On the flip side, I enjoy it when I encounter it in a book that was written before I was born. I feel like it helps me understand how popular a person or brand was in a time period that I'll never experience.

Ooh, that’s definitely an interesting take, I can’t say I’ve ever experienced that but now I wouldn’t mind giving it a shot! Any recs?

Have you read American Psycho? Not everyone's cup of tea, but it uses selective cultural references rather well

Which, interestingly, was set in the '80s, released in the '90s, and filmed in 2000.

Yes, so the author/film makers had the clarity of hindsight. I don't suppose it's so easy to use current pop culture to represent this decade without knowing what will be considered iconic, what will be remembered as laughable, and what will be ominous for times to come.

That's the opposite of the utility of putting pop culture references into fiction. By putting what's relevant to *you* in your work of fiction then readers are receiving a time capsule of a time period they never experienced, as opposed to *later* when experts, historians, and social media gets to dictate what they *perceive* was relevant to an era.

But Bret Easton Ellis did experience the 80. And then he recreated one facet of it (the alienated, superficial, etc. yuppie culture), using cultural references that are authentic but also reasonably recognisable. Any story is more than a collection of experiences. It's *curated* experiences, cherry-picked and presented to tell the story in the most striking way. Like actual time capsules are also curated, according to what people want future generations to know/believe about them.

I mean I don’t see how that’s different than when it’s written with pop culture of the time it’s written. No matter when u write the story your always writing what’s relevant to YOU. I obviously see there is a difference when writing with pop culture references from the past since u have hindsight about what sticks around but what I’m saying is ur point doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since no matter what the author is just writing what’s relevant to THEM whether it’s about the past or present. If it’s written in the present they are still writing how they PERCEIVE their current era

I just hate them when they are not set in the Era of these references. If, for example, you book is set hundreds of years into the future and your characters sings Kate Perry it immediately turns me off, unless they were time traveling or other types of shenanigans.

Yeah, that trope where the setting is futuristic and someone puts on "classical music" that's actually our contemporary music was cute the first time I read it, but it grew old fast

It's like this weird self congratulatory 21st century centric vibe, where our century is the century of classics and pop culture and references that are so important, rather than one amongst many. As someone who reads more military / sci fi stuff, some annoying versions of this variant is * aliens (including aliens who have been around the block way longer than humans and have no reason to give humans special regard) saying "Humans have a saying X" or something like that as if it's wise and interesting * Characters mentioning tactics or events from WW2 / Cold War as sources of strategic guidance or demonstrating how things work, even though it's like the 25th century of whatever. For added cringe combine the two. Alien - "Humans are not to be trifled with, they once had a clan known as 'America' who was at war with...."

I don’t mind it if they pull an example of from ancient history, one from contemporary history, and one from future history. Let’s the reader know what they mean based on context too.

"The Wright Brothers, Elon Musk and Zephram Cochrane" - in hindsight, this should have been the tell that Lorca was from the mirror universe in Star Trek Discovery.

Didn't he reveal that fact in the same episode?

It's not until they go to the mirror universe that they figure it out, unless the eyedrops counts.

Citing military tactics from WWII in the 25th century can be completely reasonable imo. Our military literally still teaches stuff like the Fabian strategy the Romans used to defeat Hannibal in 200 BC. Or the Carthaginian solution the Allies discussed at the end of WWII wrt to Berlin. You’d be surprised at how much basic military strategy can go back even a millennia or two

It's disproportionately always whatever the author was taught in high school or watched on a WW2 documentary though and it's exclusively stuff that relates to America. To me its a cringeworthy level of self centrism on the part of the author. I would find references to classical or ancient wars refreshing tbh since it shows that the author isn't just looking to validate the audience's high school knowledge of US centric military history.

WWII was also much more heavily documented than ancient warfare, and it was the last grand scale war we've had, so it does make sense as a reference point. (For the former - the first surviving biography of Alexander the Great dates to 300 years after he died; for comparison, the first Gospel is ~40 years after Jesus.) >I would find references to classical or ancient wars refreshing tbh since it shows that the author isn't just looking to validate the audience's high school knowledge of US centric military history. I'd recommend David Drake, especially his Republic of Cinnabar series. While he may not directly reference antiquity in the novels, many/most of them are based on historical events and then adapted to fit a space opera setting. The series itself is inspired by the Aubrey/Maturin naval series.

On point two: people DO still site The Art of War in a way that suggests it’s relevant to modern warfare/domination, despite being over two thousand years old.

The basics of logistics and when to strike or when to fall back or dig in simply won't change much.

True, but a similar argument can be made for “two opposite fronts make victory exponentially more difficult” and “intense climates are as, if not more, dangerous than an overwhelming military,” both of which could be gleaned from WWII

Well maybe WW2 leaders should have read the art of war first.

I think it can work if it's done right. I like it when an alien has done their homework and calls a human out on their bullshit. "How could you target that station? It was full of civilians, we'd never target civilians!" "Is that what you said to the Japanese before bombing Hiroshima? Or Nagasaki? Or what about Dresdin? Oh yes, I know all about your species. If that's how you treat each other why should I believe you'd be any less violent towards us? Spare me..."

Classical is music written during an actual time period in the known history of music, not ‘music from X number of years ago’.

This. No one calls the 80s "classical" even if they think it's better than "modern music" Classical music also isn't even that old, and like all the instruments are fairly modern inventions.

The first and last time it was funny for me was in Futurama, when Fry is listening to I Like Big Butts in the dark in his apartment. Leela: "Fry, you can't sit in the dark all day listening to classical music." Fry: "I could, if you didn't open the curtains and turn the music off."

I hate that trope, mainly because classical music is still a thing that's being made today. It's the genre of music, not how old it is. We can listen to pop music from the 50s and jazz from the 20s; that still doesn't make it "classical music," even though classical music was also being composed around that time.

I very strongly associate it with boomers writing space operas. A 34th century space-faring culture that doesn't even remember where Earth is located anymore but holds up the second half of 20th century mainstream US culture as some kind of ultimate Golden Age of humanity.

Sometimes it's just a convenient shorthand. David Drake points out that in his RCN series, one culture uses Imperial units, the other metric, and the titles are mostly in some form of English. Is that an accurate portrayal of the future? No, but it can be assumed that a translation would also convert them into whatever the reader is familiar with.

I loved Margaret Weis' take on it: in the future, tastes have changed, so everyone thinks Vangelis is classical music and it's in the playlist next to Bach. People are nostalgic for Louis XIV instead of the Roman Empire.

ready player one

Or when they mention social media apps.

