History Main / WereStillRelevantDammit

[[WMG:[[center:[[AC:This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1618435636038403900&page=1#comment-1 under discussion]] in the [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13222107430A61495000&page=1#1 Trope Repair Shop]].]]]]]]

** The ''Celebrate! A Street Party!'' parade quickly fell into this after finishing it's brief two-year run. The parade floats and dancer costumes were very contemporary, [[WesternAnimation/Mickey Mouse Mickey]] and [[WesternAnimation/MinnieMouse Minnie]] were dressed in costumes that scream "late 2000s", and prominently featured songs by ''Series/HannahMontana'' and ''Music/RickyMartin'' on its soundtrack.

** The ''Celebrate! A Street Party!'' parade quickly fell into this after finishing it's brief two-year run. The parade floats and dancer costumes were very contemporary, {{WesternAnimation/Mickey Mouse Mickey}} and {{WesternAnimation/MinnieMouse}} were dressed in costumes that scream "late 2000s", and prominently featured songs by ''Series/HannahMontana'' and ''Music/RickyMartin'' on its soundtrack.

** Dear old Jughead Jones has often fallen victim to this trope. ''Archie Comics'' may be made fun of occasionally, but thanks to its cozy look at the bright side of being a teenager, most people tend to view it with warm nostalgic feelings. This makes these attempts to be "hip and happening" ever more bewildering. Everyone, from every generation, knows Jughead as Archie's goofy hamburger-eating [=BFF=] in that ridiculous hat. Well, over the years, he has ''also'' had mercifully brief careers as (get some coffee and a comfortable seat) a beatnik, a hippie, a punk, a disco king, a breakdancer, a time-traveler a la ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'', a rapper, a paranormal investigator a la ''Series/TheXFiles'', an {{emo teen}}, a {{superhero}}, and so on. At this point Jughead's {{Genre Shift}}ing has almost become a RunningGag. See [[http://www.avclub.com/article/decade-by-decade-with-archie-comics-1549 this useful Onion AV Club article]] for more details. And yet his character design ''still'' includes his whoopee cap ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoopee_cap Yes, that's what it's called.]]), a style of headgear that nobody's worn for close on seventy years now.

* The Progressive advertisements in which Flo turns herself into an ImageMacro smack of some middle-aged marketing executive trying to "get down with" the hip Internet-using early-20s demographic.

** In season 1, the cast (despicted as their 1966 selves) doesn't think modern day viewers would be interested in 1960s humor so they try to update the series. They end up creating an InNameOnly adaptation where they're [[CastFullOfPrettyBoys extremely attractive]] {{bishonen}}s who are [[SchoolIdol worshipped at their high school]], are in an extremely popular IdolSinger group, and regularly [[WakeUpGoToSchoolSaveTheWorld save the world]]. The anime has IncestSubtext and harem elements to make it even more popular with anime fans. The brothers are however unable to keep up appearances and revert back to their original forms.
** In season 2, the 60's versions of the brothers see their ''-San'' selves on TV and are disgusted by how disgusting and full of themselves they are when they become popular. They each decide to make their show "proper", with ideas proposed including a straightfowardly normal timeskip, outsourcing the animation, going {{Retraux}}, and [[MediumBlending foregoing animation altogether for a live-action adaptation]]. Once again, none of these plans work.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'':

** Dear old Jughead Jones has often fallen victim to this trope. ''Archie Comics'' may be made fun of occasionally, but thanks to its cozy look at the bright side of being a teenager, most people tend to view it with warm nostalgic feelings. This makes these attempts to be "hip and happening" ever more bewildering. Everyone, from every generation, knows Jughead as Archie's goofy hamburger-eating [=BFF=] in that ridiculous hat. Well, over the years, he has ''also'' had mercifully brief careers as (get some coffee and a comfortable seat) a beatnik, a hippie, a punk, a disco king, a breakdancer, a time-traveler a la ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'', a rapper, a paranormal investigator a la ''Series/TheXFiles'', an {{emo teen}}, a {{superhero}}, and so on. At this point Jughead's {{Genre Shift}}ing has almost become a RunningGag. See [[http://www.avclub.com/article/decade-by-decade-with-archie-comics-1549 this useful Onion AV Club article]] for more details.
*** And yet his character design ''still'' includes his whoopee cap ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoopee_cap Yes, that's what it's called.]]), a style of headgear that nobody's worn for close on seventy years now.

* ''New Warriors 2020'' got plenty of flak when it was revealed for the fact that its new characters were basically walking attempts to make the writers look hip. Of particular note are Screentime (a "meme-obsessed teen" whose powers apparently came from "experimental internet gas", however ''that'' works) and the twins Snowflake and Safespace (named after terms on the internet that usually get used as insults against the minorities they're trying to portray positively, with the former seemingly having no personality beyond being nonbinary). At the very least, Marvel seems to have listened to the backlash on this one -- it was delayed indefinitely along with all the other ''ComicBook/{{Outlawed}}'' event titles when COVID-19 hit, and then apparently cancelled altogether.

