National Pretend To Be A Time Traveller Day
Spend your day in costume and character on #NationalPretendToBeATimeTravellerDay
8 December is National Pretend To Be A Time Traveller Day, which is celebrated annually by spending the day in costume and character – without telling anyone you are a time traveller.
There are three possible ways to spend the day:
1. Utopian/Cliché Future
To pull this off, you must dress with moderately anachronistic clothing and speak in slang of varying decades. Think Star Trek or The Time Travellers from Hob. Or run with how the society from Futurama sees the 20th century.
You could do some of the following:
– Greet people with the following words, “Your king must be a kindly soul!”
– Show extreme ignorance of modern technology (using a payphone should be a complete mystery). When seeing cellphones, chuckle knowingly.
2. Dystopian Future
This one offers a bit more flexibility and can be any kind of future ranging from Terminator to Freejack. The important thing to remember is to dress appropriately as dystopian future travellers are very surprised they have gone back in time. You should dress like a crazy person with armour – black spray painted football pads, torn trench coats and maybe some dirt here and there. To stay in character, try some of the following:
– Walk up to random people and ask them, “What year is this?” When they tell you, mumble, “Then there is still time!” and run off.
– Look astonished while staring at newspaper headlines.
– Take a trinket with you (it could be anything) and hand it to a stranger along with a phone number. Then say, “Dial this number in 30 years. You’ll know what to do after that.” Then quietly slip away.
3. The past
This one is generally more for beginners where you basically dress in period clothing (preferably Victorian) and stagger around staring around and looking amazed at everything. Because the culture’s already set in place, you have a better template to work from. Some things to try, include:
– Remember, aeroplanes are terrifying and you should carry on conversations with the television for a while.
– Discover and become obsessed with one trivial aspect of technology – like automatic doors – and stay there for hours playing with it.
– If you see people dressed immodestly compared to your chosen era – especially women with tattoos and shorts – you should be terrified.
And that is how to celebrate this day – the only rule is to stay in character and try to fit in. You should never directly admit you are a time traveller and make really bad attempts at keeping a low profile.
Post on social media using #NationalPretendToBeATimeTravellerDay.
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