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10[[quoteright:350:[[Film/UnidentifiedFlyingOddball https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unidentified-flying-oddball_2371.jpg]]]]
11[[caption-width-right:350: Houston, we have a problem... ''Houston''? Are you there?]]
12
13->''"Greetings. Do kids still say 'greetings'? I haven't been in this dimension for a really long time."''
14-->--'''Stanford Pines''', ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', "[[Recap/GravityFallsS2E12ATaleOfTwoStans A Tale of Two Stans]]"
15
16A FishOutOfWater situation that results from characters being placed in an unfamiliar time period. This may be caused by:
17* TimeTravel (and quite possibly a TimeTravelEscape)
18* Being TrappedInTVLand (if the show they enter is reasonably old or not set in the present)
19* Being a RefugeeFromTVLand
20* Being a HumanPopsicle
21* Being a RipVanWinkle
22* Being [[SealedIndexInACan canned]]
23* Surviving an apocalypse as a LivingRelic
24* Traveling to another world whose culture is somehow similar to that in a different time period of their own.
25* Having just been released from prison after a long sentence.
26* Waking up from a ConvenientComa
27* Going into the future without aging through TimeDilation
28* Being away from Earth for a longer time.
29* Living in a poor rural village in a very poor country, without or with very limited modern media access.
30* Travelling the wildernesses for many years, with no or little contact with settled civilization.
31* Being kidnapped and held locked up by the kidnappers for many years.
32
33In addition, the story will most likely follow one of these scenarios:
34
35'''Someone from ThePresentDay ends up in TheFuture''': In this case, the "fish" will be awed by an incredibly wonderful future, be [[SleptThroughTheApocalypse horrified]] by a {{dystopia}}n future, enjoy the benefits of a mostly positive future or be surprised by a future that's [[TheFutureIsShocking strange]] in an unexpected way. Whichever version it is, the future depicted will inevitably end up being [[IWantMyJetpack completely inaccurate when the year given actually rolls around]].
36
37If the story is a comedy, the time-traveller is likely to discover that RidiculousFutureInflation has occurred. Then there will be the pop culture references [[PopCulturalOsmosisFailure that no one understands]] ("Music/ElvisPresley? Who's that?"). There will also probably be humorous references to how the celebrities of The Present Day have ended up by then. An amusingly and [[HarsherInHindsight horrifyingly]] dated one of these appeared in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'', which had a newspaper in 2015 make reference to "Queen Diana." (On the amusing side, Elizabeth II was still Queen in 2015... and on the horrifying side, Princess Diana never lived to see the 21st century as she died in 1997, eight years after the film came out.)
38
39If the story is not a comedy (or is a BlackComedy) you get ColdSleepColdFuture.
40
41'''Someone from ThePresentDay ends up in The Past''': This past is usually sometime before the "fish" was born, ranging from about twenty years ago to TheMiddleAges. Not that their form of English would be the least bit intelligible to modern-day time-travellers, but [[MST3KMantra hey]].
42
43The "fish" will probably make little effort to fit in, awing [[MedievalMorons the locals]] with ALittleSomethingWeCallRockAndRoll, telling them that ThisIsMyBoomstick and possibly becoming a BlitheSpirit. Apparently it's the sworn duty of all time-travelers to show the people of the past how to be hip in The Present Day. If they get anywhere near a military installation, they'll probably be [[TimeTravelersAreSpies mistaken for a spy]]. The "fish" may also describe the future in an ironic way or [[ItWillNeverCatchOn tell people about things which would have seemed impossible or ridiculous in that era]]:
44
45->'''Doc:''' Who's President of the United States in 1985?\
46'''Marty:''' Ronald Reagan.\
47'''Doc:''' Ronald Reagan! The ''actor''? Who's ''vice'' president, ''Jerry Lewis?!''
