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== [[Comics]] ==
* Non-futuristic example: In the 1980s, when [[Continuity Porn|Roy Thomas]] was in charge of all the Earth-2 books for DC Comics (most of which were set in the Golden Age), several of the characters in ''[[Infinity, Inc.]]'', the book set in present day, were Fans Of The Past. This came in handy when ''Infinity, Inc.'' crossed over with ''[[All-Star Squadron]]'', which was set in the 1940s.
* [[Booster Gold]] majored in the Age of Superheros in College.
* Not sure if this counts, but one subsection of the alien race called the Skrulls in [[Marvel Comics]] fell in love with the American style of the 1920s and 30s. Their planet was redecorated to follow this style, and even the Skrulls (shapeshifters that they are) stay in human form most of the time. When the [[Fantastic Four]] first encountered them, this was the cause of some truly epic [[Cognitive Dissonance]].
* The premise for the third continuity of ''[[The Legion of Super Heroes]]'': the entire team was like this.
* A dark version of this trope occurred in the ''[[Rogue Trooper]]'' story "Fort Neuro". Rogue arrived at the titular fort, hoping to find shelter and some time to let the biochips calm down. However, the stress of holding off a Nort siege for years coupled with isolation due to their sanity slipping, causing the four garrisons to degenerate into [[Parodies]] of Napoleonic France, a 50s British seaside resort, a group of disco freaks, and wannabe supermodels. Rogue and the robots eventually managed to knock some sense into them.
* [[Alan Moore]]'s ''[[Tomorrow Stories]]'' features the First American and U.S.Angel facing off against Dozier D. Daze and his retro-ray. Daze is obsessed with long-gone pop culture and memorabilia to the point that it's all that gets him hot and bothered. That's right, the man is a latent retrosexual. The First American and U.S.Angel grow increasingly uncomfortable with him turning them into denizens of eras past.
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* An early scene in the 2009 ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'' movie shows a young Kirk joyriding in a 20th-century convertible, which his father had apparently refurbished.
* In ''[[Overdrawn at the Memory Bank]]'' Aram Fingal is a big fan of old pop culture, most notably ''[[Casablanca]]''. This is what gets him into so much trouble.
* In the movie version of [[Michael Crichton]]'s [[Timeline]], most of the main characters are historians of the medieval era. One of them is a lifelong enthusiast who's trained himself in period-era blacksmithing and swordplay. Early on in the film, he describes the life of a knight and concludes with the mildly [[Narm
== [[Literature]] ==
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* The ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' novels have entire ''planets'' whose [[Planet of Hats|entire populations are utterly dedicated to recreating some late-1700s-to-early-1800s Earth society]]. Talk about [[The Theme Park Version]], these are theme park ''cultures'', without the tourist industry to justify it. This is what happens when a planetary autocrat decides he's the reincarnation of Frederick the Great. Other than the crazy, he was apparently quite a good ruler - he took his role model seriously. Harrington herself is also a big fan of 20th century naval warfare, and the Havenites Kevin Usher and Victor Cachat are fans of 20th century movies.
** The ancient and honorable art of Grayson swordfighting is ostensibly based on ''The Seven Samurai'' - the founder of the colony was a fan. Naturally, they've filled in some of the blanks over the centuries.
* In the novel ''The Shadow Runners,'' the characters are in Australia, now a prison area in 2176. Rich young scions thrown into Australia are pretty much running the joint, while on loads and loads of drugs. They call themselves "Parliament" and are running around in waistcoats, calling themselves Lord Whatever, and pretending it's [[Victorian Britain]].
* Asimov tends to subvert this by having most of Earth's history long lost in the past in most of his novels. Characters have been known to [[Future Imperfect|lump unicorns, orcs and tigers into the same fantasy grouping]]. Nonetheless, there are a few odd examples of fairly accurate history that pops up in unexpected places.
** In ''[[The Robots of Dawn]]'' there are a references to some of the robot stories '(most notably ''[[The Bicentennial Man]]''), although they're tossed aside as myths.
** ''[[The Caves of Steel]]'' states that almost all the humans living on Earth at the time fit the trope.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* This trope seems to be standard issue on ''[[Star Trek]]'':
** Tom Paris in ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]]'', though he likes things slightly older than modern day (like '''Captain Proton!''', based on [[Pulp Magazine
** ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'' has Sisko and baseball.
*** Odo and O'Brien both enjoy twentieth-century detective novels.
*** Dr. Bashir and Chief O'Brien were re-fighting the Alamo and playing fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain. The station's counselor started to get concerned after a
** ''[[Star Trek: The
*** Not to mention wine making (or at least such is the case with his brother, though considering how steeped in tradition wine making is this may be [[Justified Trope]].)
*** Data and LaForge with their [[Sherlock Holmes]] programs.
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** In ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Enterprise]]'', Trip was an old movie buff, and T'Pol knew [[Fridge Logic|way more than made]] sense about her great-grandmother's trip to Earth in the 20th century.
** Kirk in [[Star Trek: The Original Series|the original series]]
*** In one of the early Star Trek movies, Kirk receives a pair of "antique" eyeglasses as a birthday present (the explanation is he's allergic to some drug that 24th-century people use to treat bad
*** Marla McGivers from "[[Star Trek/Recap/S1
*** Two more examples: During Sam Cogley's closing arguments in "[[Star Trek/Recap/S1
*** There are also some examples from the new series, such as a reference to the (future) reunification of Ireland as a result of terrorism.
