http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Zeerust

Groovy space suit, baby.

The Meaning of Liff "Zeerust: The particular kind of datedness which afflicts things that were originally designed to look futuristic."

Advertisement:

Something — a piece of technology, a character design, an outfit, a vehicle, a building, anything — used to be someone's idea of futuristic. Nowadays though it has, ironically, acquired a quaint sort of datedness to it: inevitably, it will be more reminiscent of the era the work came from. Also sometimes called "Retro Futuristic".

Think of mobile phones as a simple example. Once, they were large, cumbersome, and it was considered 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, Technology Marches On 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.

Advertisement:

Sometimes the dated feeling is due to this sort of straight-line extrapolation of trends ascendant when the work was written into the (far) future. Sometimes the datedness is a bit more subtle. It's possible that the prediction turned out to be technologically or aesthetically accurate (or at least on the right track), but still fails because of the designer's implicit assumption that social values will be the same in the future as in their own time — as demonstrated in the page image.

Often the datedness behind zeerusty designs lies in the attempt of the designers to 'improve' on the technology of their time, only to find out that more mundane designs are actually far more efficient if advanced engineering and craftsmanship are used on them. Not that this is not always a bad thing: often the dated vision of the future is a lot more imaginative than anything being attempted today, with more modern, 'realistic' depictions striking viewers as bland and boring precisely because of the authenticity.

Advertisement:

When a Long Runner franchise is outflanked by the progress or direction of technology/aesthetics/societal values while it is still going on, but it is tied to its pre-established version of them, this may lead to Zeerust Canon over time.

Sometimes Zeerust is deliberate. If a Retraux work presents a supposedly past vision of the future, or 20 Minutes into the Future (i.e. the present), it will inevitably invoke Zeerust or Raygun Gothic.

Gets its name and definition from The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams & John Lloyd, a book of neologisms concocted by the two. Adams and Lloyd mostly used actual place names for their words — Zeerust's name is borrowed from a South African town , which in Real Life has nothing to do with the phenomenon.

Compare The Aesthetics of Technology, Crystal Spires and Togas, I Want My Jet Pack, Hollywood History, Punk Punk, Steam Never Dies, Schizo Tech, Science Marches On, 20 Minutes into the Future, Raygun Gothic, and Retro Universe. Contrast with New Weird. When the creators actually predict what the future holds correctly, then it's Life Imitates Art.

Tropes commonly associated with Zeerust:

Examples in media:

open/close all folders

Advertising

Have you ever used a phone booth with a video screen rather than just a cell phone? You Will. Many of the technologies featured in the ads did in fact come to pass, including turn-by-turn GPS, touchscreen tablets, wireless internet, and video-on-demand services  mostly in forms remarkably similar to the commercials' versions. The most out-of-date part is the assumption that AT&T would be the main carrier for all  or any  of these technologies. Almost every one of those technologies exists in pretty much the form depicted in the commercial but most of them are either non-centralized or connected to the public Internet; the only way AT&T would make any money off of any of them would be as a patent holder.

Many of the technologies featured in the ads did in fact come to pass, including turn-by-turn GPS, touchscreen tablets, wireless internet, and video-on-demand services  mostly in forms remarkably similar to the commercials' versions. The most out-of-date part is the assumption that AT&T would be the main carrier for all  or any  of these technologies. Almost every one of those technologies exists in pretty much the form depicted in the commercial but most of them are either non-centralized or connected to the public Internet; the only way AT&T would make any money off of any of them would be as a patent holder. Telmex (a telephone company in Mexico) heralded in 2008 its brand-new video phone service by airing a "Homage to the Video Calls", which was basically a montage of every single "TV phone" featured in a sci-fi movie. Except that one from Demolition Man.

Anime & Manga

Comic Books

Fanfiction

Films  Animated

Films  Live-Action

Literature

Live-Action TV

Music

Podcasts

One of the worlds seen in the Gemini arc of Sequinox is a Flash Gordon-style 70s sci-fi set. Yes, it's specifically designed to resemble a shoddy, dated, tv serial.

Radio

The 1978 radio show Alien Worlds took place in the 2020's, but dates itself because the episode "Resurrectionists of Lethe" makes a passing mention of Richard Nixon that implies that he lived an unusually long life, when in real life he'd pass away in 1994.

Roleplay

Panopticon Quest acts to counter this element in canon Mage: The Ascension by updating the aesthetics and traits of the Technocracy.

Tabletop Games

Toys

The Classic LEGO Space era largely falls into this, as do some of the early days of "modern" LEGO Space; this set , from 1986, is a pretty good example.

Video Games

Webcomics

I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space is a 1950s and 1960s Fest of this trope.

The Distant Finale of Penny and Aggie, set six years in the future, shows several of the female characters wearing outfits of this type to their Class Reunion. Sara even lampshades this by telling Daphne, "The retro-future trend was made for you."

Sometimes, characters in Electric Wonderland use technology that feels dated even for the year of the respective comic's release. The cartoonist reportedly hopes that this will prevent references that will date in the future from sticking out.

Web Original

Western Animation

Real Life