48
49The savvy time traveller (or [[KnowNothingKnowItAll the one who thinks they are]]) in the past might also decide to be [[InventorOfTheMundane the one who invents velcro]] only to find that when he return to the future, [[TemporalParadox the fact that they now aren't wealthy like they thought they would be is the least of their problems]].
50
51If a TrappedInTVLand situation fits this trope, it will fall into this scenario.
52
53'''Someone from TheFuture ends up in ThePresentDay''': In this case, the "fish" will be confused by the simplest things, which are, of course, completely obvious to the audience. They will also likely refer to the newest and most advanced technologies as "quaint". Fortunately, they will have brought back lots of AppliedPhlebotinum, just in case there was any doubt that they really were from The Future. They may have a flawed view of ThePresentDay reality [[FutureImperfect influenced by idealizing revisionism]] of the historians of TheFuture, sometimes disenchanted that they lied. The traveler, unless ''downright awesome at all times'', will almost inevitably be dangerously {{Genre Blind|ness}} and equally likely to nearly get killed almost as much as the next type. They will also be horrified and disgusted by some of the mundane tropes and conventions until they are carefully explained. [[IAteWhat "Hot dog? You mean I just ate a..."]]
54
55'''Someone from The Past ends up in ThePresentDay''': The humor will result from the "fish" attempting to relate to The Present Day with only the knowledge of a previous time. Naturally, they will make mistakes and/or be awed by things which the audience has come to take for granted. The ValuesDissonance between the two eras may come up. This is now its own subtrope -- TheFutureIsShocking.
56
57If they're from any time after about the midpoint of the UsefulNotes/IndustrialRevolution (when people first began to take for granted that the future [[ScienceMarchesOn will be different]] from the present), the "[[IWantMyJetpack surprised]] by a future that's [[TheFutureIsShocking strange in an unexpected way]]" trope will probably apply.
58
59If they're from far enough back, their first encounter with a motor vehicle ''will'' involve the words "metal demon", or alternately "horseless carriage". They will also be completely unfamiliar with the word "computer" in spite of this being a common retooled word, which once meant someone who does calculations or 'computes' for a living. Not knowing the word "accountant" would be just as unusual.
60
61If the character is from one of the more romanticized time periods, such as the Middle Ages, Antiquity or any age dominated by warriors, princes, kings and OldSchoolChivalry, they will regard the people of the [[BigFatFuture present as soft, weak, and uncultured]] (especially the men) and will often upstage and shame the modern men, winning the present day women over with [[IKissYourHand gallant or gentlemanly behavior]]. In more recent works, this has however, become more subverted due to the influence of feminism and the historical fact that these time periods [[PopularHistory look better in fiction than they did in reality]].
62
63A character who isn't ''literally'' from the past, but somehow deludes himself that he's still living there anyway, is a DiscoDan. A character who neither literally from the past nor holds no delusions that he's living there, but is just more comfortable with the attitudes, mindsets and styles of the past than the present is BornInTheWrongCentury
64
65'''Someone from TheFuture ends up in The Past''': Fairly common ''Franchise/StarTrek'' plot (and cause of some of the best episodes and a couple of the worst). Essentially combines ThePresentDay to Past and TheFuture to ThePresentDay tropes. Thank you for being unusual, Data. Thank goodness he had amnesia.
66
67'''Someone from The Past ends up in TheFuture''': Also a common ''Franchise/StarTrek'' plot (although not quite as common, and usually done in a more unusual way than straight out time travel. Usually.) Here's looking at you, Sam Clemens.
68
69'''Someone from TheFuture ends up in TheFuture''': Can involve either going [[ToTheFutureAndBeyond forward]] or backwards (but generally backwards). Does your mind hurt yet? Will be generally played for laughs (like somebody complaining that the technology that would be super-advanced to somebody from ThePresentDay is an antique) or for Continuity-based FanService (''Trials and Tribble-ations'', anyone?)
