This time of year, high schools and colleges are engaging in homecoming rituals which so often turn to themes of nostalgia. There are ’50s -inspired skits in the gym performed by boys with combed-back hair and girls in circle skirts, ’60s dress-up days where members of the faculty come to work wearing tie-dye and peace signs, ’80s dances where the playlist includes Madonna, Oingo Boingo and, strangely, Back Street Boys. But whatever. Accuracy isn’t the point. Thinking fondly, and somewhat disparagingly, of days gone by is key to the fun.

Then Halloween rolls around in October and the retro reboot gets another round of plastic-prop silliness. Office workers might dress in a favorite decade: The ’70s will be reduced to fringe and suede, the ’80s will be represented by neon-colored obtuse triangles, the ’90s will be flattened into plaid shirts, brown lipstick and tiny butterfly hair clips.

That’s not all there was to those decades, but that’s what’s remembered. The broad strokes and the ridiculous — that’s what has risen up to represent those generations to today’s generation.

What will future revelers pick to make fun of 2018?

Cell phones are the most obvious thing. In the future, today’s smart phones will probably look as quaint as yesterday’s brick-sized mobiles and belt-clipped pagers.

And emojis, definitely. We will surely be teased for our willingness to scroll through a set of cartoonish facial expressions and babyish symbols to find something that matches our current mood or intent. People are so into emojis right now. Your mom uses emojis. Your boss uses emojis. You caught yourself using an emoji in a report you were putting together for work. The future will look back and think that none of us in 2018 were able to use our words to say how we feel.

But beyond yoga pants and inky eyebrows and puppy ears on Instagram, the shorthand for this era will probably not be kind. We will be mocked, maybe not with malice but possibly with the pity that comes with knowing better. Future generations will laugh at the way we proclaimed one thing and then did exactly the opposite. From public policy to personal politics to the choices we make every day, it’s going to be great fun in the future to look back and wonder about fast food places selling 900-calorie salads, “body-positive” ad campaigns for cosmetics, tour packages to remote areas marketed as “eco-tourism,” and natural food activists working to shut down farms. How we bought bottled water and shrugged when sewage flowed into streams and bays. How we thought women had it so much better than their grandmothers when in 2018 they are still paid less, promoted less often and subject to sexual harassment and assault at work, at the gym, online and just walking down the street. How much power was wielded by something with the silliest name: Twitter.

History won’t be kind in its look back at this era. Even the superficial depictions of this time are bound to be eye-rollers. Purse dogs. Lip injections. Tribal tattoos of someone else’s tribe. The ’70s suede fringe will look good in comparison.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.