Line #18 PlayingWith/LongRunnerTechMarchesOn


1	'''Basic Trope''': A LongRunner series starts out with fashion and technology of the time period in which it began broadcast, and later seasons feature more current technology and fashion even though it's supposedly still the original time period.
2	* '''Straight''': [[TeenDrama ''Teenz'']] begins in TheNineties, with [[TheProtagonist Alice]] playing NoYouHangUpFirst with her boyfriend and irritating her father (who wants to get online and check his email.) Several seasons later, Alice is playing NoYouHangUpFirst with her boyfriend on a smartphone, and her father has tabs open on his browser for his email, a Viral Video on [[Website/YouTube ViewTube]], and [[Website/{{Facebook}} FaceSpace]] all at the same time, even though it's [[TwoDecadesBehind still the nineties]].
3	* '''Exaggerated''': ''Teenz'' begins in the time of cavepeople using BambooTechnology and Alice wearing a FurBikini and playing "No You Put Out Your Fire First" with her boyfriend. Several seasons later, Alice is still living in a cave, but she has a fully-modern computer and sends text messages rather than smoke signals.
4	* '''Downplayed''': ''Teenz'' started fairly recently. The only visible upgrade is that the characters now use smartphones.
5	* '''Justified''':
6	** TechnologyMarchesOn
7	** The series is or involves SpeculativeFiction about teen life in the future [[FutureSocietyPresentValues (drawing on experience from the era in which the series is written)]].
8	** The new series is a sequel or SpinOff that takes place TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture from the original series.
9	** While filming, the technology of TheNineties became more and more obsolete every ''hour''. As time went on it was much easier to find a newer Apple computer and set that up than it was to find an older model that ran the same Mac OS that Alice probably would have ''actually'' used at school that still worked.
10	* '''Inverted''': ''Teenz'' begins in the modern era, and although it's still allegedly TheNewTens, the technology regresses back to that of TheNineties.
11	* '''Subverted''':
12	** Alice has a cellphone in Season 9, but it's neither [[TheNewTens a smartphone]] nor a [[TheNineties brick phone]]; it's a small flip-phone with little or no ability to access the Internet, more like something from the TurnOfTheMillennium.
13	** The early seasons weren't specific about the current time period, just letting the viewers assume it's "the modern day". But the later seasons decide to turn the show from an UnintentionalPeriodPiece to [[PeriodPiece an intentional one]] by explicitly having a character mention that it's currently 1997.
14	* '''Double Subverted''':
15	** But she listens to music on an [[IProduct iFroot]], including Music/LadyGaga, Music/JustinBieber, and Music/KatyPerry. (Or any {{Expies}} thereof.)
16	** The show, either by mistake or [[NecessaryWeasel out of necessity]], shows Alice using something that wasn't invented yet in 1997 in a late-season episode anyway.
17	* '''Parodied''': Later seasons characterize Alice as a DiscoDan for having done what was normal at the start of the show's run.
18	** The show starts out in the Stone Age and every episode a new piece of technology appears in the order that humanity invented it, without explanation.
19	* '''Zig Zagged''': Alice [[SchizoTech uses older and newer technology with roughly equal frequency]].
20	* '''Averted''':
21	** See "Reconstructed"
22	** The series does not run on ComicBookTime
23	* '''Enforced''':
24	** FadSuper, VerySpecialEpisode, TwoDecadesBehind.
25	** [[FranchiseZombie The series was supposed to end after only 3 or 4 seasons, but the producers were forced to do more and more seasons]], with every year the technology of the ''actual'' time period getting harder to find.
26	** The show is [[FleetingDemographic made for a younger audience]], and tech that was normal at the start of the show's run is determined to be [[WhatAreRecords unrelatable to the current demographic]][[note]]This is what happened with ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'', and why reruns of older episodes became exceptionally rare later in its life[[/note]].
27	* '''Lampshaded''': "This is TheNineties; nobody uses floppy disks anymore!"
28	* '''Invoked''': Alice lusts after a new, state-of-the-art computer.
29	* '''Exploited''': ???
30	* '''Defied''': Alice gets a new computer...for that time period.
31	* '''Discussed''': "Check out Alice's new computer! I wish mine were that fast!"
32	* '''Conversed''': "How is Alice using an [[IProduct iComp]] in TheNineties? iComps weren't even invented yet!"
33	* '''Deconstructed''':
34	** It breaks the audience's WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief. As a result, the series may enter SeasonalRot, an AudienceAlienatingEra or JumpTheShark altogether.
35	** The technological disparity is noticed by the characters, indicating to them that ''something'' isn't right.
36	* '''Reconstructed''': The series keeps to technology appropriate to the era it's set in.
37	* '''Played For Laughs''': Alice's dad is [[RunningGag kvetching]] about setting the DVR after kvetching about programming the VCR.
38	* '''Played For Drama''': It's part of a VerySpecialEpisode.
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40	Back to LongRunnerTechMarchesOn
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42	%% Optional items, added after Conversed, at your discretion:
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44	%%* '''Implied''': ???

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