* Parodied in a ''Saturday Night Live'' sketch where Kelsey Grammar shoehorns social media into the ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' theme song for the reboot.

* In 2020, Nickelodeon premiered Unfiltered, a show that screams this trope. Examples include references to memes like dabbing, “Deal with It”, a social media segment and even text that said “2020 is cancelled”. Hell, the entire concept is The Masked Singer with Snapchat-like filters.

** Then there's 2002's ''Film/ItsAVeryMerryMuppetChristmasMovie'', which reeks of trying to make the Muppets "hip" and "relevant", with pop culture references and [[{{Demographically Inappropriate Humour}} adult humor]] galore.

** From 2007 to 2016, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inLUwsoKY_U the show's theme was done in the style of hip-hop music]], which was experiencing a boom in popularity in the 2000's.

* ''Lego'''s answer to appealing to the modern generation? ''Lego Vidyo'', which features characters like "Party Llama", "Discowboy" and "Alien DJ".

* In ''Film/TheCraftLegacy'' a 2020 SoftReboot of 1996's ''Film/TheCraft'', the teen witches make several references to ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', which was indeed highly popular with teenage girls...about a decade before this movie was made. The characters themselves would've been in kindergarten and elementary school when the ''Twilight'' movies were in cinemas from 2008 to 2012 (they were possibly still in diapers when the first book was published in 2005). It's not impossible they could be newer fans, but the references can still come off as dated for a movie trying to appeal to Gen Z teens.

* ''Toys/{Lego}}'''s answer to appealing to the modern generation? ''Lego Vidyo'', which features characters like "Party Llama", "Discowboy" and "Alien DJ".

* ''Toys/{Lego]]'''s answer to appealing to the modern generation? ''Lego Vidyo'', which features characters like "Party Llama", "Discowboy" and "Alien DJ".

* In 2019, Microsoft introduced a new version of its ergonomic keyboard that included an emoji key. Given that the keyboard is popular in professional settings where emoji use is often discouraged, many saw this as a questionable move.

** The very first teaser trailer if the [[WesternAnimation/{{Trolls}} first movie]] consisted of the male trolls except for Branch, as well as female troll Smidge, dancing to Silento's "Watch Me Whip and Nae Nae", which was popular the year prior.

** One of the songs in the "Trolls 2 Many Hits Mashup" medley in ''WesternAnimation/TrollsWorldTour'' is [[Music/{{PSY}} "Gangnam Style"]]. Compared to how the other songs in the medley have remained popular to this day and still receive constant radio airplay or are fondly remembered, "Gangnam Style" was only popular 8 years prior to the film's release.

!!Examples

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Trolls}}'' franchise, which is based on the [[LongRunners long-running]] line of dolls, has run into this at least twice:
** The very first teaser trailer consisted of the male trolls except for Branch, as well as female troll Smidge, dancing to Silento's "Watch Me Whip and Nae Nae", which was popular the year prior.
** One of the songs in the "Many Hits Remix" in ''WesternAnimation/TrollsWorldTour'' is [[Music/{{PSY}} "Gangnam Style"]]. Compared to how the other songs in the medley have remained popular to this day and still receive constant radio airplay or are fondly remembered, "Gangnam Style" was only popular 8 years prior to the film's release.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* Done in ''Anime/LupinIIIPart5'', where the CentralTheme of the series is the main characters trying to adapt to modern technology and the Internet. The first episode is about Lupin trying to steal cryptocurrency, for instance, and in retaliation the company he stole from, Marco Polo, manages to weaponise social media by effectively crowdsourcing the investigation against Lupin, calling it "The Lupin Game". [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools It works]], because it helps raise the stakes and provide new challenges for Lupin and his gang to overcome. Plus, it ends up serving as something of a {{Reconstruction}}: Lupin can continue being a PhantomThief in a world dominated by camera phones and people being able to report on his location at all times because ''he's that good''.
* The ''Franchise/PrettySeries'' entry ''VideoGame/KirattoPriChan'' is basically the same as most of the other series in that line-up, but its' focus is on people streaming online videos, which was big when it was first released. In the first season, the characters use apps and smartphones to transform for lives.
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' attempted to update itself in 2016 with ''Anime/DigimonUniverseApplimonsters'', where the {{Mon}}s were all based on smartphone apps and one of the main characters is a [=YouTuber=] -- [[BlandNameProduct er, AppTuber]]. A definite Administrivia/TropesAreTools example, as the series is tied to technology and the Internet landscape is vastly different than what it was when the franchise began in the early 2000s.

