Present Day: Difference between revisions

Compare [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]], [[Next Sunday ADA.D.]]. When a work is set in the recent past, but treats it ''as if'' it were [['''Present Day]]''' to the point of including anachronisms, it's a [[Present Day Past]]. If a work tries a bit too hard to look hip and cool in the present day, it'll likely come across as an [[Unintentional Period Piece]] later on.

* The anime ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]'' (the [[Trope Namer]]) opens each episode with a voice saying "Present day. Present time." and then laughing, even though much of the technology suggest the show probably takes place in the future or some alternate world.

** Many fans speculate that the ending turns this strange "present day" into the present day as we know it through [[Reality Warper|Reality Warping]]. There's still a detail or two that don't quite fit in, though.

* ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' shows us what happens when this is used and [[Technology Marches On]]--who—who uses VCRs anymore? Its setting is thus relegated to sometime in the mid-nineties, when the series was made. It helps that no actual dates are mentioned.

* Although the main story line of ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' takes place in the [[Present Day]], this is actually a [[Flash Back]], as Ted is telling the story to his kids in 2030. Some episodes even have flashbacks ([[Flash Forward|FlashForwards]]?) to events that take place between the two.

* ''[[Flash Forward 2009|FlashForward]]'' is making a serious effort at this, with the date of the "blackout" being about when it first aired, and the date of the flashforward the expected date of the season finale.

** To top it off, the [https://web.archive.org/web/20180919171906/http://www.rockstargames.com/libertytree/ online version of the fictional ''Liberty Tree'' news website] reports events in Liberty City as if they were actually unfolding in the months leading up to the release of ''GTA III''.

** The original ''[[Grand Theft Auto Classic|Grand Theft Auto]]'', ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'' and ''[[Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars]]'' follow this trope in a similar vain. These games take place in timelines relative to the time periods the games debuted, but make no mention of the exact date or year.<ref>though a food vendor's business permit and police records in ''GTA IV'' hint the game taking place in 2007 (the original expected year of release for the game) or later</ref>. This ambiguity allowed developers of [[Grand Theft Auto IV: theThe Lost Andand Damned|downloadable]] [[Grand Theft Auto: IV theThe Ballad of Gay Tony|content]] for ''GTA IV'' to incorporate allusions of real life events and elements of pop culture that emerge after the release of the game, even though events in both DLCs are supposed to occur at the same time as in ''GTA IV''.

* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' is an interesting use of "present day", because the show has been running sofor long''decades'' and [[Not Allowed to Grow Up|the characters never age]]. It becomes increasingly bizarre when characters have flashbacks to their childhoods. This is very much a case of a [[Comic Book Time|floating timeline]].