This is why I date myself.

I once wrote a scene in which high-schoolers were excited for The Simpsons Movie, and someone asked, “Shouldn’t you just write that they’ll be going to the movies? Aren’t you worried mentioning the Simpsons Movie will date your story?”

I wasn’t.

I believe it’s important to know in what year your characters exist. That story I set in 2007. It began in the summer. The Simpsons was released July 27^th, 2007. It made sense the characters would watch it, and mentioning it by name better cemented the characters in the story's reality.

Some writers refrain from referencing popular culture out of fear of dating their work. They want their stories to forever take place in the present, in the here and now. This is impossible. In writing there is no such thing as a permanent present. Be as nondescript as you want, as vague about jobs and entertainment and world issues as you can, and it won’t matter: eventually (or quickly) your story will become dated.

It can’t be helped.

Language and society and the world change in unforeseeable ways.

Back in the eighties, you could have done your damndest to write a middle-class coming-of-age novel that would always read like it was occurring in modern day, but by not mentioning smart phones or social media, by a total lack of texting or tweets or snapchats, a 2014 reader would sense your story was written in a different era.

Does that mean the 80’s story has lost its relevancy?

Maybe a smidgen, but for the most part, no.

Novels aren’t like pieces of hardware. As newer stories emerge, older narratives don’t turn obsolete. Books aren’t timeless because they avoid details a modern mind would find antiquated. They’re timeless because they immerse a reader in the world of the pages. Readers can empathize with the characters on account of the story’s given circumstances. It doesn’t matter if those circumstances occur during ancient times or the Elizabethan era or the eighties or now.

So accept the inevitable. Any modern story is bound to become a period piece. Date yourself. Now, I’m not advocating writing unnecessary pop culture references. Don’t be superfluous. Don’t obsess with trivial details, where your writing is like a camera focused on background scenery while the main characters walk around blurred and out-of-focus. Just recognize your characters inhabit a world that has its own technology and cultural consciousness and, depending on the story you’ve chosen to create, know that to gloss over this might rob the work of its verisimilitude.