator/{{qubo}} shows, with the only one still making new episodes being ''WesternAnimation/VeggieTales''.
* Creator/AmericanForcesNetwork, a group of channels exclusive to American military bases, is notorious for showing outdated programming. Back in the 1970's, PBS children's shows like ''Series/SesameStreet'' and ''[[Series/TheElectricCompany1971 The Electric Company]]'' were the newest shows on the channel, with the rest of the time for children's programming being filled by cartoons from two decades prior. Even though this situation improved as time went on, to this day the AFN channels still air old programming, mainly on the AFN Family channel. For example, said channel only airs pre-2014 episodes of ''Sesame Street'' (before the show was shortened to a half-hour), and it's a common sight to see shows off the air in the mainland USA, such as the original ''WesternAnimation/BluesClues'' and ''Series/PlayWithMeSesame''.
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* The US Army in ''WesternAnimation/SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut'' wears Vietnam War-era uniforms despite the movie being released in 1999 and featuring Saddam Hussein as a character.

* The ''Literature/BridgeToTerabithia'' film is a SettingUpdate from the early 1970s to the late 2000s, however it's all surface-level. The cultural differences were not changed. As a result, Leslie is a {{Free Range Child|ren}} despite formerly being a city kid, no one reacts to a character having AbusiveParents, and Jesse's teacher just takes him on a trip by herself without anyone questioning this. The only major cultural changes were that the characters no longer run around without shoes, Jesse's parents no longer [[MistakenForGay worry that he's gay]] because he hangs around girls and is into art, and Leslie received a design and personality overhaul because her original {{tomboy}} version isn't nearly that weird anymore.

* ''Film/DangerousMinds'': While the real [=LouAnne=] Johnson helped her students learn through using the work of contemporary hip-hop artists like Music/TupacShakur, the movie's version of her instead uses 60s musicians like Music/BobDylan as teaching tools.
* With the exception of some CG effects, most people who've seen the unreleased ''[[Film/TheFantasticFour Fantastic Four]]'' movie think it was a product of the '70s given that it's similar [[NoBudget production values]] to other superhero titles of that time. That's why many are usually shocked to learn that the film was produced in 1994... a full year ''after'' the release of ''Film/JurassicPark''!

** The 2011 remake of the film retains the plot of the the adults of the town being vehemently against music and dancing. As pointed out by Roger Ebert in his review of the film, since the film now takes place in the 21st century, the adults of the town should have all grown up with modern music so the it's much harder to believe that they would all be so determined to condemn it.
* ''For One More Day'' has flashbacks that portray the main character being a child in what appears to be living in TheFifties. However, he is played by a 41-year-old Michael Imperioli (born in 1966) who doesn't look at all like someone in his '60s. You could argue that the film isn't set in ThePresentDay (after all, Imperioli uses a rather old car and a pay phone), but a flashback to nine years earlier shows him working in an office with fairly new-looking computers.

* ''Film/TheNakedGun'': One of the anti-American leaders at the opening Beirut conference is Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who was overthrown and forced into exile by a Tanzanian invasion nearly a decade before the movie was released.

* The short film ''Film/RockItsYourDecision'', though set in 1982, feels like it came out about two decades too late, what with its entire message of [[TheNewRockAndRoll rock and roll]] being [[SatanicPanic a tool of Satan worshipers]] - as well as the whole "rock and roll teen vs. parent who just doesn't get it" trope, which was mostly dead outside of period pieces by the early '70s, showing up early in the film. All the generic rock music used is clearly in the style of early '70s Classic Rock. In RealLife, Jeff would more likely be listening to stuff like Music/VanHalen, Music/DefLeppard, Music/TheCars and Music/{{Devo}}. At another point, the now-turned-religious-blowhard Jeff laments that the average age of a person buying a Music/{{KISS}} album is twelve. By 1982, liking KISS was unacceptable to most people.

* ''Film/TheWayWayBack'' does this deliberately, lampshades it and plays with it in almost every possible way.
* The initial marketing for ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020'' seemed unsure of who to be aimed at - audiences familiar with the newer games, or the older ones. Not only does 90s-famous actor Jim Carrey play the villain in the actual movie, who is named Dr. Robotnik (his old name) instead of Dr. Eggman (his name in the 21st century), but the early ads featured the 90s song "Gangster's Paradise," a song modern audiences would be utterly unfamiliar with.

