History Main / Zeerust

* The "[[https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Whomobile Whomobile]]" from ''Series/DoctorWho''. This was written into two episodes of the series, but was actually Jon Pertwee's personal car.

** Trek's computing technology (excluding AI) is absurdly primitive by contemporary standards. TOS has the Federation using hand-sized ''Microtapes'' in 2267 when we have [=Micro=]SDHC cards the size of a fingernail today. In one TNG episode, [[CreatorsPet Wesley]] marvels at how some machines can possess [[MundaneMadeAwesome whole gigabytes]] of memory. (Though to be fair, these machines were ''nanites;'' stated to fit within a human cell nucleus [~6µm in diameter] and we don't have gigabyte nanites yet.) TNG dodges this later by refering to computer memory in terms of "kiloquads," which is sufficiently vague to dodge zeerust.

** Trek's computing technology (excluding AI) is absurdly primitive by contemporary standards. TOS has the Federation using hand-sized ''Microtapes'' in 2267 when we have [=Micro=]SDHC cards the size of a fingernail today. In one TNG episode, [[CreatorsPet Wesley]] marvels at how some machines can possess [[MundaneMadeAwesome whole gigabytes]] of memory. (Though to be fair, these machines were ''nanites;'' stated to fit within a human cell nucleus [~6µm in diameter] and we don't have gigabyte nanites yet.)

Think of mobile phones as a simple example. Once, they were large, cumbersome, and it was thought that they would only ever be available to the rich. Works from that era will tend to depict even a 'futuristic' phone as still no smaller or sleeker than a brick plugged into a suitcase. Later, when they became widely available and shrank dramatically as technology improved, for a while it was assumed they would keep getting smaller and smaller; depictions of the future from this period will show people using tiny communication devices. Again, TechnologyMarchesOn and the preference has shifted to them to growing increasingly large once more yet thin enough to slide into the back pocket of your jeans. Any current depiction of the future featuring such slablike devices will also turn into a time capsule of the period it was made in, if and when flexible and foldable phones become commonplace. And so on.

* ''Fanfic/AdviceAndTrust:'' In Chapter 8 Shinji and Asuka are watching [[UsefulNotes/LaserDisc laserdiscs.]] ''Laserdiscs.'' In 2015. Justified when the writer points out that technologic development in the original proper series never went past TheNineties: Rei uses a bulky cell phone, Shinji a Walkman, and the children play a Creator/{{Sega}} console.

* ''Film/MenInBlack'': In a strangely modern example, K shows J a tiny disc, explaining: "it'll replace [=CDs=] soon." Back then, it looked like the logical next step in audio recording medium. But with the invention of the UsefulNotes/MP3, it seems we skipped that "micro-disc" step. The trope is then used intentionally in the third movie, with the 1969 MIB headquarters (as well as many of the aliens inside) having a very Zeerusty look.

* ''VideoGame/ClickMedic'': The game is set in the then year of 2016 where mankind is at risk of dying of an illness thanks to a variety of diseases, but in real life, no such pandemic effected the whole world and it was not until late 2019 that the COVID19 Pandemic started to take the world by storm.

* ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' has been described (by the February 2014 issue of ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'') as "A world where the iPod never happened", owing to the clunky keyboard-and-toggle-switch control panels and cathode ray tube TV display monitors.
What is ever weirder is the monochromatic nature of all the TV screens in the franchise -- given the fact that already the first movie was filmed in color.

* ''Film/The6thDay'' opens on an XFL game. The XFL was an UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball league which barely lasted its first season, but it's back circa 2020.

* A strangely modern example appears in ''Film/MenInBlack:'' K shows J a tiny disc, explaining: "it'll replace [=CDs=] soon." Back then, it looked like the logical next step in audio recording medium. But with the invention of the UsefulNotes/MP3, it seems we skipped that "micro-disc" step. The trope is then used intentionally in the third movie, with the 1969 MIB headquarters (as well as many of the aliens inside) having a very Zeerusty look.

[[caption-width-right:350: Groovy space suit, baby.]]

Another part of this often comes from a related issue: especially in more visual mediums, set, costume and prop designers have no choice but to depict the "future" with the materials they have on hand in their present day. When thin, molded glass and clear plastics aren't very readily available to you, you aren't going to put together a prop that looks like an [=iPhone=] fifty years before one exists; you're going to use black hard plastic, inexpensive chromed trim, a grill straight off a then-current telephone, and you're going to end up with a [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries TOS communicator]] and you're going to be satisfied with it because you have other things to work on. This can lead to some particularly hilarious moments when a long running franchise wants to produce a prequel or somesuch, but [[CosmeticallyAdvancedPrequel the set and prop design ends up looking different and more "properly" advanced]] simply because the designers of the new product have access to the fruits of decades of additional real-world technological progress.

Gets its name and definition from ''Literature/TheMeaningOfLiff'' by Creator/DouglasAdams and John Lloyd, a book of {{neologism}}s concocted by the two. Adams and Lloyd mostly used actual place names for their words -- Zeerust's name is borrowed from [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeerust a South African town]], which in RealLife has nothing to do with the phenomenon.

** Also, according to the depictions in the game material, the most popular kind of music in the Future is basically an updated version of HairMetal with cyberpunk-themed lyrics. One sourcebook, ''Live and Direct'', compares 2020 indie rockers to "the rap artists of the past", implying that latter was just a passing fad.