70
71'''Someone from The Past ends up in The Past''': There's a LOT of Past. Can usually result in one Historical Figure or archtype meeting; befriending or fighting another. Ninjas, Pirates, Napoleon, Hitler, Genghis Khan, Neanderthals, Dinosaurs; etc.
72Spam with other types for time travel annoyance.
73
74Compare TechnologicallyBlindElders.
75
76----
77!!Examples:
78[[index]]
79* FishOutOfTemporalWater/AnimeAndManga
80* FishOutOfTemporalWater/ComicBooks
81* FishOutOfTemporalWater/FanWorks
82* [[FishOutOfTemporalWater/LiveActionFilms Films — Live-Action]]
83* FishOutOfTemporalWater/{{Literature}}
84* FishOutOfTemporalWater/LiveActionTV
85* FishOutOfTemporalWater/VideoGames
86* FishOutOfTemporalWater/WesternAnimation
87[[/index]]
88
89[[foldercontrol]]
90
91[[folder:Advertising]]
92* One series of Capital One commercials feature fur-clad barbarian warriors' attempts to navigate the modern world. They're not actually shown time-traveling, but their apparent ignorance of contemporary life is consistent with this trope. Interestingly, they best fit in at [[{{MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext}} a summer camp]]. A rowing crew is seen competing on a lake. Then a Viking longboat overtakes it at a staggering speed, with the barbarians rowing to a drumbeat.
93[[/folder]]
94
95[[folder:Asian Animation]]
96* ''Animation/FruityRobo'': In Season 3, Pineapplello gets sent to the Three Kingdoms era, with the basis of the plot being him trying to get back home.
97[[/folder]]
98
99[[folder:Comic Strips]]
100* ''ComicStrip/AlleyOop'' features a time-traveling cave man. By now, he's been time-hopping for so many years that he tends to get over his culture shock of whatever era he's visiting pretty quickly. When his less-experienced cave man friends occasionally accompany him though, they usually have more trouble.
101* The main hero of ''ComicStrip/BuckRogers'' is a modern man (mining engineer or astronaut, depending on the version) put in suspended animation who wakes up in the 25th century and becomes a space hero.
102[[/folder]]
103
104[[folder:Film -- Animation]]
105* ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtheadDoTheUniverse'' deals with the duo being sent from the 90s to the year 2022 after botching a space mission and being kicked into a black hole. This being Beavis and Butthead they don't exactly dwell much on the changes and simply continue to cause mayhem while ignoring the plotline happening around them.
106[[/folder]]
107
108[[folder:Music]]
109* ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA1sA5MD8J0 Space is Dark]]'' by Bill Roper is about the crew of a sleeper ship who arrived at another planet after a thousand year trip, only to find that FasterThanLightTravel had been discovered [[LightspeedLeapfrog shortly after they left and the planet had been colonized for several centuries]]. They're forcibly retired due to their status as anachronisms from another time, the song ends as the singer and his wife (the last two alive) prepare to commit suicide.
110* Arjen Lucassen's ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHNaw_hkEeU Lost in the New Real]]'' focuses on a "Mr. L" who is revived from cryonic freezing centuries in the future.
111[[/folder]]
112
113[[folder:Pinball]]
114* The passengers in "Pinball/TimeMachineDataEast" include a football jock from TheFifties, a GranolaGirl from TheSixties, and a {{Disco}} dancer from TheSeventies.
