What ephemera of today will people be making fun of in 2060?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Most of you are familiar with lileks.com, which among other things offers a sarcastic look at 1950s-era ephemera; cookbooks, advertising, and so on. Most of us have seen instructional films from the 1950s which, from out perspective, seem absolutely hilarious; subservient women, kindly hat-wearing pipe-smoking fathers, cheerful kids, a complete lack of minorities, and an overwhelming message that you must conform, you must obey.

What ephemera from this decade – that still-unnamed time between 2000 and 2009 - will people be making fun of in 2060? My predictions:

  • Corporate stock photography: especially the most cliched themes such as chiseled CEO-types holding briefcases walking by skyscrapers and gazing up at “opportunity”, a boardroom where people representing every race, gender and physical ability are huddled around a laptop computer, somebody using a laptop at the edge of a cliff or otherwise in the middle of nowhere, and so on.

  • Food photography: The 1950s had its Kodachrome images of monstrosities such as kielbasas suspended in green Jello topped by pineapple slices, huge slabs of meat, and so on. The 2000s are going to be known for sharp images of Euro-sized organic, free-range foodie foods set against a backdrop in soft focus. Hard to find an example when I google, but it’s something like the scene on the right in this photo.

2

Our mecha overlords will be making fun of our primitive robotics and the movie A.I.. “They didn’t know the half of it! Hyurk hyurk hyurk!”

3

iAnything. :slight_smile:

4

Internet ads for c!@l!s and v!@g@.

She may choke on your huge d!ck, but they’ll be choking with laughter.

5

Those are things we make fun of now, though.

In the 1950s, “you will conform”-style imagery was the norm, and it really wasn’t the subject of frequent mockery in the time.

6

I Pods - I’m sure people will wonder with their tinny little earbuds and rotary dial like interface, why were they such a big deal?

7

Social construct… Widespread acceptance of gays and lesbians. Shaking their heads saying "tsk tsk…what were those turn of the century people thinking?

8

The “you will conform” imagery spawned teenage rebellion, rock & roll and beatnicks, and the mockery of many at the time. The imagery was to try and convince the population how to be, not a reflection of how it was. They’re as true a relection of actual society at the time as the rainbow corporates you quote in the OP. Reds under the bed? Conform or be denounced.

People *buy *from those internet performance boosting ads, it’s only those of us who don’t need ‘a little help’ that find them laughable. We’ll have far more records of the ads and the culture that spawned them than we will of the rolled eyes and ‘deletes’ that greet them in our inboxes.

9

The whole “green” thing. It will be either taken for granted (“why the hell did they even need to mention it?”) or superceded (“dumbasses didn’t know how to build space colonies?”)

10

I think that resource-squandering, labor-exploiting, plastic-everything materialism dumbed down to the working classes through media saturation will be ridiculed for its shortsightedness.