* In ''Literature/HarryPotter'', it appears that the wizarding world - or at least the wizarding UK, even in the "modern era" of the 1990s - is a few decades behind the Muggle world and Muggle trends in terms of fashion, ideals, morals, technology, and other areas. Not only does the wizarding world, likely due to its small size, lack many features standard of modern Muggle society, but outright rejects many Muggle concepts, believing magic and wizarding culture to be superior. Based on the designs for Diagon Alley at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which was in turn based on the film set, as well as the books' description, plus wizarding newspaper depictions in the films, the wizarding world itself seems to still appear quite Victorian or Edwardian (1800s-1914) in terms of style; people dress in robes and wield wands, the same as witches and wizards a thousand years prior, listen to radio instead of watching television, and more. According to a later explanation by author J.K. Rowling, the reason for wizards culture remaining relatively unchanged, even across centuries, is due to wizards' "condescending [attitude]" towards Muggle technology, such as the Internet, and trends. Wizards and witches treat Muggle objects and culture as a "curiosity" and an "amusement", not really seeing the "terribly exciting" nature, or need, for technology when they have magic. Attitudes, prejudice, and persecution against magic from Muggles have not helped, with witches and wizards having previously suffered from centuries of Muggle "witch hunts" and "witch trials". Likewise, the British Ministry of Magic has refused to allow the broadcasting of wizarding material on any Muggle device, which would (it was felt) almost guarantee serious breaches of the International Statute of Secrecy. Wizarding radio, however, is allowed on the grounds that the "radio-listening Muggle population seems altogether more tolerant, gullible, or less convinced of their own good sense". Although it would seem that other Wizarding communities around the world are more open to technology. In ''Film/FantasticBeastsAndWhereToFindThem'', the American wizards use it quite freely. There are elevators and bewitched typewriters in the Magical Congress of America's headquarters (since the movie takes place in 1926, they were high tech at the time). Elsewhere in its [[Film/FantasticBeasts series]], it's also averted with the clothing. While protagonist Newt dresses a little behind the times, almost everyone else wears clothing suited to the era. While the first film could have made this an American wizarding custom, the second even show Dumbledore wearing era appropriate clothing. [[note]] Although Creator/ChrisColumbus, who directed the first two HP movies, says that when they did market research about the first one, they found that general audiences didn't like the book accurate costumes they tested. This is why the kids started to wear Muggle clothes liberally afterwards. This presumably carried over to the costume design of FB.[[/note]]

* It's not uncommon for illustrated children's books to look twenty or thirty (or more) years out of date; this is usually due to invoking a GrandfatherClause. One relatively recent example is the ''Literature/PigeonSeries'', in particular the volume ''Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late'', in which the pigeon's owner is headed to bed himself, and is wearing an old 1920s style floppy night cap and carrying a candle. This series began in 2003, and this book is the second volume. Justified, as the nightcap-and-candle is a Grandfather Clause dating back to ''Literature/AChristmasCarol''.

* In ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', it appears that Bella lives in the early nineties where they don't have pop-up blockers yet. {{Justified|Trope}}, since she is also supposed to live in the town where time stood still and is implied to be HopelessWithTech. Also, the clothing, especially Bella's, likewise seems to be 90s-era Grunge; however, that might not be very surprising, considering it's set in some podunk town in Washington state, which is where the whole Grunge scene got kick-started.

** Another episode has Norb collecting curling irons from 70s celebrities.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' takes a lot of influence from the 1980s to early 2000s, despite being set in the 2010s. Televisions are always [=CRTs=], and we see VHS tapes much more than discs (even though Sadie assumed Steven [[WhatAreRecords wouldn't know what a VHS was]]). Practically every electronic device Steven owns ''besides'' his smartphone is pre-digital, from his VCR to various consoles based on the Gamecube at latest. Greg and Rose's tape to Steven [[DeliberateVHSQuality looks rather old and grainy]] despite only being filmed in the late 1990s at earliest. There's a slight implication that Steven is a [[FanOfThePast fan of old media and tech]], as by ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseFuture'' he is driving a car that's older than him and kept using the ''cassette player'' of all things.
* Somebody throws out their record player and buys a CD player, but can't get the new-fangled gizmo to work. It's a plot you'd expect from the late 1980s, but in this case it's a ''WesternAnimation/ShaunTheSheep'' episode that aired in the late 2000s, by which time people were buying [=MP3=] players and throwing out their CD players.