115[[/folder]]
116
117[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
118* Wrestling/{{CHIKARA}}'s Sidney Bakabella, the manager of the Devastation Corporation, is this. His promos are filled with references to promoters and wrestlers of the past, though he claims to be working with them or feuding with them today. At the very ''earliest'', he is stuck in the 1980s, though he has referenced guys as far back as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toots_Mondt Toots Mondt]].[[note]]For reference, Mondt was a wrestler who wrestled from the early 1910s to early 1940s, and upon retirement co-founded the World Wide Wrestling Federation, today's Wrestling/{{WWE}}, with Vince [=McMahon=] Sr.[[/note]]
119** Before the [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/us/pa/e/chikara/chikara-t.html CHIKARA Campeones de Parejas (tag team champions)]] Wrestling/ThreePoint0 ("Big Magic" Shane Matthews and Scott "Jagged" Parker)-The Devastation Corporation (Max Smashmaster and Blaster [=McMassive=]) match at ''CHIKARA Just Shadows in the Fog'', held in Tampa, Florida, March 8, 2013, Bakabella cut a promo where he said that he would have brought Wrestling/TheOneManGang with him, which got a pop (OMG and Wrestling/{{Demolition}} teamed up as Team Wrestling/{{WW|E}}F at ''CHIKARA King of Trios 2008 Night I'' in a losing effort to The Fabulous Three [Wrestling/LarrySweeney[=/=]Mitch Ryder[=/=]Shayne Hawke]), but said that Wrestling/SirOliverHumperdink had prevented that and proceeded to run down Humperdink. Humperdink, real name John Sutton, who did manage OMG in Florida for a time in the 1980s, passed away in 2011. It is not [[NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead disrespect to the deceased]], since Bakabella's timeline is so confused he probably thought Humperdink was still managing in Florida.
120* In the early 80s, Wrestling/CaptainLouAlbano debuted a new protege named Mighty Joe Thunder. Mighty Joe was a big man who'd most recently wrestled in the ''60s'', and watching him work a 60s style match in the 80s was incredibly bizarre. He only stuck around for a month or two.
121* CHIKARA's Xyberhawx 2000. They're a bit of a parody of the "futuristic" tag teams from the early 90s like Tekno Team 2000 and The New Breed. Thing is, they hail from the ''early 2000s''. One of them still uses a Myspace, and another asked in a blog why he couldn't find his Geocities page. Razerhawk's [[https://razerhawk2000.com/ website]] even has "This page is best viewed with Netscape Now" and "Made With [=MacIntosh=]" logos on it, much like Platform/{{GeoCities}} pages from the early days of the Web.
122[[/folder]]
123
124[[folder:Radio]]
125* Played for laughs with Ed, the security guard in Jack's money vault on ''Radio/TheJackBennyProgram''. He's depicted as having been stuck down there since the Revolutionary War and completely innocent of current events, let alone such "modern" contraptions as wheelbarrows. At least one episode had Jack bringing him up to the surface, and his resultant future shock.
126[[/folder]]
127
128[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
129* ''TabletopGame/D20Modern'': Most Shadowkinds in ''Urban Arcana'' are a special case. They don't exactly come from the past, just from an alternate dimension (the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' world) still operating with medieval technology, and where magic is a common fact of life, into the modern world where most people don't believe in magic.
130* ''TabletopGame/GeniusTheTransgression'': Rapata, aka Mr. Shark, is a time-travelling 17th-century Maori navigator. His time machine is a canoe. He's actually adapted fairly well to modern and later times, except when he's really overworked and having a bad day (which is most of the time), in which case he skips planning for the century in question and just stomps down the main street of Seattle in a feather cape, brandishing a taiaha cudgel and screaming the name of whoever's pissed him off this time.
131* ''TabletopGame/InterstitialOurHeartsIntertwined'' has The Anachronism, a playbook all about being this on top of being a normal fish out of water.
132* ''TabletopGame/InNomine'': It's fairly common for celestials to emerge from Limbo or other forms of imprisonment decades or centuries after going in, and therafter to find themselves having to quickly play catchup with the changing face of humanity, the War, or both.
133** Magog has been a SealedEvilInACan since the early days of the War, when Heaven and Hell fought directly and celestials walked openly on Earth. Should he break free, he would have considerable trouble adapting to the idea of a cover cold war and of celestial secrecy from humanity, in addition to most of the new Princes being new faces to him.