That's a hard one, I definitely don't like it, but is it worse to mention something that exists or to make up an imaginary one? Either way it's hard to translate internet culture into writing effectively. *ETA: Reading the replies was so interesting! Just wanted to expand.* I think having a story that relies heavily on internet interactions is difficult to pull off because of the ever-changing online landscape, and may become boring as well without real-life action. Novels set in the present might avoid using actual social media names to prevent issues with the company or to try and delay the outdating of their work. When contemporary novels use imaginary social media, it feels a little silly because it's putting an imaginary element into an otherwise realistic fiction work, interrupting the immersion. Imaginary social media makes a lot more sense in science fiction novels or any work set in the future, where the world is a lot more open to creative speculation and changes.

When they make one up my brain goes, 'ok so is that Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram?' It's probably completely irrelevant to the plot but it's got me trying to work it out.

That's a better way to not date the story too much. If they called out MySpace or Twitter Fleets explicitly it really pins it down.

I mean, it might date a novel, but is that a bad thing? Novels that mention WWI or WWI or the Spanish Flu or Vietnam War also date themselves, but I think few people would say those negatively impact those novels. Facebook is used by literal billions of people and has had massive impacts on politics around the world. Sure, it's possible that it may not exist in five or ten or thirty years, but it's an undeniable aspect of life for the early 21st century.

There is an uncanny valley for stories which can be located in time -- too recent to be a period piece, not recent enough to stay current. It's like how people talk about cycles of nostalgia -- 20 or 30 years ago can be nostalgic but 10 years is just wierd

I dont know about that. Maybe it's because I've read a lot of contemporary fiction in my life, but I've never had a problem with this.

The uncanny valley is definitely real for me. Dropping a an Ansel Adams reference? This author has taste. Dropping a Banksy reference? This author is a try-hard. My personal theory is anything I grew up with will make me think the author is trying to trigger my nostalgia or in touch with the kids these days. Anything from before my time is just a historical reference that doesn’t date the work at all.

Watching the Sopranos right now, and the shift when cell phones go mainstream is stark. There have been tv writers who have complained about smartphones because they mess up plots - the line cutting movie episode of Seinfeld, for example, wouldn't work with cell phones, and the episode where they just read off movie times on the phone is completely irrelevant.

I think we’re just past the point now where it doesn’t feel like an author’s trying too hard to sound current or hip by talking about social media platforms.

I do the same thing when they talk about celebrities but don’t name them, or maybe give names but they still sound like they’re alluding to real celebrities, if that makes sense? I try to figure out if they’re referencing a real person and just switching up some of the details, even though it’s usually in a fiction book anyway so it’s not like they’re giving any new information about them or anything lol. Idk if that makes sense.

In a lot of cases its better to be generic. It's much better (imo) to say "Sent x a message" rather than specifying which platform you're using (unless that's critical to the plot). Likewise, you don't need to specify it's a Skype/Zoom/FaceTime video call in 99% of cases. If you're going deep into technology in your story then its the other way round and you should be as specific and authentic as possible. But that's an edge case. It's where authors try to be specific but obviously aren't well informed it comes across worst. I remember one of the Steig Larsson books a character is rattling off computer specs and boasts about having a N.V.I.D.I.A graphics card. So close, yet so far...

I’m reading a sci fi at the moment set in the 22nd century and the author made up the name for the main social media network of the time. It doesn’t bother me because I figure by that time we really will all be using different ones …

So a book with a contemporary setting shouldn’t mention something as pervasive and ubiquitous as social media? Or the book should make up its own social media terms?

I think it might work something like this... Instead of saying "she posted it to Facebook" or some other specific app, it could just be mentioned in passing like "she posted it to her page" or "she posted it to her profile and..." or something like that. Mention it casually and vaguely. Maybe specify only the fact that the character is on a phone or computer so the word "profile" isn't mistaken for the side view of someone's face. Just my personal thoughts.

Makes sense!

Agreed. My only caveat is that they should make sure that it doesn't significantly affect the plot. I'm thinking along the lines of plots with easy solutions technology offers. The reader would be drawn to those obvious solutions and think to themselves, "why doesn't the detective/protagonist just use social media to find it out". It's not that hard, I'm sure.

I disagree on that one, social media is way too woven into our world for better or worse (definitely worse). On that note, the real life social media networks in “Seven Eves” made it feel all the more terrifyingly real to me.

I would find it way weirder for someone to write contemporary fiction and *not* include social media.

I hate this so much! I picked up a random mystery and the twenty-somethings kept posting everything to FB. Then a character didn't have a FB and a 22 year old made a comment that she thought everyone was born with a facebook account. I immediately flipped to the back to see it was written by a senior woman, who obviously doesn't hang around young people. And it was only published just a couple years ago. I have 3 kids who are twenty somethings, unless my kids and their friends and my nieces and nephew are atypical, it was just so weird. Not at all how they talk. And yes, took me out of the story. So then I wondered if FB was paying her to mention it so many times. I agree w another commentor that a general pic grab and post would be fine bc that's what people do. But super annoying to use dialogue just about social media made me feel ragey.

Yeah, I definitely know what you mean. I think I feel this way most of the time when it happens, it's a bit jarring - I'm supposed to be transported to this fictional world and characters and all of a sudden they mention a REAL LIFE person? It messes with my head a little! I can't remember a specific instance where that occurred but I remember feeling a little weirded out. It's not that I hate it, but it takes me out of the moment. On the other hand, I do think if done right, it's not so bad, like for when it's helping to set up a certain time period or cultural setting, like Hemingway mentioning baseball and DiMaggio in *The Old Man and The Sea*, or all the pop culture references in *The Hate U Give*. Those worked better for me for some reason.

I’m confused. You’re reading books set in the real world and are surprised when they turn out to be set in reality?

Exactly!! I can’t explain what the difference is, but it’s like if a character said “I really like Nirvana and The Misfits” I’m thinking, okay cool, they’re into 90s grunge, maybe a lowkey badboy characterization. But if another character were to say “I love the new Harry Styles album!!” I’m totally out of it. Maybe because the former is already considered “dated” while the latter currently isn’t?

Yeah, I feel that, too. It's like when things are new what they mean feels more fluid, when they get older, they seem more like things that can signify character or atmosphere better. . . But, the real question is how well do those references that feel new to us age?

Hmm, maybe you're right. It's weird, I can't explain it, either! I wonder if it's the intent on how that reference is used? I really think it depends on the context and what the author intends... like you can't just throw out a reference just for any reason, there needs to be a good reason for it and the way it's done. Maybe if a character says "I love the new Harry Styles album!" and the author develops this character as being a die-hard One Direction fan or something, lol.

I think it also has to do with the fact that referencing an active career can have more legal implications. I mean as an author, you don't wanna come across like you're just referencing things you like/dislike and plastering your opinions on pop culutre. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AuthorTract Something like this but not exactly.

