A French Artist Foresaw Zoom Holiday Parties In His 1896 Comic
Image via Georges Delaw / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A French artist for the Belle Époque humor magazine Le rire was dead-on about his vision of socially-distanced holiday parties.
In an 1896 cartoon for his Le Vingtième Siècle series, novelist and illustrator Albert Robida depicted a Christmas gathering conducted via “telephonoscope,” as the subject’s family couldn’t attend it in person.
An 1896 caricaturist predicted Zoom Christmas celebrations in 2020! Translation (roughly): My wife visits her aunt in Budapest, my oldest daughter is studying to be a dentist in Melbourne, ... this does not prevent us from celebrating Christmas with the telephonoscope. pic.twitter.com/0ODROejI8K
— Helen De Cruz (@Helenreflects) December 26, 2020
“My wife is visiting her aunt in Budapest, my older daughter is studying dentistry in Melbourne… this does not prevent us from celebrating Christmas on the telephonoscope,” reads the illustration’s caption, translated to English by philosophy professor Helen De Cruz.
The idea would have seemed strange and could have been shrugged off a year ago, but it is the reality today.
The caricaturist also envisioned the use of the “telephonoscope” for “education, movies, [and] teleconferencing” back in 1890, the professor noted.
The cartoon series explored Robida’s ideas of technological advancements to expect during that century, Open Culture shared.
This means that people’s predictions of flying cars as a mass mode of travel might not be too far-fetched—we’ll just have to wait a number of years.
Next to Zoom Christmas, Albert Robida also predicted courses via Zoom, in his novel Le Vingtième siècle. La vie électrique (1890). Caption reads "Courses by Telephonoscope". He thought the "telephonoscope" would give us education, movies, teleconferencing. pic.twitter.com/pksMTEAHgy
— Helen De Cruz (@Helenreflects) December 26, 2020
[via Open Culture, cover image via Georges Delaw / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)]
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