134** ''Superiors 2: Pleasures of the Flesh'' describes Harrishee, a Balseraph of Nybbas who had to go to Limbo in the Thirties to avoid pursuit from her former boss, Malphas. Having only emerged at the tail end of the Nineties, she's something of a walking anachronism, as she still prefers to dress like a Depression-era reporter and uses slang that's been out of fashion for longer than most mortals have been alive. She is also in need of adapting to the changing face of the Media, as she originally made her career as a reporter in the heyday of yellow journalism but now needs to reckon with a world where printed news have mostly been displaced by the radio, television, and the Internet.
135* ''TabletopGame/UnderWorld'' features this trope as a character type, the Lost.
136* ''TabletopGame/VisigothsVsMallGoths'' is premised upon the Visigoths being transported through time to [[TheMall a mall]] in 1990s Los Angeles and making it their new home. While the Visigoths have adapted enough to learn English and open up shops in The Mall, they still retain most of their proto-Germanic identity, including their style and religion.
137* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': Roboute Guilliman was put on ice after being mortally wounded in a duel against Daemon Primarch Fulgrim. Nine thousand years later, the Eldar and Mechanicus collaborate to resurrect Guilliman so he can lead the Imperium against the tide of Chaos. Guilliman is appalled by the theocratic nightmare that is the Imperium, even musing that it would have been better for Horus to have razed it during the Heresy rather than letting it get this far, but puts on a brave face for the rest of humanity.
138* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'': Gotrek Gurnnison was one of the greatest Dwarven Slayers of the Old World, and topped his career during the End Times by charging into the Realms of Chaos to die slaughtering demons in their own world. Due to the weird nature of time in the Realms of Chaos, however, when he finally fights his way back out he finds himself in the Mortal Realms of ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'', finding that not only have countless millenia past, but the world he knew was ''destroyed'' and eight new inter-connected ones were created out of the ashes. The cultures of the survivors have drastically shifted over the millenia, and he finds himself bewildered to be in a world where dark elves and necromancers are ''not'' AlwaysChaoticEvil, dwarves care more about gold than settling old grudges, and several people he knew as mortals, such as Teclis, have ascended to godhood. That said, there are ''still'' monsters and villains in need of slaying, and he quickly finds himself back to his adventuring ways.
139[[/folder]]
140
141[[folder:Visual Novels]]
142* It isn't immediately obvious, but [[spoiler: the Pale Bride]] in ''VisualNovel/AnalogueAHateStory'' is one of these, played for an extreme in DeliberateValuesDissonance to make a point about [[FantasyCounterpartCulture feudal Korea]].
143* ''Franchise/FateSeries'': Deliberately avoided because the summoning spell that brings the Heroic Spirits into modern times automatically equips them with modern knowledge.
144** In ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' and related works, Saber [[spoiler: aka Myth/KingArthur]], for instance, is able to drive cars and motorcycles and suspects that she could fly a plane if she tried, due to her skills at horse riding being "translated" into a modern context. However, she was unfamiliar with what "going on a date" meant and had to have it explained to her. About the only Hero who ever displays real interest in the modern era is Rider aka [[spoiler: Iskander aka Alexander the Great]] in ''Literature/FateZero'', who is shown enthusiastically studying modern maps and atlases in preparation for "conquering the world".
145** The Saber of ''Literature/FateStrangeFake'', Richard the Lionheart, is a strange case in that he's an impulsive eccentric that simply doesn't ''care'' to blend in and instead acts like a British Don Quixote [[TheGadfly mostly for the fun of it]].
146** ''VideoGame/FateSamuraiRemnant'': Played straight because the Waxing Moon Ritual does ''not'' equip the summoned heroes with knowledge of the time period. For example, Saber does not know what paper is and is shocked by seeing an Edo in relative peace since they lived through a time of war.