* An ad for the Nissan Cube features icons such as "Add Friends" when someone other than the driver gets in the car, and "Join Group" when the car parks at an area with other people. The car itself is referred to as the "Cube Mobile Device".

* Music/VanillaIce appeared in a Kraft macaroni and cheese [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us0HMWVPv_M commercial]] to advertise the tie-in with the Creator/MichaelBay ''Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2014'' movie, where he does the "Ninja Rap" he did in ''Film/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II|TheSecretOfTheOoze}}'' way back in 1991. Unlike many of the other examples on here it's a parodic example of this trope, since the ad shows [[SelfDeprecation Ice working as a grocery store stockboy]], and the kid in the commercial isn't nearly as impressed with the rap as his mom is.

* ''Many'' Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} TV promos post-2014 or so fall under this with frequent usage and showing off of emojis, texting, memes, and even [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8O7uI0-eGE references to "Damn Daniel"]]. There could probably be an entire page of this trope done for them.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCPGQg_QQII This promo for]] ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' features the titular character checking up on his Instaclam.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6JJAgpky3o This 2016 SpongeBob Promo blatantly uses "Deal With It"]].
** An ad for Nick's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkoQj_SItac Saturday Night premieres]] is done in the style of ''VideoGame/PokemonGo''.
** One promo references the "Shooting Stars" meme.
** And of course there's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UtPGhoMkXw this]] ident from Nick India featuring characters from ''Animation/MotuPatlu'', ''Animation/GattuBattu'', and ''Manga/{{Ninja Hattori}}-kun'' learning how to dab, which has achieved MemeticMutation.
** And then there's ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ32c5zMtvA [=GoNoodle=] dance]], in which Lola's dance move is dabbing. This video in particular was reused as idents for Nicktoons in the UK.
** A British ''[=SpongeBob=]'' magazine used, in a trivia quiz, names of popular celebrities at the time as incorrect answers. For instance, one of the answers to "Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" was "The entire cast of ''Film/HighSchoolMusical''", and another question had "Ashley Tisdale" and "Dylan and Cole Sprouse" as choices.

** And then there's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPS9Op5dhCw Left Swipe Dat]]", featuring many popular [=YouTubers=] and WebOriginal/{{Vine}} makers singing a song about rejecting people who smoke on Tinder. It's almost painful to watch. (Though it's clear the participating [=YouTubers=] and Vine makers [[MoneyDearBoy clearly did it for a quick buck]].)
** Another campaign warned the audience that secondhand smoke can cause deathly illness in your pets, which is terrible because...[[SkewedPriorities we won't be able to watch funny cat videos anymore.]]
** Truth in general has been reveling in this as of late 2014, because apparently the way to get younger people to stop smoking is to look hip and modern.

* In TheEighties, Nestle's reinvented the Milky Bar Kid. While the original Milky Bar Kid adverts had been [[TheWestern Western]] pastiches, with the Kid as TheSheriff protecting a town from black hats with a taste for white chocolate, the new Milky Bar Kid was a CaptainSpaceDefenderOfEarth. The ads more or less worked, but they returned to the classic version later that decade.
* A Goldfish advertisement has the fish take selfies and make fun of "duck facing". And it took place in ''2017'', rather than ''2008-2011'', when it was most popular. Unlike ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' example (which is still a little late because it was in 2016), commercials aren't usually made months in advance, so they really have no excuse.
** Another Goldfish commercial has a reference to Keyboard Cat (a video uploaded to Website/YouTube in 2007) in ''2018.''
* Domino Pizza's "Food of Squads" advert, first aired around September 2017, features [[TotallyRadical four radically-dressed teenagers going around impressing girls]], which at one point, one of them pulls out and spins two [[MemeticMutation fidget spinners]]. This wouldn't be so much of a problem had it aired earlier (around May-July 2017, when they were at their peak of popularity), but by September, the trend was already dying off.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FrbGw8fIWc This Mentos commercial]] has a yeti that randomly decides to dab. Another version of the commercial has the yeti flossing instead.
* A Cartoon Network [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpwEQHx07mg&feature=youtu.be ident]] from 2018 features various Cartoon Network characters doing dances from the then wildly-popular ''VideoGame/{{Fortnite}}''.
** Something similar happened in a Holiday Mashup video that same year that had [[WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo Beast Boy]] do Floss, one of the dances from the game. [[LaserGuidedKarma Luckily a nearby tree lands right on top of him almost immediately afterward like it was having none of that]].
** Before that, their [[MilestoneCelebration 25th Anniversary promo]] at one point has [[WesternAnimation/BenTen Four Arms]] dabbing. ''[[FromBadToWorse With all four of his arms.]]''

* [[https://twitter.com/sherlockgnomes/status/969634018684698624 A promotional image]] for ''WesternAnimation/SherlockGnomes'' features Juliet dabbing.