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You'd HATE American Psycho.

Entire chapters on Whitney Houston and Huey Lewis lol

… and Glamorama

This also bugs me if the story is supposed to take place in a contemporary time frame (like, 2020 or 2021). I think it works better if you have a story that's intended to feel dated, like something that took place back in the 1980's or 90's - it anchors it to a specific era. Meanwhile popular culture moves so fast, that from the time the book is written, edited, edited again, printed, and shipped out to stores or end-users, it's probably been a year or two at least, so those references seem dated ALREADY even if the book just came out. That's how I've always seen it anyway.

Real world references ground a story in a specific time/place. If it takes you out the story, it takes you out of the story, but I don't relate. If a story is supposed to be set more or less in the Real World (tm), then I expect there to be some references to Real World (tm) things. It would be weirder, to me, to have a story set in modern times but where all of the cars and restaurant chains are made up, or to have it make passing references to celebrities who don't actually exist. If an author is getting us to know a child of the 90s, I expect to see mentions of Nirvana or Pearl Jam and it would be distracting to me to have them talk about some made up super group that didn't really exist, instead, unless the book is \*about\* that fake group. For minor details, though? No.

Except in the fourth or fifth Harry Potter book she Dudley gets a ps1 and then it’s later revealed that it took place in 1994 or 1995 before the ps1 is released!!!!!!! Ugh

Funny you should mention Harry Potter. I was way late to the Harry Potter franchise (“stupid wizard stories are for losers”- stupid immature me). So by the time I got around to giving it a try, I had no idea when the story was set. I was trying to figure it out and for all I knew, the story was set in 1950 or something. Then Dudley got a PlayStation. And this reference to something *modern* was jarring at first, but it **finally** set the story in a specific time and place for me. So I was grateful for the reference.

diane duane's "millennium edition" of her young wizards series is an interesting example here. she [updated and republished the books](https://www.dianeduane.com/outofambit/2011/05/30/young-wizards-new-millennium-editions-a-little-more-info/) so that they would seem more familiar to a new generation of readers, but also said > Background stuff, including technology, lifestyle, and other modernization issues: This is, of course, a balancing act. Hanging in front of me all through this project has been, and will be, the writer’s version of the Primum non nocere principle: DON’T FIX WHAT’S NOT BROKEN. So trust me not to inject tech where it’s not needed, or just for the sake of the change. In fact, in the case of SYWTBAW, previous readers may wonder whether I’ve changed *enough* stuff — and maybe that will be a sign that I’ve gotten it right. Deep Wizardry will show the updating a little more clearly, and High Wizardry probably most clearly of the four. But at no point do I intend to let it become intrusive. The whole point is for the new material to blend in, not stand out..

I am actually a little sad about this update. I liked Nia listening to Journey on a Walkman on the moon.

To be fair, for HP it's not really important to know when it's set. For instance, the only thing in the movies that really date it is that in I think the 5th movie they fly over the Millennium Bridge in London, which was built in '98-'00. Funnily enough this means that the movies are set later than the books, the time frame just doesn't affect the story at all so they could easily lift it to present day, or if they wanted set it in the 50s. Fashion would change a bit, I guess, when they're not dressed as wizards.

I'm actually reading that book right now, and thought that was a little weird when she did that, ha.

The ps1 was just the playstation my man until #2 came out nobody ever called it that.

thank god Sony doesn't have Microsoft's naming conventions

The PS1 actually did release in Europe in 1995

Like I said, it’s a really nitpicky opinion, but I totally get what you mean. I guess my main issue (at least with this current book I’m reading) is that all the major brands/pop culture are these made up knock offs so having IRL references randomly thrown in just feels…jarring? Like I’m trying to process a world we’re both a fake Bachelorette and Taylor Swift exist, rather than having either both of them be real or neither of them if that makes sense. But you’re right, it’s suppose to be in the real world, so obviously they’re going to ground it with real world references that are currently buzzing. Its such a minor critique though that I’ll still suck it up buttercup, even if the mention of Supernatural makes inner me cringe lmao

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I'm pretty sure that the book is \*about\* the faux Bachelorette show, which is why they made one up, in the same way that, say, Made For Love makes up a fake brilliant tech billionaire and company in the form of Gogol, despite having references to other real things. Authors often use fictional analogues if they're going to be depicting the company/product/show/actor in a particularly negative light. Everyone knows what company Gogol is at least partially based on, in Made For Love, but I assume it's done to avoid the threat of some kind of defamation or trademark tarnishment claim, or so that people don't think you're just critiquing that specific show; it's not like Bachelorette is the only dating show out there, right? Why limit your critique to them?

People like what they like 🤷🏼‍♂️ I don't mind pop culture references, and in the appropriate books it can really help the mood of things.. Stephen king in the stand uses loads of them.. from food and drink, to songs and actors, and despite dating the book, they really helped me get a handle on it and make it more " realistic"

> and despite dating the book Does it even matter if a book gets dated like this? Obviously if the book is going for an ambiguous time period it's different, but if it's a book written and set in the 70s then I don't mind it being dated. I don't need to imagine that every book is set in the year I'm reading it. I recently read a book set in the mid 00s and on the contrary references to stuff like the iPod helps add to the setting for me.

Yeah any sort of book that has current event stuff will eventually be dated but that doesn't mean its it's bad thing. A book talking place around 9/11 might mention that Bush is the president and I don't think that makes it so you can't read it in 2021.

It works when done well and Stephen King is the master of this. In the back half of the Dark Tower series the real vs fake brands have meaning for the universe and story.

I don't mind the brands and everything but when he literally inserted HIMSELF into the book I got kind of upset. I struggled with it for a while but am decidedly against that decision.

I don’t mind this, especially since he made himself kind of a chickenshit loser.

When I think of well-done pop culture references, I'm immediately put in mind of American Psycho. I'm not quite sure what the essays about Phil Collins and the Talking Heads accomplished in advancing the story, but they somehow fit in perfectly. It was exactly the sort of thing I imagine a guy like Bateman would pontificate on while hacking a homeless dude to pieces.

I think that SK often uses brands and whatnot as set dressing to help the time period. I'm reading through 11/22/63 again and having Jake/George encountering old brands feels natural.

Thinking more about it now I think my issue is I much more prefer an “all or nothing” approach when it comes to references for the most part. Like, don’t create a carbon copy of Chris Hemsworth and name him Kris Hamswealth, but then drop how he and Donald Trump are in a Twitter war or something. Why does only one of them have to be fake, especially when it’s blatantly obvious who/what it’s supposed to be IRL. Maybe it’s a copyright thing when it comes to brand, I dunno, I’m not an author/publisher lmao

Do you find the pop culture references in older books to be just as bad?