147* In ''VisualNovel/IkemenSengoku'', the female main character is sent back in time from modern-day Japan to Sengoku-era Japan where she experiences cultural shock about how different the Sengoku warlords' viewpoints on wars and relationships are from hers. Sasuke, an astrophysicist who was sent back in time along with her, also experiences this but was sent back to a time four years earlier than her so by the time they meet again at the end of these four years, he's acclimated enough to the period to not qualify for this trope as much as her.
148* ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'' naturally includes this: the Internet celebrity/laughingstock John Titor seems to be unaware that the people of @channel are making fun of him and his proclamations of future events and the nature of time travel. [[spoiler:John Titor's real self, Amane Suzuha, very poorly tries to use slang in an attempt to fit in, and occasionally says things that betray her nature as a time traveller from a dystopian future: talking about gathering weeds and bugs for dinner, or unironically referring to herself as an accomplished warrior. The anime did this much less subtly.]]
149[[/folder]]
150
151[[folder:Webcomics]]
152* ''Webcomic/AmazingSuperPowers'' even [[http://www.amazingsuperpowers.com/2007/11/the-viking/ called it by name]] (in AltText).
153* Charlie from ''Webcomic/BloodSplatteredSocks'' ends up missing 17 years of time and subsequently doesn't know how to use a computer when everyone else does.
154* In ''Webcomic/BreakpointCity'', Ben is dismayed to find his pop-culture knowledge is horribly out of date. And TabletopGame/{{Scrabble}} has become [[http://www.breakpointcity.com/archives/2004/04/14/bored-game/ essentially unplayable]] for him because of [[LanguageDrift all the words added to the dictionary.]]
155* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', the wizard who trapped himself in stone deals with this problem [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2008-05-30 with a spell called "Modern Knowledge"]], which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. And even then, he is briefly awed by the notion of high schools, mandatory education, and public libraries, and wishes he could take time out from his mission to study.
156* In ''Webcomic/{{Endstone}}'', [[http://endstone.net/comic/issue-1-page-37/ Kyri and Jon were thrown ten years out of time by the explosion]].
157* Post-apocalyptic heroine ''Webcomic/{{Glorianna}}'' has been yanked back to the 21st century on at least two occasions. She wasn't impressed.
158** In a parallel storyline, modern-day superheroine [[Webcomic/LadySpectraAndSparky Lady Spectra]] wound up in Glorianna's world.
159* In ''Webcomic/{{Godslave}}'', Anpu is locked in a jar for two thousand years. So far, he's adapting rather well, although water running from a tap sends him in shock and Edith's smartphone is the most fascinating thing on the face of the planet.
160* In the ''Pulp'' storyline of ''Webcomic/{{Harbourmaster}}'', Zefonith is called on by Veras to clone a mountaineer who died in 1953, with as much of his memory intact as possible. Said clone is thus [[AgentScully very skeptical]] about claims that he's removed from Earth by both centuries and light-years. Even when he meets the entomorphs.
161* In ''Webcomic/{{Noblesse}}'', the series begins with protagonist Rai awakening from his 820 year slumber in his coffin. Much of the series' humor revolves around Rai's incapability (and severely lazy lack of trying) to adapt to "modern day mechanics" such as doors. And windows. Especially funny in that, no matter how many instruction booklets his servant Frankenstein tries to write out for him, he always ends up just waiting around for Frankenstein to do it for him.
162* The ''Website/PlatypusComix'' story "Raiders of the Lost Arc" has Joan of Arc resurrect during the late 20th/early 21st century and face Osama Bin Laden.
163* In ''Webcomic/TheSenkari'', Freija is confused when she returns to Earth after centuries away.
164* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': The ghost of a Christian priest from JustBeforeTheEnd turns out to still be around during an era in which Christianity is a dead religion and has been replaced by worshipping the Norse and Finnish gods. This results in her being oblivious to what is considered basic knowledge about ThePlague in the comic's time and being annoyed by one of the few living people she gets to talk with not recognizing allusions to God.
