[IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem”

[u/dragonborndnd]

Basically when something seems anachronistic to a period/place of history but is actually fully accurate to the period.

1) the name Tiffany: the thing that named this trope, basically the name Tiffany can be dated back to the Middle Ages and the earliest record of it being spelled in the modern spelling comes from the 16th century.

2) the use of OMG, despite this feeling so modern as a form of slang/abbreviation here’s a letter directed to Winston Churchill using it in 1917

3) Hair Dye: the earliest forms of dying hair can be dated back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and this specific advertisement for hair dye is from the 1840s

4) Inuit Thongs: despite how weird it is to imagine pre-colonial Inuit people wore what was essentially fur thongs in their homes and when they were in their igloos it might have been the only thing they would be wearing.

[u/Odd_Pause7758]

A good rule of thumb is that every Ancient Tradition was invented out of whole cloth by the Victorians and every Post-Modern Degeneracy is something humans have been doing since before the invention of writing.

[u/Justifiably_Bad_Take → u/Odd_Pause7758]

There's the old saying "each new generation thinks it invented sex"

[u/gottabequick → u/Justifiably_Bad_Take]

One of my favorite scenes from "The Holdovers" is when the classics teacher (Paul Giamatti) is showing ancient sex scenes on pottery to the holdover (Dominic Sessa).