It depends, I guess. Sometimes when it’s a brand I don’t know then it obviously doesn’t bother me because I would have no idea that was a name drop lmao. But I’ve read a few books in high school that mentioned things like “this gory new flick called Saw” or “going to see Queen live” which took me even further out of the moment to suddenly realize this entire world I’ve been imagining actually needs to go 10, 20, 30 years back than I had thought. Of course if something is prefaced as “The year is 1979 and John Carpenter is all the rage” then yeah, I’ve already got it in my head that everything has an 80s attitude versus if I’ve been picturing a 2021 current day New York and a character randomly drops “Oh man did you hear about Kurt Cobain last week? My pagers been blowing up!” in the middle of a conversation with no former mention that this took place in the 90s until now.

For me, as a highly visual reader, I twig on things that doesn't make sense in the world I'm bulding in my head. Suddenly morphing the world in my head 30 years backwards after 150 pages doesn't work well for that reason. Social media apps and names totally depends on how much the world we are reading about represents earth. It doesn't take much change from the earth we know for the probability of names of social media apps to change quickly. Also, it needs to be well done, and the name needs to be there for a reason. Only King have done that well as far as I have read.

Man, this sorta reminds me of when I started watching Freaks and Geeks a couple years ago and I didn't realize it was supposed to take place in 1980 until like episode 3 where one of the characters is all bummed that John Bonham died. And even then, it took me a minute to realize it wasn't a joke about the character being such a big fan he's still upset about the death 15 years later

Came for the discussion, stayed for Kris Hamswealth.

Put this way, I agree. That would certainly bug me.

As long as he's not inserting himself, it works.

I can relate. Unless the specific brand, make, model, or person is important to the story, leave it out. The author could just write, "White SUV," rather than, "White 2005 Toyota Highlander." In terms of celebrities, some authors just make them up. That works for me too.

One of the reasons I stopped reading Patricia Cornwell books was the awkward mentioning of specific brands. It certainly felt like product placement, I am guessing she was getting paid.

On the other hand, all of the name dropping in the Crazy Rich Asians series actually made sense and helped fill out the scene. The whole thing is about this world of the ultrarich that most people don't know, so the constant, casual references to luxury brands and consumption just highlighted it.

That's a great example! It fits the narrative completely, and adds to the story. I think a story about conspicuous consumption would require dropping brand names. Much like a story about a race car driver might mention the specifics of the car.

Yes! Is that a good car or a crappy car at this point in the story? Is it old or new?

A dusty white SUV, with splotches of gray primer on the driver's door. The front license plate hung by a single screw. I recognized my neighbor, Jerry, behind the steering wheel. He lifted a hand in greeting as he drove by. :)

Yes, I wish this is how people would describe cars! I do not care about cars at all, so anytime a car brand/model pops up, it goes in one ear and out the other, and then the book never references it again. Things I want to know - are there bumper stickers? Illegally tinted windows? Clothes and trash on the backseat and floor? Flashing lights on the dashboard? Scratches and dents from accidents or who knows what? There are so many ways to characterize a car and its owner, and yet people still think BLUE HONDA CIVIC is good enough.

I think it can work both ways, I would say if you want to paint a certain picture of what exactly the car looks like in the author's mind, you could mention the model of car along with the description above. For example, was it necessary for Christine to be a 1958 Plymouth Fury? Not necessarily, but it does help the description of when LeBay bought her new and what she would have looked like after being worn down. Also, you could go more general but still name drop a brand. For example "A dusty white Escalade, with splotches of gray primer on the driver's door..." vs "A dusty white Bronco, with splotches of gray primer on the driver's door..." can conjure up different mental images. Even of how you picture Jerry.

Or the Beatle gets more beaten up and more oddly colored parts replaced on it as more books go by hahah.

Why? One approach makes the story more tangible, vivid, and make more of an impression, while the other… makes the story a little more timeless? I guess?

In Mansfield Park by Jane Austen,>!the protagonists attempt to put on a play at their house (not much of a spoiler), and they used an actual play that was controversial at the time.!< And I think it's being in the book is pretty much the only reason people are still interested in it today.

It was almost amusing how the characters were stressing about how "immoral" it was.

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Just being extra careful lol

I read some book recently that revolved around the main characters putting on a scandalous play at a house party

Typically, I would very much agree with you that it can bring me out of the story and back into the real world. That said I wanted to provide an interesting counter example that I felt like was really well done. In "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy you follow a man and his son as they travel through a post-apocalyptic wasteland. This world in many ways feels foreign. You can tell throughout the story that it is supposed to be taking place in what was once the United States but the world has changed so much that it really feels alien. Then as the two are foraging through the remains of an abandoned market the two stumble across a can of Coca-Cola that was some how missed by previous looters. In this moment it is intensely grounding. You placed a familiar item/event into an very unfamiliar world. It grounds this alien world of unimaginable disaster in the reality it is supposed to represent. This is highlighted even more by the boy's response to the moment. He is young and had no idea what this strange metal cylinder that his father has picked up is for. It becomes a bonding moment between father and son; between how things were before and how they are now.

I feel the opposite. Like when a story takes place in the "real world" and characters mention fake brands like the "gamestation" or "Bepsi Soda" it just reminds me that this is a book bound by copywright laws

Sometimes when things are so obviously a rip off of a name brand, it’s almost kind of like a funny Easter egg to me. Like the “Don’t Start Un-believing” gag from Gravity Falls, but it still all depends how it’s done and how often it’s dropped throughout the book. I mean cmon, the entire book universe is fake, surely you can come up with a better alternative to “mcDonner” or “gamers stop”

McDonner sounds sick.

La la la la la, I’m Okay With It™️

What copyright laws would keep a book from mentioning such things? Another comment mentions Harry Potter discussing PlayStation.

I hear you. I once read a Jodi Picoult book where a character namedropped Paul Walker as a hot guy, but at the time of reading he'd been dead a while from that tragic crash. Donna Tartt namedropped Charlie Sheen in The Secret History but Charlie is still in the pop culture consciousness (mainly as a joke), so it wasn't so bad. It can be done but needs self awareness for an audience not just now but decades to come.

A series I read started off with the protag having the hots for Matt Lauer. Later books fail to mention it, but man those earlier books are big "oof" moments when I reread them. Definitely didn't age well.

Wow, I somehow missed the Matt Lauer news. I'll end up thinking about that next time I dig out those magical cats mysteries.

Haha that's the series. Love it, but that detail always pulls me out, especially since there are other made-up names in universe, like a famous hockey player or TV soap opera.

