: Re: Referencing modern pop culture in science fiction A geek today is quite likely to reference the pop culture of 30 years ago: "Do or do not, there is no try", "Beam me up, Scotty" and "Ground

@Jessie137

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I can invent it, but then it wouldn't serve the goal of a pop culture reference…

Paul Verhoeven isn't everyone's favorite director, but he often interjects invented "pop media" in his sci-fi: newscasts, tv commercials, in-world propaganda. Sometimes it works and sometimes it is painfully awkward (my critique: he blurs worldbuilding and satire, and Verhoeven is not a witty or funny person so his satire comes across as grotesque and exaggerated which undermines confidence in the accuracy of his world).

Verhoeven's successful insertion is the slogan "I'd buy THAT for a dollar!" which was repeated ad nauseam in RoboCop, until it became clear that it was just a meaningless catchphrase to trigger the "reward" of a laughtrack and jiggle women.

I think the reason it works is that Verhoeven is so on-the-nose about what a pop culture reference really is: a Pavlovian trigger. Ring a bell and the dog has been trained through repetition that there was a yummy treat involved, even though there really wasn't any.

Pop culture references in real life affirm tribal affiliations. Drop a recognized quote and it triggers an autonomic pleasure/reward response in your "tribe". People who don't recognize the quote do not react and are not your tribe. The "sci-fi geek" character drops pop culture references to trigger an autonomic response in the viewer, presumably another sci-fi geek. When it works the viewer identifies this character a member of his own tribe. Meanwhile, the other much more interesting (stronger, badder) characters stand around befuddled, haha the joke's on them. They are not "tribe".

Understand this does not work without breaking the fourth wall. The "geek" is tribe-signaling to the audience, not to the other characters. You keep seeing the geek do the signaling because of your media choices. Consider the character Elle in Legally Blonde who has a similar function but she is signaling to a different "tribe".

I use this example to contrast the sci-fi geek because if you are not a member of this character's tribe their constant pop culture references will make them seem shallow and kind of silly, at the very least they are socially unaware. Just as Elle is not taken seriously for her brains, sci-fi geek is not taken seriously as a leading man or love interest. This trope has baggage that undermines their maturity and seriousness.

Even in worlds where all the characters speak in popculture metaphors (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Heathers, Shreck) the target of all that tribe-signaling is the audience. Other characters don't react at all. They don't laugh and say "Ooh, I loved that show," followed by a few more tribe-affirming references from their shared childhood experience (like happens in real life conversations).

For a character to make anachronistic culture references that no other characters will understand, nor have any desire to, and continue to do that as an ongoing character trait even when they know they will not be understood, I feel the character would have to be a literal person from another time AND have social/emotional problems that prevent them fully engaging in the here-and-now with the people around them. Either they are unable to adapt, or unwilling to adapt.

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