I think we can all agree that pop culture references have been a part of the Sims since the very first game. However, some may argue that the manner in which pop culture references are handled has changed. In early Sims games, we would come across subtle references to television, literature, film, music, art, etc. They also weren't limited to trends and current events:

Live Mode
The Goth Family (Parody of the TV show The Addams Family)
Jeff and Diane Pleasant (Possibly a reference to John Mellencamp's "Jack and Diane")
Gobias Koffi (Reference to a character in the TV show Arrested Development)
Social Bunny NPC (Possibly a reference to the movies Donnie Darko and Harvey)
Dina Caliente (Possibly a reference to Paris Hilton)
Strangetown (Possibly based on Roswell, New Mexico)
Rosebud cheat code (Possibly a reference to the movie Citizen Kane)
Veronaville (Based on Shakespearean plays)
TV shows (Possibly based on Hell's Kitchen, The Oprah Winfrey Show and Martha Stewart)

Buy Mode
Hold Me Closer by Tiny Dresser Co. (Reference to the song "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John)
Prisoner of Azkalamp (Reference to the book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
Lady on Red (Reference to the song "Lady in Red")
Rave Against the Machine (Reference to the band Rage Against the Machine)

Build Mode
Daisies of Our Lives (Reference to the soap opera Days of Our Lives)

These days, what does EA reference? Memes, memes, and more memes. Plus whatever's "trending" at the moment. Gangnam style, bromance, etc.

A recent half-assed Sims 3 Store item came with a moodlet. The description? "Much fun. Very wow. Such carousel."

I think that EA still references older and classic things, but the "meme" ones are more intrusive and obvious.

The memes have only been getting more frequent with their marketing and trailers and items. Seriously, half their Sims 3 University Life trailer was memes, it was quite nauseating.

I like my offline computer games to make me forget about what I waste most of my time on, not remind me -_-

I don't mind the memes much for the names of build and buy stuff (I hardly read those things anyway), but I'm tiring of the use of memes in their marketing.
EA:

I don't even know what that's supposed to refer to :blush:

i never understood the social bunny, wtf was that?

Again I'm not defending EA on this and I hate internet meme culture and tumbler no-budget web series as much as the next person here seems to...

Yet.... Who cares what objects are called or what their description says, I hardly read any of them in Sims 2 and didn't even know about the Prisoner of Azkalamp and the Hold Me Closer Tiny Dresser.

And from the examples you posted Paris Hilton, Harry Potter, Arrested Development and Rage Against the Machine were "trending" during the time they were implemented into the game. It's mildly annoying, but meh....

And really why would Arrested Development be a valid source of reference for the Sims and How I met you Mother not? Both are terrible TV shows (albeit for different reasons)
Also you forgot the Altos as an obvious Sopranos reference (another show I can't stand and which was trending at the time I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while)

This is funny because i'm from Argentina

It's a meme.

There's a difference between subtlely working a reference into a Buy Mode description and marking one's territory all over the game. Like you said, not everyone bothers to read the names and descriptions of furniture in Buy Mode, so if the developers decide to sneak a few pop culture references in there, it doesn't feel like they're beating the player over the head with them.

It's also not about old vs. new. Earlier Sims games were more well-rounded when it came to pop culture references. There were references to lyrics from the 70's, Shakespearean characters, "trending" books at the time, famous photographers, classic paintings, TV shows, etc. It wasn't just about what was new at the time. They had topical references as well as the classics.

Lately, it just seems like the developers are trying so hard to be relevant that they limit their references to memes, sitcoms and whatever's trending on Youtube. Even if you count the Beatles render that they did for the Sims 4, it's obvious they only did it because the band's 50th anniversary was trending.

When I think of earlier Sims games, I can't pin just one "type" of pop culture reference because of the varying tastes of the people that worked on the game. When I think of the Sims 4, I think of stereotypical frat boys getting drunk and taking selfies. And considering Ryan Vaughan's "awesome"-ness, I'm pretty sure they're using today's definition of "Bro" and not the one from the 90's that you were referring to.

The whole thing just screams "Barney Stinson's Playbook" to me.

I figured as much, but I can't find the reference. Top hit in google is your very thread here.

They replaced a few words, but try Googling "doge." Spelled just like that. That last part had carousel because the Sim Store item was a carousel.

I'm ok with the older classic stuff ( I had no idea the social bunny could be a reference to Donnie Darko. It kinda makes sense now.) but the new stuff... I could live without it. Especially because the newer meme stuff is so short-lived, like doge.

Remember the easter egg clips hidden in that trailer? Some of the clips themselves were funny enough, but the tags at the end? Uggghhhh... #Winning, #yolo, lolwut, ermahgerd, and so on. I swear the whole time I was thinking "EA is the company version of the middle age dad who's desperately trying to be hip with the kidz"
I love references in my games (and movies, and tv series, and comics). They generally age pretty well. For instance, a Citizen Kane reference will still be just as relevant in 50 years. But as Soulfire said, memes are just too short lived for this kinda stuff. Full disclosure, when the Gangnam Fever was at its highest, I bought a gangnam shirt, complete with a witty one-liner and drawing of the horsey dance. I wore it a couple of times, feeling like the funniest d00d ever... Then a month passed, the internet moved on, and I haven't worn it since. Money well spent, huh.
That's the issue with trying so desperately to stay current. Today's relevant and trendy is tomorrow's dated and lame. People will think I'm a dum dum if I walk outside in my stupid Gangnam shirt now. I'm begging you EA, don't make that mistake.. you still have so much to live for

memes come and go - in 5 years the teens playing the games won't understand them - EA should make references that are lasting for all generations to come

Such as...? The only reason I know anything from my parents' adolescence is because I like classic TV shows and music. If I didn't purposely seek out those things, we would have had no shared pop culture experiences unless they chose to like ones from my adolescence.