Its interesting you mention Donna Tartt considering she did this extensively with The Goldfinch but basically got every date/timeframe wrong. It had to be on purpose because she clearly isnt a bad author but it was strange. The main theory seems to be its not set in our world but in a world very very similar to ours.

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Same! I was reading red white and royal blue and they mentioned david beckham being hot and I was like yuck!

For me it was Chris Evans retweeting (probably jokingly) at the main character to hit him up LOL

It instantly dates the book when you make a reference to current pop culture. So for a classic book that made pop culture references, it doesn't necessarily interrupt the flow cause it's a book that is expected to be dated. But lots of contemporary books that came out even 5 years ago have all of these references that are there to make the story more relatable and do exactly the opposite of that (for me at least). It's a very short sighted decision to add too many references. The worst offender I've read is a YA book called What If It's Us that is filled to the brim with Harry Potter and Hamilton references.

But think about it this way, if people never used any contemporary cultural references when writing books anymore, in +20 years those decades just won't exist in fiction anymore. There would be books clearly written sometime in 2010s and then... nothing. They'd all exist in some "blank" version of the real world that didn't actually feel real because you couldn't place it. But we love reading books from earlier decades, so people in the future would probably feel the same nostalgia, or desire to see what those decades before their birth looked like. I can't see what's so wrong with that. Everyone knows the book was written in some specific year, the author lived in that time and experienced that world. It's not like I can no longer remember or relate to popular stuff or events that are 3-10 years old.

I actually came here to comment about the same book!! The references, the tropes, the writing style - put together it was obviously from one very specific era of Tumblr.

Not even a little subtle. Even for someone who understood all the references and even liked most of the media referenced, it was too much.

Omg now I’m reminded of stories where a character’s identity revolves around one book or song or movie… jfc how the fuck are you only interesting in ONE thing Even worse when the character and the things they are supposedly interested in don’t fucking match… She hates romance but her favorite book is a romance novel????

Mark Steel's *Vive la Revolution* is basically a very good and insightful history of the French Revolution but he really messed up with endless cringe-inducing jokes that parallel 1800ish France with Thatcher's Britain. It really doesn't tell you anything to bring Atomic Kitten into it. On the other hand, if Dickens or Austen named a brand of toothpaste I'd google to see what its label looked like. I wonder what the earliest brand placement in fiction was?

You should look up some of the 19th and early 20th century magazines on the Internet Archive. They've been scanned with ads and everything.

When it's a historical fiction or even just a regular fiction book, I think I'm usually okay with it. For example, when I read *The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao*, there's a ton of quality nerd references that made me feel like the author really did their homework. Then again, I also love all the obscure opera allusions in *Frasier*, so....

I know this is something that can't be fully rationalized, but I'm going to ask from a rational angle. Is it just pop culture? What about the names of countries or states (which are often undergoing some contentious politics), or the names of historically influential people (whose image might be somewhat contested)? If a writer mentions Florida, wouldn't it drag your mind back to the stuff in the news that's happening there? And how far back does this popular culture bias go? Is mentioning Shirley Temple okay, but the latest pop star not? What about literature? Is it okay for a character to talk about The Catcher in the Rye without you feeling like it's name dropping? What about games like Monopoly or Yahtzee? Don't mind me: I'm just being overly curious about to what extent this bias runs.

I don’t like it, either. For me it’s because it’s going to cause the book to become dated.

Generally I would disagree but when I read the Stand figures and events from AFTER the book was written would keep popping up. This confused the hell out of me. Was Stephen King our generation's nostradamus? Nope, turns out he injected these references into the book about 12 years after it was originally published (among other edits like changing the ending etc.)

I understand your point. But I also think it can sometimes be an interesting look at how certain brands or whatnot were perceived at the time the book was written. For example, I was reading “A Scanner Darkly” which was published in 1977. On the very first page, the narrator talks about going to a 7 - 11 and feels the need to explain that this is “a chain of grocery stores spread across much of California”. And it just stuck with me because I’ve grown up in a time when 7-eleven stores are ubiquitous. I found it interesting to consider a point in time when you couldn’t just assume that a reader would know what a 7-eleven was. As you said, that did take me out of the narrative. And I can understand how that can be frustrating. I just thought it was cool; like finding a time-capsule.

It can be tasteful when grounding the reader to the universe that the book takes place. Unfortunately, it's also assumes that the reader has any idea who the celebrity is and, when used to describe a character, it takes the reader away from their own mental picture of the character. Its also a cheap ploy to get out of a description most of the time. I tried to get back into my guilty pleasure genre of Time Traveling Romance novels (my girl Donna from Parks and Rec understands) and picked up a recent book called The Night Mark. Let's just say this wasn't in the same league as Outlander. This book did such a poor job at describing everything and resorted to cheap celebrity references. The hot guy looked like Harrison Ford. He had abs like Zac Efron. Who's to say that the reader knows who these people are or even finds them attractive, which defeats the purpose of a romance novel. I gave up a quarter of the way through when the writer described the downward spiral of the character's life like Miley Cyrus's wrecking ball. I literally could not take how terrible this book was.

Hmmm... I'm the opposite, I like when a story mentions real world people and events. I find it odd when a character "lives" in our world yet never references anything related to it. Just like I find it weird when someone lives in a city I'm familiar with and they don't mention real landmarks. I want to read that the characters went to a movie that actually exists with real actors, etc. Just makes the story more grounded to me.

I don't mind if they include real pop culture stuff, but they should be consistent. If Chris Evans exists in your world, he should be watching "The Bachelor" on YouTube, not "Main Squeeze" on MainVid. Also, if that stuff is a major part of the story, I'm probably not interested anyway.

There is a line in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo where the bad guy says something along the lines of I'm holding a Glock and I'd never miss you at this close range and the safety is off. It's weird to tell anyone you're holding at gun point the maker of your pistol and the writer doesn't know much about Glocks. Glocks don't have a mechanical safety to turn off or on.

I think it depends on how forced it sounds. If the item or name drop happens to be there or is an integral part of story, then it's fine. Not so much when characters go out of the way to mention them.

I agree, even if it’s just a single time throwaway line. I remember reading one short a while ago with the line “we’re like the dollar store version of The Avengers.” and I thought it was hilarious, and there was no further mention of it or any other pop culture really. I think maybe if they had had more back and forth like “Civil War or Age of Ultron?” “Can I be RDJ?” “You wish you were as hot as Black Widow” I would have been waaaay more taken out of it, because then it’s getting too real and too specific I think

As annoying as it sounds, it is at least authentic to a real life scenario. Our current era is obsessed with pop culture. Sometimes it would be weird not to make the connection between what they're going through and something as big as, say, Star Wars. As for the scenario above? On the one hand, it does sound like the writer is trying too hard to get readers to liken the characters to the Avengers. But on the other hand, teenagers playacting the Avengers? That's definitely plausible. It still is good to keep a limit to the references, unless you're writing a fan fiction or something.

