# If "Back to The Future" were a thing today, what would be the contrast? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [November 12, 2021, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240 "2021-11-12T11:56:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/62 "2021-11-13T16:05:13Z")
Actually having to talk to girls face-to-face, or at least speaking to them directly on the telephone, back in 1991 if you wanted to ask them out instead of doing it via text. Driving isn’t as important to younger people today like it was when I turned 16 back in 1992. You could send a modern teenager back to 1991 and he might not know how to drive. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/63 "2021-11-13T16:46:33Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > I think the biggest challenge to such a movie is making 2021 Marty cool and capable compared to the kids from the past. 1980s Marty is _cool_ compared to the 50’s kids (particularly his parents, but all of them). He’s in a rock band, he’s capable on a skateboard, he’s independent and scrappy. > > When we talk about the cultural changes between the 90s and today, things like “plans are fluid” and “we can contact anyone we want at any time, or have information at our fingertips”… those don’t make you cool compared to the past. You get some fun fish out of water moments when the future kid is without their toys and internet, but that’s not enough. Checking your e-mail on [Ricochet, packet radio, SMS, whatever, so not all available in 1991], or even just having, a mobile phone or beeper marked you as a yuppie and/or nerd (and pretty spoiled for a kid to have it), so Marty wouldn’t want to be seen doing that. Which leads to the question, what makes teenagers “cool” in the eyes of other teens, let’s say in California? And how does this “coolness” vary over time? Someone like Tom Sawyer has a timeless charm. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/64 "2021-11-13T16:55:38Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > in 1991… Email? What’s that? Internet? > > You have a tiny device you can carry in your hand, that’s a phone that lets you talk to anyone anywhere in the world… _and_ make video calls… _and_ a camera without film… _and_ a calculator… _and_ a voice recorder… _and_ a music player… _and_ a book reader… _and_ you can film and watch videos… _and_ instantly look up any information you want… _and_ play games? Sure, the technology has advanced a lot, but the cultural changes have not been nearly as large as they were in previous decades. Watching an episode of Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, or Married With Children doesn’t produce in me a sense of those shows being part of a culture that time has passed by. In contrast, when I was a kid in the 80s, watching Leave it to Beaver or The Andy Griffith show did produce a sense that this was some older culture which time had passed by. In other words, people of 2021 are still the same as Chandler Bing, Jerry Seinfeld, Frasier Crane, or Al Bundy, we just have iPhones now. People in 1985, however, were of a different culture than Barney Fife or Ward Cleaver. At least that’s how it seemed to me at the time and still seems to me now. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/65 "2021-11-13T22:13:30Z")
I think you’d have to push it back into the 1980s. The Reagan era with the Soviet Union and the Cold War still a thing. It would also push us back before the World Wide Web. Sure, digital realms existed but it wasn’t on most peoples’ radar or was the stuff of movies. By 1991 the Internet was getting press hype. I don’t know how you’d go about using and depicting it, but the demographics of the veteran population has changed in that time. Back then, WWII vets were grandparents numbering in the millions, but now there’s just a few hundred thousand left. Vietnam vets are now roughly the age WWII vets were in the 80s, but back then it was very much a fresh wound. A plot element could be trying to communicate with lots of people. It could be sending word out to everyone or casting a wide net to find a particular person. A teenager from today wouldn’t know a world without YouTube and Facebook and their successors. What would they have to learn and do just to reach just the local town’s population? Positive movement on gay rights could be contracted with the steps back on racism. I’m sure there a gag about the other letters in LGBTQ to be had. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/66 "2021-11-13T22:17:23Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Watching an episode of Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, or Married With Children doesn’t produce in me a sense of those shows being part of a culture that time has passed by. Seriously? Ask a 17 year kid to do the same and whether or not our culture has moved on. In BttF, Marty is likewise familiar with the Honeymooners (and much like today, his parents still watch an old TV show) but wouldn’t consider that a contemporary show. ETA: Maybe it’s not clear, but when we watched BttF originally, we were closer to Marty’s age, so of course we identify with him more. But now, we’re closer in age to Doc Brown and seeing things from the perspective of somebody who lived through the intervening years and don’t recognize how different things would actually be for a younger generation. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/67 "2021-11-14T03:31:02Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Seriously? > > Ask a 17 year kid to do the same and whether or not our culture has moved on. Yeah, I agree. @FlikTheBlue, if I may ask, how old are you? The shows you mentioned seem _incredibly_ dated to me. Which is fine! They’re ~30 years old! