That's the understanding I get from it. And in that case, the quote and several of the examples are wrong.
I don't happen to think it's a very strong trope, either — who's to say whether an element of a satirical work was meant to be unthinkably "crazy" rather than, well, satire? Satire is about exaggerating the truth; it's meant to be plausible. It's really not surprising that it should occasionally come true. Several of the examples listed make unsupportable assumptions about what was going on in the writers' heads when they came up with it.
And there are several examples of "So and so has a portable phone!" Portable phones were a staple I Want My Jetpack invention until they were finally made practical in the 80s; you'd have to go a long way back for them to be considered "crazy".
There are so many examples here whose presence is based on a ridiculous assumption of ignorance on the writers' part. The Network example even has a Word of God denial that it was supposed to be parodic at the time, let alone about the future.
Happy New Year!
Wow... Reading this makes me depressed for society.
hashtagsarestupid
The page quote doesn't seem to be an actual example of the trope...as I understand the description, it's supposed to be when the creators of a work make something "crazy" up that later seems sensible, not when characters within a work find something implausible that is true in the creators' time period. I suggest we pull or replace the quote. Or am I misunderstanding the trope?
For your plans to go wrong, you must first have plans. Hide / Show Replies