Time capsule initiatives, especially today, are generally designed to serve two primary purposes – those that are to be opened by the people who created them and act as a repository of their past life and memories and those that are generally designed in order to preserve our culture for future generations. It is essentially a way of showing that you care for the past, the present and the future. I mean what better way to tell yourself that you trust in your own ability to survive than writing a letter addressed to yourself several years into the future?
Time capsules in pop culture are mostly made for personal purposes – to revisit a past memory, to store important memorabilia to be revisited at a later time. Listed here are some of our favourite mentions of time capsules across pop culture.
1) One Tree Hill
In Season 2, Episode 15 titled ‘Unopened Letter to the World,’ Coach pressurizes the students of Tree Hill High into participating in their traditional time capsule ritual – expecting the contents of the same to be opened fifty years into the future. As a result, the primary characters go and confess their deepest darkest secrets to an anonymous videographer. In this episode, a secondary character named Mouth brings up how several times in Tree Hill High’s history the time capsules are opened sooner than planned. Interestingly, this very thing happens when in Season 3, Episode 15 the contents of the video time capsule get leaked. Our key takeaway from these episodes? While time capsules provide a wonderful way to express yourself and your feelings you need to ensure that the contents of the same are safeguarded carefully for as long as they’re intended – ensure that you store your capsules in a way that prevents these things from happening.
2) To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before: P.S. I Still Love You
In this film there comes a juncture when Lara Jean wants to dig up an old time capsule that she and her friends buried while in middle school. What she doesn’t realize until much later, is how much damage bringing her boyfriend and a boy she had a crush on in the past can actually do to their lives. While this scene is extremely emotionally heavy it also does remind us of one thing – when you make a time capsule your life may be a certain way and when you retrieve it, it most certainly would have changed. But isn’t that what makes the process all the more romantic?
3) F.R.I.E.N.D.S
In Season 10, Episode 4, ‘The One With the Cake,’ the characters are seen celebrating Emma’s first birthday. Throughout the course of this episode Ross is seen filming his friends and family in an attempt to record a video meant for Emma to see when she turns eighteen. While not a traditional time capsule, this also deals with communicating with a future version of ourselves and not gonna lie, we personally really love the idea of recording these videos!
At the start of Season 5, Episode 3; ‘Chapter Seventy-Nine: Graduation’ the students unearth an old time capsule buried decades ago as part of a time-honoured tradition. The gang’s graduation also paves the way for the burial of their own time capsule. When they meet, each of them puts in an item that meant something to them – Betty brings the last edition of the Blue and Gold that she worked on, the Riverdale Register and a bobby pin (y’know in the case that a bomb needs diffusing), for Veronica puts a menu from Pop’s and a matchbox from La Bonne Nuite. Kevin brings programs from past musicals, and a pair of Josie’s cat ears as a tribute to her while Cheryl throws in her HBIC shirt followed by Toni’s Pretty Poisons jacket. While Archie puts in one of Fred’s Hammers and a guitar pick, Jughead goes out with a bang as he finally takes off his iconic beanie and puts it into the capsule. Feels like the end of an era doesn’t it?
5) This Is Us
In Season 4, Episode 15 – ‘The Cabin,’ we see the Big Three dig up an old time capsule that they had buried while they were teenagers at the Pearson family cabin. The episode shows tween era Big Three putting their items into the capsule along with their father Jack and then goes on to show the Big Three, now in their late thirties, as they dig up the time capsule and go through memories of a past life. The real tear jerker comes when they chance upon a tape recording by their father, Jack who passed away when they were seventeen. This really proves our point – time capsules are necessary not only because of the historical value they carry with them, they also provide a lot of space for introspection and connect us to those we have loved and lost (especially in the case of personal time capsules!).
Here’s some of the ones we liked the most! Have you come across other references of time capsules, be it in books, films or television series? We’d love to know which ones were your favourite!
Are you inspired by these references and are now motivated to build your own time capsule to send to the future? Head on over to Cheethi and get started on making your own time capsule, today!