165* ''Webcomic/TimesLikeThis'' has two fishes as recurring characters living in modern times: an Irish peasant named Maggie, plucked from 1349 [[http://www.timeslikethis.com/index.php?id=223 before the Black Plague could kill her]]; and [[UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc some warrior chick named Joan]], who [[http://www.timeslikethis.com/index.php?id=350 with the help of Cassie & Matt]], made a TimeTravelEscape from 1431 just before she got executed.
166* In ''Webcomic/UberQuest'' [[TheEngineer Claire]] accidentally teleported from a sci-fi world to an MMO-esque fantasy world.
167* Jane Onoda in ''Webcomic/VerloreGeleentheid'' was in stasis for over ten thousand years, and [[AndIMustScream conscious the whole time]]. She is obsessed with finding and wiping out the last of the species that nuked her homeworld millennia ago.
168[[/folder]]
169
170[[folder:Web Original]]
171* ''WebVideo/EightiesDan'' got pulled from 1989 to modern day when Brad Jones opened a bottle of New Coke.
172* This concept is explored in-depth in [[https://youtu.be/osdLRaCxa5A this]] 40 minute long video from the [=YouTube=] channel ''Fire Of Learning'', which describes how a 8th century medieval king such as Charlemagne would see the modern world. Long story short, there would be a major case of LanguageBarrier, ValuesDissonance, and so on.
173* Lord Valentai and Bianca Holloway from ''Roleplay/TheGunganCouncil'' were both from the ancient past. Dominique England came from the future, however.
174* The online ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' SpinOff ''The Murdoch Effect'', has Murdoch suffer a blow to the head and wake up in 21st century Toronto, [[AndYouWereThere surrounded by the same people]] and apparently investigating the same kidnapping, only with cellphones. Since he's always had a fascination with technology, he naturally loves the creations of the modern world, while at the same time noting that it seems to have made the people more impatient. He's also baffled that there's a narcotics squad that stops people using medicines like cocaine and heroin.
175* Decidedly and massively present in ''[[Literature/TheSalvationWar The Salvation War]]''. The forces of Heaven and Hell, perpetually consigned to command structures and levels of technology that would make the Romans look like musketeers, invade Earth...completely unprepared for humanity to be able to move as fast and strike from as far away as they do. Every human being since Adam, meanwhile, has been barred entry to Heaven and been consigned to Hell, and the armies of the 21st century continually free general after legendary general -- only for them to come to the realization that they're completely out of their depth in the scheme of modern warfare.
176** In ''Armageddon???'', ''Julius Caesar'' himself joins a cell of the infernal resistance led by a fresh casualty of modern war, and confident in his understanding of warfare as it has become tries to lead from the frontlines. After he realises that a Roman stratocrat bedecked in shining armor and accustomed to dealing in legions of rank-and-file swordsman isn't the most fit to fight among stealth-requisite soldiers with assault rifles, he reluctantly takes up a (not literally) rear-echelon position.
177*** The prisoners of Hell who haven't been liberated, having died in a veritable gamut of historical eras, inadvertently feed Hell's squabbling commanders badly outdated intel. They drop volcanoes' worth of lava on the (onetime) industrial powerhouses of Sheffield and Detroit, expecting to completely reverse the disastrous direction the war is going in but in fact only angering humanity more and unknowingly changing the course of elections to, at best, a mild degree.
178** ''Pantheocide'' subverts both the idea of "states' rights" (he admits it to have been a crock in his time) and the historical fantasy of General Robert E. Lee's military skill compared to 21st-century warfare[[note]]despite being trained to the level of his training opponents and fielding comparable forces, he just can't overcome the mindset difference that allows his opponents to use their forces' capabilities to a fuller extent than he does[[/note]]:
179-->Lee stepped inside and came to attention. "General Petraeus, Sir, I would like to withdraw my request for a combat command. I would still wish to serve my country and my flag in any other way you might find appropriate."
