# Time Traveling Hipster The Time Traveling Hipster is a 1940 photograph from a British Columbia bridge reopening whose young male subject looked so wildly out of era that online posters joked he was a time traveler. After an obscure Canadian museum put the image online in 2010, forum threads and tech blogs turned it into one of the defining 'time traveler caught on camera' memes of the early 2010s. ## Origin The photograph belongs to the Bralorne Pioneer Museum in British Columbia, Canada, with a handwritten note on the back reading 'Reopening of the South Fork Bridge after flood in Nov. 1940. 1941 (?)'[2]. Bralorne is a former gold mining town northeast of Vancouver whose community archives were collected into an online exhibit called Bralorne-Pioneer: Their Past Lives Here[4]. The exhibit went live through Canada's Virtual Museum in February 2010, which is how the mystery hipster first entered public view[5]. The identities of the photographer and the people standing in the frame are still unknown[2]. - **Platform:** Bralorne Pioneer Museum archive (source) / Fark, Forgetomori, BoingBoing (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2010 ## Overview The Time Traveling Hipster centers on a black-and-white photograph taken at the reopening of the South Fork Bridge in British Columbia, where a crowd of fedora-clad attendees from 1940 includes one young man who looks wildly out of era[4]. He wears wraparound sunglasses, a stamped graphic t-shirt layered under a chunky knit sweater, and holds a compact camera, giving him the look of a 2000s hipster rather than a wartime Canadian bystander[1]. Gizmodo summed up the reaction by calling him a 'bro' out of era and writing that his whole essence screams 'another era entirely'[1]. Debunkers pointed out that his wraparound sunglasses match a style seen in the 1944 film Double Indemnity[2], and that the 'M' on his shirt plausibly belongs to the Montreal Maroons, an NHL team active from 1924 to 1938[9]. His camera is consistent with Kodak folding models sold at the time. None of that stopped the picture from becoming shorthand for 'time traveler caught on camera' jokes, blog analyses, and explainer videos across the 2010s. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Time Traveling Hipster? A 1940 photo from British Columbia whose subject's modern-looking sunglasses, printed t-shirt, and compact camera sparked a long-running 'time traveler caught on camera' meme after it went viral in April 2010[2][1]. ### Where did Time Traveling Hipster come from? The photo belongs to the Bralorne Pioneer Museum in British Columbia and was digitized through Canada's Virtual Museum in February 2010[4] before spreading on Fark, Forgetomori, and BoingBoing that April[3]. ### What does Time Traveling Hipster mean? It is internet shorthand for someone who looks jarringly out of era in a historical image, used both earnestly by conspiracy posters and ironically by everyone else[1]. ### How do you use Time Traveling Hipster? People drop the photo as a reaction when someone appears anachronistic, or circle figures in other archival photos and claim they are time travelers in the same vein[2]. ### Is Time Traveling Hipster still popular? It is a classic early-2010s mystery meme still referenced in time traveler threads and explainer videos years after its 2010 peak[10]. ## References 1. [https://gizmodo.com/time-traveler-captured-in-museum-photograph-5519660]() 2. [https://forgetomori.com/2010/fortean/time-traveler-caught-in-museum-photo/]() 3. [https://boingboing.net/2010/04/16/time-traveler-caught-1.html]() 4. [https://www.virtualmuseum.ca/pm_v2.php?lg=English&ex=00000470&fl=0&id=exhibit_home]() 5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/time-traveling-hipster]() 6. [https://www.fark.com/comments/5134197/Time-traveler-caught-on-camera-from-1941]() 7. [http://forgetomori.com/2010/fortean/another-photo-of-hipster-time-traveller-found/]() 8. [https://freewilliamsburg.com/time-traveling-hipster-caught-in-1940-photo]() 9. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Maroons]() 10. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD_b83_RpJ0]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/time-traveling-hipster Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library