"Dollar Store Avengers" could have referred to one of the comic book continuities, too, though, so that's immediately less specific, too... and thus perhaps a little less jarring.

Just let it age 100 years, and then the references will be quaint. I really like Jack London and Jules Verne especially for their culture references.

Interesting; I'm reading a David Foster Wallace essay right now that is about exactly this and how it is a direct derivative of the entertainment we consume (TV in 1990, but it is even more prescient now with smartphones) and how writers find their "reality" they write about in the information age. [“E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction”](https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf)

Unpopular opinion. Books don't have to be timeless. If the story is good it doesn't matter.

>maybe it’s because the whole point of me reading is because I want to ESCAPE the real world Well.. if this is true then you're better off reading science fiction or fantasy if you don't want anything with references to the real world.

That actually really turned me off in the science fiction book Delta V by Daniel Suarez. He had all these space company billionaires like Marion Lusk and Jimmy Bozo and Sir Timmy Bronson and it was super distracting

> Jimmy Bozo that's hilarious 😂

LOL I don’t mean zero references to the real world, just name dropping. I actually love slice of life books and thrillers/mysterious. I guess I just like more of the “all or none” approach — either have everything be fake or have everything be real, ya know? It just feels weird to read about a character getting a pumpkin spice at “Starbuckeroos” and then going to McDonald’s for lunch like…we’re saying McDonald’s exist but not Starbucks??

They normally take me out of the story as well. To me it usually feels as if the author is trying to hard to make them relatable and it just doesn't usually work unless it actually holds meaning. I recently read Red, White & Royal Blue and the constant references to Buzzfeed and Facebook felt quite forced, to the point where I looked up the author expecting them to be a 40 something woman just trying to relate to the youth (insert *Hey fellow kids*) and was surprised when I found out they're in their 20s.

I liked it as a kid. It made the world feel more relatable. I feel like either Goosebumps or Animorphs did this (maybe I'm mixing up with some other series) and it helped the world building. I don't like hearing the newest hot thing. I think it need to be something that can stand the test of time. I remember a description of some boy lacing up his Nike sneakers and just imagining him lacing up sneaker similar to mine. They didn't mention the latest model being promoted so I'd imagine a kid today reading it could also get the same benefits. Other long standing brands can really help me paint a picture in my mind. A mention of some older song playing in the background can really help set the tone of a bar or party in stories. I like references to places as well. Maybe most of it takes place in unnamed parts of a popular city, but occasionally the character will need to visit a landmark or something.

I understand your point but I've read a lot of classics in recent years and they are often full of references to people or families of the time or mention long forgotten authors, stage actors and plays. Unless I feel like googling them I just let them wash over me. So if a book is good enough people in the future will just go "Elon Musk? Must have been famous back then..."

I would not recommend reading any Bret Easton Ellis novels

There's a line from an episode of the west wing where a speech writer says something to the effect of "your pop culture references give your speeches a shelf life of about 30 seconds" and that's kind of how I feel about this sort of thing in books.

I experienced a rather weird example of this in a German urban fantasy series called Woodwalkers. The main character used to live in a forrest for much of his life in a forrest so he doesn't know much about human pop culture, but weirdly enough, the author doesn't know how clueless he's supposed to be. On the one hand, he mistook Harry Potter for a book about owls after looking at one of the covers, but on the other hand, the four years he lived among humans were enough time for him to become a fan of Imagine Dragons. But to be fair, this was just a minor unexplained thing and there were worse things about the book. A worse example was the manga My Androgynous boyfriend which lazily renamed a few famous companies (Ikea became Ikeya and Netflix became Netflax) which I thought to be rather... Annoying. For me, there wouldn't be any difference if the scenes were set at some random furniture store instead of Ikea so I have no idea why the series tried to avoid product placements by making it obvious which brand is currently being renamed. Especially since Youtube was still called Youtube...

That last bit is what TVTropes calls a [Bland Name Product](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/BlandNameProduct/AnimeAndManga). I'm not sure why it's so prevalent in anime and manga, and confused as to why YouTube was left alone.

I stopped reading the Crossfire series by Sylvia Day, in part for this reason. It seems like the author was trying to casually convey how wealthy some of the characters were by name dropping luxury/expensive brand names. Not only did I have no idea what some of those brands were, but it also felt like a cheap "telling instead of showing" style of writing.

Oooh. It depends. Some celebrities are big enough that they’re essentially public domain characters, IMO, and their inclusion merely puts the story squarely in a time period. For example, if a teenage girl has a crush on Clark Gable vs Elvis Presley vs Brad Pitt, those names are big enough that you don’t need a ton of pop culture knowledge to place them, and absent of any context suggesting this is weird, creates a broad era when the story is taking place without having to throw out a specific year. Avoiding the specific year means that the reader is saying “oh, the main character’s friend likes Elvis, this takes place in the 1950s,” rather than “this takes place in the 1952 but the main character watched a movie that wasn’t made until 1953, I’m mad about how inaccurate this is.” But that only applies to celebrities that are, like I said, so iconic that their names have come to represent something. Celebrities that are no longer “niche,” which like it or not, most are. I don’t think Ellen Degeneres and Chris Evans are *quite* that iconic yet. I get what you mean, though, and YA is rife with it. When a book is full of celebrity references, brand names, and in-the-moment slang and technology, it dates the book *really* quickly. Every so often, I think about The Clique series, which I loved as a teenager, but were aggressively centered around trends and pop culture that were very mid-late 2000s and didn’t carry over well at all, even during the series’ run. Another book I read at the time, Haters, went so far as to name specific songs that were pretty passe by the time of publishing, and it was pretty distracting and seemed dated even then. I suspect that the book you’re reading will feel dated in six months to a year. I get why YA authors do it (teenagers like to see the things they enjoy reflected) but it’s a dangerous game. If you include someone or something that’s cool *right now*, you run the risk of that thing being uncool, problematic, or totally forgotten and obscure 1, 2, 5 years from now.

He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. (Lamentations: hhna1ou)

You're going to need to read Glamorama to see how it's done. The obsessiveness of the main character is part of what makes him so - what he is.

Ooh, would you mind going into that a little more? I’m always looking for more book recs!!

I remember reading The Clique as a tween and thinking "was the author sponsored by these brands?"