** Zefram Cochrane from ''[[Star Trek: First Contact|First Contact]]'' loves early rock-and-roll. Somewhat justified, as his time period is shortly [[After the End]].
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*** He also showed knowledge of fencing, and while hallucinating from a contagious [[G-Rated Drug]] called a seeming opponent "Cardinal Richelieu", so clearly ''[[The Three Musketeers (novel)|The Three Musketeers]]'' (or European history, as the fictional Richelieu was based on a real person) was an influence as well.
*** Young Sulu's knowledge of fencing comes in handier than you might expect in the latest ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'' movie ...
** Averted in ''[[Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home|Star Trek IV the Voyage Home]]'', when the 20th-century marine biologist correctly points out that there's at least one
** The strangest thing is that these history fans almost never talk about anything that hasn't already happened. Given, this has made them look silly in the past, but it gets to the point where you feel that no great works of art, philosophy or religion was accomplished after the 20th Century. A rather strange state of affairs, considering that's when we achieve world peace and space travel.
*** They also consider everything before first contact 'ancient' history on several occasions, Voyager especially being prone to this.
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* Seamus Harper in ''[[Andromeda]]''; he often references culture from our time that confuses everyone else, as he is the only main character from Earth. Examples include comic book references, a desire to learn Gaelic, and surfing (although that seems to still be popular all across the galaxy.)
* Initially averted in ''[[Red Dwarf]]'', where the only references Lister made were originally to futuristic sports (like players for various Zero-G Football teams) and television shows (Mugs Murphy), but eventually just gave up and made jokes referencing pop-culture concepts people actually understood. From the beginning though, Rimmer has been a fan of the Napoleonic Age of War.
** Although a lot of the jokes already feel rather dated
* ''[[Blake's
* Half of the jokes in ''[[Buck Rogers in
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Taken to ridiculous levels in ''[[Traveller]]: The New Era'' (set in the 57th century, referencing 20th century history and popular culture left, right and centre), but justified in that [[Word of God]] has it that what we're reading is a [[Cultural Translation]] of the 57th-century stuff that's really being referenced.
** ''[[GURPS]] [[Traveller]]'' mentions societies that study older cultures that they're descended from and live their lives the way their ancestors did (essentially living a permanent [[cosplay]] [[LARP]]), as an in-universe justification for this. It also mentions that some societies [[Shown Their Work|did better research]] than [[Future Imperfect|others]].
* A ''[[BattleTech]]'' book of rumors [[Lampshade Hanging|hung out a lampshade]] on this trope, asking why there were so many references to things 1000 years in the past, and so few from just
* In ''[[Paranoia (game)|Paranoia]]'', the Romantics are an entire secret society of Fans of the Past. Of course, this being ''Paranoia'', their historical records are [[Future Imperfect|badly mixed up]].
* In ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'', Malcador the Sigilite is described as having been an avid historian and collector of ancient relics, including among others an authentic Van Gogh painting. The [[Horus Heresy]] books also suggest that at least some of the nigh-immortal Perpetuals (of which the Emperor and even Vulkan are such) are this to various degrees; one in particular even has a copy of Hans Christian Andersen's stories as among her most prized treasures.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Arthur, a strong Artificial Intelligence whose systems are the basis of the futuristic "biochip" computers in ''[[The Journeyman Project]]'' is described by his creator as having an unfortunate fixation with twentieth century pop culture.
* Inverted in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 3'', which takes place in the 1960s, where there are several dialogs with Paramedic in which she comments on the "latest" movies, inventions, and discoveries. Among her claims are that VHS will take off and that scientists have found out that smoking is likely to cause lung cancer. [[It Will Never Catch On|Which Naked Snake seriously doubts.]]
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* ''[[Fallout 3]]'' has the "capital preservation society," a museum in Rivet City that displays objects from American history. The curator is enthusiastic, if [[Future Imperfect|slightly inaccurate on history]].
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== [[Web Original]] ==
* The ''[[Chakona Space]]'' shared universe is a huge offender in this respect (though some characters ''do'' have good reason to appreciate older music, such as one man who is revealed to be several hundred years old).
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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** The 20th century is more than once referred to as 'the stupid ages' by the cast. In one scene Fry questions their criticism of the 20th century claiming it gave the world the light bulb and the steam engine amongst other inventions. It is duly pointed out to him that those inventions all came from the 19th century.
** Subverted further in "I Dated a Robot" when Fry refers to his time as "boring".
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* Played with in ''[[Time Squad]]'' the characters are a million years ahead of us with Larry and Tuddrussel often making references to 20th century pop culture and enjoying soap operas from the 1980's. With Otto it's only natural for him to reference it seeing that he was from the turn of the 21st century. But he's really more interested in the past far from his own, seeing that he's a history wiz.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* Lots of people could, if they wanted to, list off enough facts about a past decade or century to fit this trope. Fans of classical music or literature in particular would seem to fit.
* This is at least part of the reason [[Steampunk]] and [[Alternate History]] exist.
* It's a lot less common for a person to give references on a daily basis to popular culture from what's roughly a three decade period several centuries in the past. "You sing like an early Florence Foster Jenkins."
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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:We Will Use An Index In The Future]]
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