And as my reply to the thread in general: I have no problem with meme references in the game or any other game, as long as they don't overtake "normal" content (which they don't in Sims 3, by any stretch of the imagination.) This same argument comes up on WoW forums because some players take the game too seriously and refuse to understand that Blizzard has always worked humor into their games, which is the same as the Sims franchise. No one shares an identical sense of humor with someone else, just because you don't like it doesn't invalidate its existence.

I think what our good doctor is getting at is, there should be a broad range of references. High brow, low brow, classic, topical, for kids, for adults, etc.
Blizzard, to take your example, does a really good job with that. There's a lot of pop culture references, like the questline that's one giant Rambo reference. Or Horatio Laine . And then you have something like Humphrey Bogart's Lolita being referenced in another questline. You know, it's diverse, like the people who play it. And that's what I'd like to see in Sims 4 as well
EDIT: For clarification: I don't think anyone here wants to eradicate humor from the game. Actually, when I was playing Sims 2 I loved reading the object descriptions. Mind you, I was playing a translated version (danish, if anyone cares), and I was around 12 at the time, so a lot of stuff prolly were lost in translation or went over my head, but I still found a lot of them funny. One of the first things I did when I got Sims 3 was browsing through some item descriptions (don't look at me like that), and I noticed they really quite dull and flat. I was genuinely dissappointed by that. So I agree that humor is definitely a core aspect of the Sims.
And I guess that in the end my post boils down to "I think #yolo is unfunny and so should you" but what can you do

One thing that instantly springs to mind is the Brick Rolled walls in TS2. They're never gonna give you up, never gonna get you down, never gonna stop being funny.

My parents would not know what that was since they grew up in the 60s and 70s and do not seek out memes in our modern day.

In fact, my ex's dad got Rick Rolled once and he actually enjoyed sitting there watching the video because he genuinely liked Rick Astley. So, definitely not generation-spanning humor.

Add to that the regional differences: what may be cool for a while in one country may never exist in another. Rick Rolling? Totally unheard of here, unless you try to blend in with the culture it comes from on the internet.
Even the translators for The Sims sometimes must have a hard time trying to understand what the game is actually hinting at. For me the whole University Life EP was an unending enigma as were large parts of Generations. (I'm from Europe.)

Those are some of the things I'm happy they didn't take out of TS3

I really like those references.

Im just saying, in example 'planking' - remember that guys - i do BUT in 5 years time a teenager probably won't get that reference BUT references like the Godfather, star wars you know something everybody knows that'll last years!



your parents would know who Rick Astley is ...

i love the references sims make. but that being said, someone needs to take EA gently by the shoulders, look into their eyes, and tell them to calm down.

i like that the references are usually little easter eggs, but the problem is that it's almost like the references are on caps lock now. "LOOK! WE ARE BEING RELEVANT. WE ARE A TECHNOLOGY COMPANY BUT WE STILL MUST PROVE THAT WE ARE AWARE OF THE INTERNET AND ITS JOKES." kind of like when a little kid says something and it's funny the first time but then they won't stop saying it because of the approval they got the first time.
throw in a little doge here in there, it doesn't bother me. but please, don't make the entire game a reference to 5-seconds-of-fame memes and slang. your sims can take selfies? cool! your sims can blog? very cool! bromance? please stop

That's more of a reference to how if you're a popular person and you like talking to people and being the center of attention you're referred to as a social bunny. The presence of the character that comes to help you out when you're low on social being an actual bunny is a humorous spin on that idea. Not much question there.

The meme stuff was way too obnoxious with University Life. EA tried waaaay too hard with the "subtle humor" thing everyone loved in previous games and it wasn't subtle anymore. Hopefully they bring some of that hidden humor from TS1 and 2 back. If they are, as they say, letting Maxis back in on it, I don't see why they wouldn't be able too.

Oh god, YES, this. The sims are supposed to exist in some cultureless world but it is so overly American and I feel like they haven't even tried to incorporate other cultures a lot of the time. I mean "European style"? Europe is a big place I didn't understand half of the references in TS2 University, either.

I hate it when EA made a reference that trended only at a particular time. This trend usually dies in a certain amount of time, and then forgotten.

For example, the moodlet for borrowing a horse and forgetting to give them back to the owners by nightfall in TS3 Pets is called "Everyday I'm Rustlin'", which is a reference to Shuffling. Does anybody still listen to the song?

I really hate that the mascot dance in TS3 University Life is a gangnam style dance. Ugh. I just hate. That's only popular for a few weeks until it's forgotten and rotten.

Also the gangwalk in TS3 Island Paradise to connect a dock with boathouse is called "Gangwalk Style". Sounds familiar?

TS3 University Life seems to have a lot of references to trending topics, but I can't remember any atm. They were trying to make something that was hip at the time and that just felt awful. I wish they could make more references from timeless popular cultures instead of currently trending topics.

Also, why is this in TS4 forum?