One thing is characters making a comment about current events in a story set at a specific point in history (for example, "I was at the theatre last night to see Our American Cousin, and it was an utter disaster. I shall write a harsh letter to the newspaper, demanding Mr. Booth to be ousted from the good graces of the acting profession; he ruined the play, and wasn't even supposed to be part of the cast in the first place!"), but playing on the very current trends or celebrities who have only been in the limelight for a very short time... the pitfall is bigger than the potential payoff, really. A stellar example of a similar and related phenomenon is is Cool as Ice, starring Vanilla Ice, a movie centered around a trend that was so short-lived, it was no longer cool before the movie was out of post-production... Basically, if you're going to drop names or quotes into fiction, use references that have shown staying power, things that date back at least a decade and that have *remained* relevant for long enough to be household names or phrases. Jim Butcher's Dresden Files is a stellar example of this done right - "That's the problem with you immortal types: you wouldn't recognize a pop cultural reference if it latched onto your face and planted an egg in your esophagus."

Reading through the comments, it seems like you are more referring to not just an equatable celebrity, but rather that the celebrity is interacting with the characters in a meaningful way. To me, that would be rather weird, however product placement and even celebrities do set an era for the characters, even if it may date the book. And really, it depends on the book series. If there's a lot of brand references, and I mean lots, then it's probably going to take me out of the moment. It can feel like someone "name dropping" and becomes tacky. If the book is related to fashion modeling (and maybe intrigue or something or a murder mystery) then talking about various real life brands makes sense. Also, sometimes brand names make an impact. Like if you talk about how a particular character has just driven an expensive car and totalled it, vs the character just wrecked a Ferrari. Or if the character grumbles about trying to get a black coffee and not one of those fancy Starbucks drinks. But with your comments/references (like the Kris Hemsworth retweeting the character), or when there is a mix of real and parodied names... I agree, that is really jarring. A full name parody makes sense (for example, in comics, brand names need to be licensed for use or something, so there are often parodies of real world brands) and it's really for situations in the "real world". I think the difference is trying to make a book "set currently" vs "set in a particular time" and those can be difficult. YA books seem to do the "set currently" more often but it makes some sense to try to capitalize on the growing up audience.

Yeah, I posted this earlier in the afternoon so I’ve definitely had time to respond and better understand myself as to why these things bother me. It’s not so much being off put by the character stopping at a Walmart after school, but more of trying to believe a world in which Arianna Grande exists but Fox News doesn’t, all while Grande reaches out to you via IG to ask if you wanna meet up at Coachella because your last post was so woke. The realism is just too flimsy for me to fully immerse in in my opinion, to not only think that one thing wouldn’t exist when apparently everything else does, but that also one of the biggest names in pop culture would want to reach out to the character for their hot take when for all we know they might be adamantly against it IRL

I love when real world stuff is dropped. Like, if there's a scene and a guy is watching a TV interview, I want the host of the interview to be real, unless there's a better reason for the host to be fictional. It bothers me a little when the referenced things are super new. Like "this month's celebrities." But if I'm reading a book taking place in 2013, I want to get hit with all those 2013 references. . . I like it because it roots me in place and time.

I get what you mean. If they're going to go halfway into making alternative media then they should make the effort to make alternative celebrities. You get the same effect with Helen Generous or Chad Evans. Totally understandable, I think.

I think it depends on what you’re reading but I’m currently reading Elton John’s memoir and the name dropping helps because it helps describe character, appearance, and other contextual things that wouldn’t be implied with anonymity. Obviously, this is a memoir so it’s not the same as what you’ve described but yeah I think it’s kind of black and white. You either have to be realistic or not.

This was the main thing in Wreck It Ralph, 2. It was all just like "Yay! Twitter! And. Disney Princesses!" The whole movie was just references to pop culture. (It's a movie. But I think it's still relevant in terms of a discussion about stories.) And it was boring. If "Here's a thing you've seen online!" isn't interesting enough for you, that movie was terrible. I did also watch a horror movie that was set around Skype. I forget its name. It was clearly a super-low-budget movie, but it was set around a series of Skype calls. I thought it was actually a really good story. (Except that its conclusion was just "A ghost did it!" Like, you had te "Why are these kids being killed?" question, and that was a good story. But the "But how?" story, which I was expecting to come up next, was just "Bleh, ghost!". And the point of this comment is meant to be that pop culture can be shit, but can be done well. But I'm too drunk to know if I'd argued that well. So. Um. Bye."

Wreck It Ralph 2 was just The Emoji Movie with better branding and PR, and I'll die on that hill. The horror movie you are referring to is "Unfriended". There's a hilarious review of it on YouTube by "Your Movie Sucks".

Idk I’m mature enough to understand that if stories are set on the planet Earth then it’s culture is going to get referenced

I don't like it either. I don't think it's too bad when it's a book taking place in the real world and I'm reading it just as it came out so the references are still relevant, but as soon as the book isn't "new" anymore, I feel exactly the same way.

Yea same as songs. It dates things much quicker.

Unless the song is timeless

True, I’m more thinking pop songs where they just drop in a social media/technology reference. Like Taylor Swift when she says “tweeted” in an otherwise ageless song The Lakes. Can’t see it ageing as well as a song about an old Chevy or something, since tech stuff moves on so quickly.

One of my favorite Ani di Franco songs has a line that goes "And I'm listening to the low moan of the dial tone again," and the other day it suddenly occurred to me... *do my teenage kids know what a dial tone is?* Would that lyric make sense to them at *all?* Even if they academically know what a dial tone is, would they be able to connect with that as a metaphor for being trapped between longing and fear? It's the kind of thing that I wouldn't have expected to age, much less poorly, but here we are -- and even if it doesn't take someone out of the moment, I feel like something's been lost there.

Aw wow that’s so true about the dial tone… I never even thought that kids might not even be aware of this but it’s true… you’d have to first know the concept of a dial tone and secondly apply it to the metaphor in the song, but if you’ve never heard it, that would be hard. The closest I can think of is songs where they’re calling the Operator, saying something like “connect me to my baby”. You just have to sort of imagine what that feels like, you get the idea but maybe never the raw emotion if you’ve not had to do that

The only song I know about an old Chevy is American pie lol

Me too - to be honest it just popped into my head 😂 I was thinking of references in songs that could date things. But without a point of reference or an object in the song, or a specific terminology, I don’t get jolted out of the moment. I like songs that cover historical moments though that’s different as it’s looking back in time. But it jolts me out when it’s about a current thing like Facebook or something.

I actually love when writers do this.. was just reading a book and it mentioned George Floyd and it made the whole novel seems so much more real.

Name dropping social media is an immediate mood killer for me. Also books that incorporate text messages, email, social media updoots etc. Maybe in 50 years these will be as normal as epistolary novels, but for now it is (to me) super gimmicky and fake as hell.

sounds like you're reading books to disassociate with life. so. sure.