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/68 "2021-11-14T04:00:29Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I don’t know - I was there, and I would have been very impressed. “Wow, the future is everything we imagined!” I agree. If I saw a current iPhone (or competitor) in 1991 my mind would be fucking blown. Come on. “That’s cool … I guess?” I remember us GenXers were a cynical bunch, but not that cynical. Show me a phone with a Commodore 64 emulator and literally _every single game ever made for it on it_ (would take up less than a gig compressed – peanuts) and holy shit. Then show me the modern games, and I’d join your cult. It would be absolutely, jaw-droppingly staggering to see a modern phone in 1991. And the photo/video capabilities wouldn’t be “oh cool.” The performance of a modern phone camera compared to anything a camcorder back then could do is orders of magnitude better. As for stills, way better color rendition, low light performance (by far) – you have instant feedback to what your photo looks like – you have a device you can put into your pocket where you can show off all your photos and videos without lugging a bunch of shit around. And then – hey – see that shitty walkman you got there? Check this out and my collection of several hundred albums here in my pocket with audio quality that will blow your socks off. “Cool … I guess?” Come on. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/69 "2021-11-14T04:44:27Z")
Here is a thread that is tangential related to time traveling back to 1991: > [@Could the people of 1983 connect to my Macbook Pro?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-people-of-1983-connect-to-my-macbook-pro/438039): > > In [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=455773), Sampiro raises the intriguing possibility of spending a month in 1983. I mention bring my computer back to 1983, and wonder whether the people then could connect to it. I’d like to expand on that question here. So… a [Macbook Pro](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro). In 1983. Let’s assume that it has the power adaptor and power cord, but no other accessories. How would people in 1983 be able to connect to it? It has no RS-232 serial port, no VGA port. There’s a DVI port for an external monitor, but that’s output o… ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/70 "2021-11-14T04:48:33Z")
“How do I read this squiggly writing? It just looks like a bunch of loops.” ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/71 "2021-11-14T04:49:55Z")
And two other tangential threads about time traveling to the 80s with a modern cellphone: [https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-1980s-reverse-engineer-a-modern-iphone/775816](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-1980s-reverse-engineer-a-modern-iphone/775816) [https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-could-a-time-traveler-pawn-his-cell-phone-off-too/427879](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-could-a-time-traveler-pawn-his-cell-phone-off-too/427879) ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/72 "2021-11-14T14:25:18Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Yeah, I agree. @FlikTheBlue, if I may ask, how old are you? The shows you mentioned seem _incredibly_ dated to me. Which is fine! They’re ~30 years old! I’m 44. And I agree they seem dated in the sense that the characters on those shows don’t have iPhones, texting, TikTok, Facebook, etc. But the characters themselves don’t seem old fashioned to me in the same way that characters from I Love Lucy, Leave It to Beaver, or The Andy Griffith show seem old fashioned, even compared to the 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/73 "2021-11-14T15:38:34Z")
So, in 1985, you were 8 years old? Or 14 in 1991 I suppose. Ask an 8 year old (or 14 year old) vs a 50 year old if any of those shows seems old-fashioned or how culturally out of date they are and you’ll get very different responses. ---
**Author:** ![Arcite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/74 "2021-11-15T04:03:24Z")
I agree with Great\_Antibob; I’m your age and I see things the same way as you, but Seinfeld and Friends were on during our formative years. ISTM the relevant opinion today would be not ours, but that of a 21 year old who lives his life on TikTok and Instagram. Kids today have entire vocabularies of recent slang and modes of behavior we’re completely unfamiliar with. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Friends looks to them as Andy Griffith does to us. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/75 "2021-11-15T12:49:38Z")
My kids, aged 12 and 15, watch Friends reruns on occasion. I’ll have to ask them how they feel about this. To me, Friends is almost like today, but I don’t use a smartphone, I still read physical books, my headphones are from around 2000 etc. etc. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/76 "2021-11-15T15:01:48Z")
With Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, Married With Children, the all white, hetero cast would be a good starting point for arguing nothing has changed. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/77 "2021-11-15T16:20:11Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > I think the biggest challenge to such a movie is making 2021 Marty cool and capable compared to the kids from the past. 1980s Marty is _cool_ compared to the 50’s kids (particularly his parents, but all of them). He’s in a rock band, he’s capable on a skateboard, he’s independent and scrappy. > > When we talk about the cultural changes between the 90s and today, things like “plans are fluid” and “we can contact anyone we want at any time, or have information at our fingertips”… those don’t make you cool compared to the past. You get some fun fish out of water moments when the future kid is without their toys and internet, but that’s not enough. > > One plausible avenue you could take is that 2021 Marty is an influencer/youtuber, and uses his film/marketing skills to do something cool. There are lots of teenagers today with filmmaking skills that would rival professionals in the 1990s, and the That’s one way in which someone in modern times could inspire 90s kids to all think he’s the greatest. With the exception of Lorraine, I never got the impression that anyone else thought he was particularly “cool”- George was such a sad-sack that _anyone_ else was cool, and Lorraine had a crush on him. Biff and his buddies certainly were not impressed by Marty. The story to me was always less of a “Fish out of Water” story, and more of a “How will Marty solve his problems while being constrained/unaware of 1950s stuff?” Those problems being namely how to power the time machine DeLorean in the absence of plutonium, and how to re-attach his parents, after his mother developed a crush on him. That could be done easily enough in 1991; I think that the real comedy in a remake would be having Marty NOT be able to rely on his 2021 technology- his phone would not be connected to anything, and the charge would be running out. Maybe make that part of the plot- he has to do something before his phone runs out of juice or something like that, because the car/time machine needs the phone. He’d have to go to a library, use a landline phone, not be able to be in touch and just have faith that people would meet you at the agreed upon time. And probably some cheap gags having to do with the state of technology at the time- like have him use a Gopher site or Usenet or something, could be thrown in. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/78 "2021-11-15T16:48:11Z")
> [@bump](#): > > With the exception of Lorraine, I never got the impression that anyone else thought he was particularly “cool”- George was such a sad-sack that _anyone_ else was cool, and Lorraine had a crush on him. Biff and his buddies certainly were not impressed by Marty. Well, there’s the whole “Marty invents rock and roll” bit. Animal House did that so much better with Otis Day and the Knights. Lord, if there is anything that dates this movie to 1985, it’s that Michael J. Fox is going to invent rock and roll. Michael J. Freaking Fox. He could have worn sunglasses, at least. Sunglasses always make puny white kids from the suburbs the coolest people of all time. At least they did in the 1980s. OMG, that whole Tom Cruise/Ferris Bueller/Michael J. Fox trope. No movie today is going to have a white guy, playing a teenager, teach a black adult rock and roll. Never mind that the roots for that music were actually known by many musicians in 1955. Blech. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/79 "2021-11-15T16:53:54Z")
In a couple of the other BTTF threads, it was mentioned that very little, if any, music from today would shock teenagers in the early 90s, the way “Johnny B. Goode” did teenagers in the mid-50s. So instead of playing an iconic paradigm-shifting tune, the gag could be that Marty plays some cheesy one-hit wonder. “Hey Rob, this is you cousin Marvin, Marvin Van Winkle. You know that derivative Bowie-esque sound you’ve been looking to rip off. Well take a listen to this!” ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/80 "2021-11-15T17:00:31Z")
Marty travels back in time to 1990, experiences a “microagression” and his head explodes. > [@GreenWyvern](#): > > > [@Grrr](#): > > > > A teenaged kid goes 30 years back into the past. Would there be enough of a contrast to make the story interesting? > > in 1991… Email? What’s that? Internet? > > You have a tiny device you can carry in your hand, that’s a phone that lets you talk to anyone anywhere in the world… _and_ make video calls… _and_ a camera without film… _and_ a calculator… _and_ a voice recorder… _and_ a music player… _and_ a book reader… _and_ you can film and watch videos… _and_ instantly look up any information you want… _and_ play games? In the first Jumani reboot, one of the girls is talking to Nick Jonas’s character who was trapped in the game since the 90s. She goes on and on about her “phone” and his character is like "“phone’ obviously means something very different in the future”. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240/81 "2021-11-15T17:23:57Z")
> [@bump](#): > > With the exception of Lorraine, I never got the impression that anyone else thought he was particularly “cool”- George was such a sad-sack that _anyone_ else was cool, and Lorraine had a crush on him. Biff and his buddies certainly were not impressed by Marty. Wait, really? A skate-boarding rockstar is honestly a little on the nose for “cool kid” in the 1980s. The fundamental story of Back to the Future is “cool kid has loser parents, goes back in time to teach them how to be cool like him.” Yes, he has many problems to solve that are not directly related to that, but if you think about what has changed from the beginning of the movie to the end, _most_ movies are about an arc in the main character. The main character has flaws and learns to overcome them through the trials of the plot. But Marty has no flaws. He is awesome at the beginning and awesome at the end! The changes wrought by the action of the movie are that his parents are now awesome too. They are rich, fit, accomplished. Perhaps “cool” is not _quite_ the right word, because Marty is also a bit of a weirdo and is off-balance for lost of the movie. But I think it’s pretty close. > [@bump](#): > > And probably some cheap gags having to do with the state of technology at the time- like have him use a Gopher site or Usenet or something A reference that literally dozens of us audience members would get! 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-back-to-the-future-were-a-thing-today-what-would-be-the-contrast/954240.md?page=5)