* ''The Advertising/EnergizerBunny'':
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzkRShlbmy0 A 2019 ad]] demonstrates how Energizer batteries last longer than their competitors by having two robots do the Floss dance popularized by ''VideoGame/{{Fortnite}}'', made worse by the Energizer Bunny joining in at the end.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWK4yPgkpn0 A holiday 2019]] ad has the Bunny take a selfie with a robot penguin.
* The teaser posters for ''WesternAnimation/TheAddamsFamily2019'' [[https://twitter.com/iamnotwaynegale/status/1156531541494947840 are oozing with this,]] with puns like "Straight Outta Coffin" (a pun on [[Film/StraightOuttaCompton a movie]] that came out four years ago), "It's Gonna Be Lit," and "You Got Served" for the characters. Also questionable is the use of [[EngineeredHashtag Engineered Hashtags]] of the characters' names, which doesn't really work for characters with less specific names, like Thing and Grandma.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiQSD_mB4GE This]] ad for Xfinity depicts a family called "The Memesteins," which references outdated memes like "NOOB," the Impact font, and hoverboards in 2018. Other less infamous ads in this campaign included "The Filtertons" who live their lives through Instagram filters, and "The Swapsons" whose faces have all been swapped a la certain photo apps, [[UncannyValley including the dog.]]

* Following a decline in importance and relevance due to competition from other video game expos and game companies able to directly announce their products through presentations such as WebVideo/NintendoDirect, the UsefulNotes/ElectronicEntertainmentExpo (E3) announced that their 2020 expo would be [[ReTool retooled]] to be less focused on the gaming press and more open to the public, with an increased focus on social media and influencers sealing the deal. The cancelling of that edition due to the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic seems to have at least delayed those plans, though.

** And then there's ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ32c5zMtvA [=GoNoodle=] dance]], in which Lola's dance move is dabbing.

* Following a decline in importance and relevance due to competition from other video game expos and game companies able to directly announce their products through presentations such as WebVideo/NintendoDirect, the UsefulNotes/ElectronicEntertainmentExpo (E3) announced that their 2020 expo would be [[ReTool retooled]] to be less focused on the gaming press and more open to the public, with an increased focus on social media and influencers sealing the deal. The cancelling of that edition due to the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have at least delayed those plans, though.

[[folder:Confectionary]]

* Website/MySpace and its latest ReTool into a "Social Entertainment" website, after being driven DeaderThanDisco by Website/{{Facebook}}. Now everyone gets friend requests from fake celebrity pages, oh joy! They also let Creator/JackBlack "take over" the site in a publicity stunt.

** Then there's 2002's ''Film/ItsAVeryMerryMuppetChristmasMovie'', which reeks of trying to make the Muppets "hip" and "relevant", with pop culture references and [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar adult humor]] galore.

** This is, however, mostly averted by the Chuck Billy spinoff comic. Despite it technically taking place during present-day, it pretty much portrays country life as an idyllic 1940ies farming village (Chuck's farm doesn't even have electricity, despite the fact that at least 90% of the homes in Brazil have power since the 2000s). His CityMouse cousin's frequent visits make the contrast all the more grating.

* Against all odds, ''averted'' with Creator/{{Disney}}'s "As Told By Emoji" web series, which takes various Disney movies and retells them in short videos that use emojis and emoji-style animation in a phone-related environment. While the concept sounds like an obvious attempt to pander to a smartphone-addicted generation of children and teenagers, the series has been incredibly well-received for being adorable, hilarious and a refreshing take on Disney movies old and new, with many [=YouTube=] commenters eager to see more and requesting their favorite movies in the comments.

* ''New Warriors 2020'' got plenty of flak when it was revealed for the fact that its new characters were basically walking attempts to make the writers look hip. Of particular note are Screentime (a "meme-obsessed teen" whose powers apparently came from "experimental internet gas", however ''that'' works) and the twins Snowflake and Safespace (named after terms on the internet that usually get used as insults against the minorities they're trying to portray positively, with the former seemingly having no personality beyond being nonbinary).

* When ''ComicStrip/{{Nancy}}'' got taken over by Olivia Jaimes, things like smartphones and computers started making their way into the comic. This is either a case of We're Still Relevant, Dammit trying desperately to grab the attention of The Youths instead of the timelessness of previous runs, or a much-needed SettingUpdate to work with the reality kids face nowadays.

* ''Film/{{Barbershop}}: The Next Cut'' was always going to have a hard time avoiding accusations of this, considering that [[SequelGap it's a 2016 sequel to a movie that came out in 2002]], and the only other ''Barbershop'' sequel came out in ''2004''. But when the movie's ad campaign also heavily advertises a new character played by Music/NickiMinaj, and the trailers namedrop selfies, hashtags, "Safe Spaces", and the election of UsefulNotes/BarackObama, well...