Perhaps you’ve read newspaper reports regarding the exhumation of time capsules from other eras, and perhaps you’ve noticed how oddly irrelevant their contents seem to the modern eye: a poem by the mayor’s wife; fragments of shrapnel from a forgotten war; a toy train … sometimes we don’t even bother to finish the story. But what if we were to receive a time capsule not from the past, but from the future – would we pay more attention? One suspects so. In this spirit, Wired has created a reverse time capsule, not a capsule directed to the future, but rather to the citizens of 1975. What artifacts might surprise them most about the direction taken by the next 20 years?
To all you youngsters, sure, you grew up with all the things shown here, but there was a time when music meant (shudder) vinyl, when there were no VCRs, when recycling, decaf coffee, and bottled water were all jokes … a time when (get this) every single consumer item on Earth didn’t have bar codes, and when personal computers were a silly dream. No, we’re not talking about the Jazz Age or the French Revolution. We’re talking about a mere two decades ago, when all of the objects shown on this page were pretty well unthinkable. Time flies when you’re having a culture.
Herewith, a quick compendium of “now” looked at through the lens of the past.
innovative new cars come from
Chrysler · High-school kids
wear beepers as a fashion
statement · Video games are
hot, but Atari isn’t · Las
Vegas is now a popular
family vacation destination ·
The guy who made Jaws
now rules Hollywood · Sexual
revolutionaries aged into
rigid Puritans ·
Litigation has become the
Great American Dream ·
Men are now objectified
in the media as much
as women; nearly naked
men sell jeans, soda, and soap
· Seven-year-old girls diet ·
“Powerful homosexual” is no
longer an oxymoron · Castro
is still running Cuba ·
Adults are intimidated by
techno-blasé children ·
Iranian field hands plan their
days around the satellite
broadcast of a mediocre
American TV show about
lifeguards in bikinis ·
Jobs have been replaced by
stints · The coolest
channel on television is
essentially nothing but
commercials for record albums ·
Music from the ’70s is now
categorized as “lite” rock ·
There is a sexually transmitted
disease that’s incurable and
lethal · The world is more
crowded but cleaner · Food
is better, and fewer people are
starving, but there are still
lots of starving people ·
You can buy a ride on a Soviet
MiG fighter plane in Florida ·
Apartheid is over · The Cold
War is over · Africa is
devolving into a real basket
case · Leisure time is
becoming non-existent ·
Intense drugs have destroyed
social order in the
inner cities · You can
buy a stock called Microsoft ·
Liberalism came and went ·
Gold holds its value ·
Computers have become friendly
and omnipresent · Cars are
rounder-looking · Nobody
worries about oil much these
days · Graffiti is everywhere ·
The median family income in
America is still the same ·
Plastic surgery is almost
mandatory in some professions ·
Sonny Bono is a congressman;
Ronald Reagan was twice-elected
US president · They had
another Woodstock, and
Pepsi-Cola sponsored it ·
Michael Jackson married
Lisa Marie Presley ·
The US political agenda is being
set by Idaho · The richest
man in the world is a computer
nerd · There is a Euro Disney
amusement park in France ·
You can’t smoke anywhere
anymore · Everyone laughs
at the way people dressed
in 1975 · Wait until
you read Andy Warhol’s diaries ·
Nazis are making a comeback in
the US · Devices engineered to
save time end up making time
even rarer than before ·
Entertainment is the engine of a
new world economic order ·
The Rolling Stones are still
touring and they have their
own credit card · Freeways
are no longer built in North
America · Vietnam is developing
into a capitalist power ·
The Japanese own Rockefeller
Center – and it’s now in
bankruptcy · Your local
Savings & Loan has probably
failed · One of the largest
entertainment companies is
owned by Sony, another by
Seagram · John Travolta’s
suit from Saturday Night
Fever just sold for
US$145,000 · Natalie
Cole sold millions of
copies of an album of
duets with her dead dad
· Airbags and cupholders are
the new metrics by which all
cars are judged · Air travel
is ridiculously popular, but
supersonic air travel never
really caught on · The
expensive luxury automobile that
customers are most happy with
is Japanese · Amtrak is still
around but nobody seems to know
why · The US Postal Service
has released stamps
commemorating Elvis Presley,
Marilyn Monroe, and the
presidency of Richard
Nixon · Kids are killing other
kids for their sneakers ·
One of the most popular TV
shows involves following local
police officers around as
they arrest people ·
O. J. Simpson has become
the world’s biggest star ·
Long-distance telephone
companies spend more on
cable television advertising
than anybody else ·
You can buy anything in the
former Soviet Union: spacecraft,
nuclear reactors, advanced
military aircraft … anything ·
There is no Sears catalog and
Sears is no longer headquartered
at the Sears Tower · Tony
Bennett is a hot artist with
high-school kids · Movies
are elaborate excuses to sell
soundtracks · Stand-up comics
outnumber nuns · Miss America
is deaf · Convicts run for mayor
and win · “Classic” can easily
mean Abba · The tongue is a
suitable place to wear jewelry ·
Gene-altered animals can be
patented · You can buy greeting
cards for incest victims.
Portable cell phones
for boardrooms
and school.
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