180-->Petraeus looked up. "Sit down Robert. What made you come to this conclusion?"
181-->"Sir, for a week, I have been attempting to understand how your army works. With the aid of a very skilled and patient tutor. Sir, I regret to say ''I have failed completely. I am not fit to command and I must recognize that as a fact''. One day, perhaps, but not now."
182*** Tragicomically, he at one point considers resigning his commission and enlisting, reasoning that being a basic rifleman couldn't have changed ''that'' much. After being proven wrong on that count again, Lee eventually ends up running a psychiatric hospital and halfway house for those afflicted with worse culture shock than him.
183* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] and [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] by [[Literature/TheLayOfPaulTwister Paul Twister,]] regarding being stranded in a fantasy world:
184--> I have no illusions of raising this place to a 21st century standard of living, or even a 20th century one. [[WellThisIsNotThatTrope I'm no Connecticut Yankee, just a Seattle Geek who happens to know a few things about the way things work.]] ... For example, I know that spinning a magnet around inside a coil of copper wire produces an electric current. But how strong of a magnet? How big does it have to be, and how fast does it have to spin, before you get anything useful? Does the size of the coil of wire relative to the magnet matter? Does the number of loops in the coil matter? We're rediscovering all these things from first principles.
185* [[http://www.theonion.com/articles/roman-centurion-crawling-out-of-new-york-city-manh,35809/ This]] piece by ''Website/TheOnion'' parodies the overused clichés associated with this trope.
186* In ''Roleplay/WeAreOurAvatars'', [[VisualNovel/LamentoBeyondTheVoid Konoe]] is dazzled by the modern world and its advances -- especially by the fact that [[DistractedByTheShiny everything's so shiny]].
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189[[folder:Real Life]]
190* A Polish man named Jan Grzebski fell into a coma in 1988 and woke up from it in 2007, by which time Communism had long since collapsed. Of the experience, he said "When I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol queues were everywhere. Now I see people on the streets with cell phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin."
191* Charles Robert Jenkins, an American soldier, defected to North Korea in 1965 and remained cut off from the Western world. He made it out in 2004, finding that the U.S. had changed a bit since the 1960s.
192* Some Japanese soldiers were stranded on some remote Pacific islands during WWII, and unaware of the fact that their side had lost until they were discovered in the '60s and '70s. For example, Lt. Hiroo Onoda continued fighting WWII for 30 years on the island of Lubang. He wrote a book entitled ''No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War.'' He was reportedly very disturbed by what he saw in changing traditional values.
193* A man named Salomon Vides fled to the jungle during the 1969 "[[SeriousBusiness Football War]]" between El Salvador and Honduras. He finally "surrendered" to a group of lumberjacks he mistook for enemy soldiers more than 30 years later, telling them he was tired of running away. The saddest part is that the actual war lasted a total of ''four days''.
194* Prisoners who serve long jail sentences (over 15 years, usually) sometimes find themselves confounded by modern technology and culture when they leave prison. For example, there was an ex-convict who tried to steal a car shortly after getting out, having missed the invention and application of car alarms. Sadly, there are more than a few cases of released prisoners committing new crimes specifically to get caught (or outright killing themselves) as a result of this. They simply cannot cope, and there are no social services to help them adjust. Explored in ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption'' (story and film) with Brooks and, to a lesser extent, with Red.
195* Similar to prisoners, expatriates can find themselves out of step with the culture of their home countries when they return if they've been away for a long time. Fortunately, the internet makes it easier to keep up with what's going on back home these days.
196* The [[https://spacejam.com/ Space Jam website]] used to be this for a long time. When ''Film/SpaceJam'' came out, this website was made for it and had been left untouched until 2021, the year when the sequel was released.
197* In the present day when people explore space and create artificial intelligence, there still are cultures that use tools made out of stone and barely controls fire. Some of them make contact and become aware of modern achievments.
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