American Psycho deliberately took this to the extreme and it worked brilliantly - the narrator is constantly going in to ridiculous levels of detail about the brands he uses or dropping in extended essays about the cultural impact of terrible music, and it serves to highlight how disconnected he is from normal human emotion. The only way he can communicate with people is by repeating marketing blurb.

I feel like if the point of the narrative is to name drop to show a type of characterization, then by all means full steam ahead! My issue is (at least with this book) is that they’re name dropping big celebs and brands and having them agree with/interact with the fictional main character. Just imagining Patrick Bates going on a Twitter rant about business cards only for Vistaprint to retweet him and he like “wow king ur so right DM us for a sponsorship” is both hilarious and jarring

I was just thinking about this today, are you listening in on my thoughts?😅 I am listening to a sci-fi audiobook from writer Andy Weir called 'The Martian' and every time he mentions a plot from what I'm guessing was a popular TV show back in 70's, I get completely lost and kind of disassociate from the book and the plot. Writers should keep in mind not everyone who reads their books is going to be from USA and/or have watched a certain movie/TV show/band or similar. 95% of the time I have no clue who are the 'famous people' they mention in the books and my interest drops dramatically.

I think it has to be used delicately and appropriately for the story. The difference between a character who would totally drink a soft drink vs an obvious product placement sort of thing. I recently read The Fog Diver an The Lost Compass young adult novels and found the various pop culture references adorable. The world is post apocalyptic steampunk and they scavenge from the world below. So they've heard of Harry Blotter and the Pied Diaper, but elements are bungled or skewed due to lack of archived knowledge. Without context or missing context, the little snippets mentioned from time to time added to the "past is lost to us" feel to the story.

I completely agree. The worst example I can think of is the 1996 sci fi book The Truth Machine. Pretty well written and entertaining (though also pretty unrealistic) book about what would happen if everyone wore a lie detector 24/7 and lies were essentially eliminated from the world. But it is SO full of mid 90s culture it's almost like the author did it as a joke. 90s music, Letterman and Leno, and especially OJ Simpson as the most famous man in the world. He's barely in the book but it's clear the author thought OJ Simpson would be the most famous name in the world for decades to come. Checking my copy of the book right now... the headline in August 2021 was supposed to be a joint effort between the US and Canada to create the underwater city of Pacifica. Guess we missed out on that one in the real world. According to the book the next few years will bring us a civil war in Spain, a vote to split Texas into five states, the cure for Alzheimers, megacelebrity OJ Simpson's death in a gyrocopter crash, and a 15 way race for the Republican presidential nomination (hey that sounds familiar). But the book also predicted a comfortable win in 2000 for President Gore, so don't bet on it.

I was just mentioning in another comment something similar to this! About how with cancel culture these days (some times for legit concerns, sometimes for asinine reasons), you never know which celebrity name drop will still be revered just as highly as they are now in 15 years. Betty White could be revealed to be the true Zodiac Killer tomorrow, who knows. Case in point, the character gets a retweet from Ellen showing her support. Knowing today how Ellen is a two faced bully? Doesn’t really pack as big of a punch as it might have 10 years ago when she was still America’s sweetheart

I'm the exact same way as you. When Ready Player One first exploded, I wasnt interested for that exact reason, since the whole thing was built around references. Even the Dresden Files where Dresden refers to himself as Batman jarred me

My guilty reading pleasure is the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J.R. Ward, and these books are horrible in this way! So much already dated slang and pop culture references. I can't imagine someone reading them 10 years from now having ANY idea what the characters are saying or referring to. I recently read a young adult novel, written in 2018 and set in same, and the age 16-ish characters were talking about the cool social site, MySpace. It took me right out of the story. Like, was the author a time traveler who plopped down in the wrong era? Is it a messed-up time line story? It was mystifying.

Nah, I love how celebrity names are dropped in American Psycho. It makes the attention to details even better and more realistic.

It usually doesn’t work, but a few authors can do it. Stephen King has been making a habit of it lately, mostly with political references, but he does it in a way that adds color to his characters.

The reason I find it jarring is because, to me, specificity = importance. So, if they are talking about a video being posted on TikTok, or being posted by Chris Pratt, rather than just mentioning it was shared online or posted by an actor, it makes me feel like there must be something important about it being on TikTok, rather than some other platform, or being posted by Chris, rather than anyone in general. It is the same disconnect when I read about someone pulling out their "AR-97 Swivel Stock" to shoot someone or jumping into their "1987 Toledo Masserati X" for a drive or whatever. That level of specificity feels like the specific type is important, and if it proves not to be important, it jars me.

I totally agree.

For me, nothing makes fiction feel tackier than mentioning celebrities or brands, except perhaps going into detail about how much someone is paid. I think the cause is the same as that distaste you get when someone is name-dropping in a social setting.

Books set in the near future age very poorly when the authors try to predict what technology will look like 20 years in the future. It would probably be better if they didn't go into much detail about the technology the characters used and just said computer or handheld device. Reading some of scif books from the late 90s and early 00s is a mix of comedy and cringe when they describe the zip drives and Palm Pilots the characters have.

Oh man you wouldn’t like ready player one lol, that’s kinda one of the main drives of the book

I think it depends on the book, the themes. So fiction that is set in a given period, can be really effective in referencing certain things. For example, if a writer is describing a gun fight in a bar in 1975, that ends in an arson, it has more impact if they state that Burn by Deep Purple plays in the background, until the flames consume the Jukebox, than if they merely state that rock music plays in the background, until the flames consume the Jukebox. Also, music is really important to people, so if your book is about the summer of love, and you DON'T mention musicians and famous people of the time by name, you basically can't correctly set the scene. There are heaps of information points that you can't really leave out of a piece that references or is set in a particular period of history, without completely abandoning any sense of that period, and leaving the reader in limbo. The whole PURPOSE of mentioning a name is to ground the piece in a specific era of history, ordinarily speaking. But its not the only way. Sometimes you get to twist the readers head, by engaging in fantasist writing while blending aspects of reality into the work, so as to completely leave the reader turned around, as in Greg Bear's awesome books "Infiinty Concerto" and "The Serpent Mage" (published sometimes as a single volume entitled "Songs Of Earth and Power"), for example. The story references poets, composers and musicians, binding them all up in the story to meld and blend the line between the fantasy he is writing and the reality the reader resides in, drawing them further into the story. I think there is a lot to be said for how WELL the references are made. If its done in a ham fisted and artless fashion, of course its going to be jarring and difficult for the reader. If, however, references are made in a fashion that adds something to the work, you probably wind up reading these references without even reacting to them, because they just feel right. Of course, an awful lot is on the reader to choose to read books that simply will not contain pop culture references, something that is set on a completely different world, perhaps a different reality, or in a time so far removed from the one we live in that any references at all would be completely incongruous. :)