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When the future was bright

The meme consists of a vintage retro-futurist science fiction illustration at the top, depicting a barren alien planet with multiple round, classic mid-20th century style spaceships landed or hovering above the surface, with small human astronauts standing near a planted flag exploring the terrain. Below the illustration, text comments humorously on the optimistic predictions of old sci-fi works, which often set advanced interstellar human exploration in years that are now in the past (such as 2003), expressing fond amusement at how high those past creators' hopes were for human technological progress that never came to pass as predicted.
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I love old science fiction. They have stories that begin “IT'S THE DISTANT YEAR 2003 AND HUMANS ARE EXPLORING THE DEEP CORNERS OF THE UNIVERSE.” God bless you old sci-fi. You had such high hopes for us.

Overview

The meme consists of a vintage retro-futurist science fiction illustration at the top, depicting a barren alien planet with multiple round, classic mid-20th century style spaceships landed or hovering above the surface, with small human astronauts standing near a planted flag exploring the terrain. Below the illustration, text comments humorously on the optimistic predictions of old sci-fi works, which often set advanced interstellar human exploration in years that are now in the past (such as 2003), expressing fond amusement at how high those past creators' hopes were for human technological progress that never came to pass as predicted.

Origin notes

This meme was obtained from an RSS feed of 9Gag, a popular social media platform for sharing humorous content. It uses widely circulated vintage sci-fi artwork paired with original humorous text, and has been widely shared across social media platforms as a relatable joke about unmet past future expectations.

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