The Office AirPod Time Traveler Conspiracy

Submission 7,466

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About

The Office AirPod Time Traveler Conspiracy refers to the illusion that an extra in season two episode 16 of The Office was wearing Apple AirPods despite the fact that the episode aired in 2006. Although the theory was introduced in 2018, the theory became briefly popular in 2019 due to a TikTok video.

Origin

On October 27th, 2018, YouTuber Tom Gobuzas uploaded "Time Traveler Caught on The Office with Apple Airpods" (shown below). The video shows an extra walking up the subway steps with white-colored earphones in his ears. The video gained only 5,300 views in two years.

Spread

On December 29th, 2019, TikTok user @eric.gramer received over 962,900 likes in two weeks for posting another video with the caption, "Office time traveler?" (shown below, left). Over the next few days, TikTok user @fatheadchris and @bigwhore_14 dueted the video pointing out a faint black chord hanging from the earpiece (shown below, right).

On January 14th, 2020, Redditor yaynative posted the TikTok video to r/DunderMifflin^[1] where the video was then discussed. One user provided The Office Quotes^[2] image which provided a clearer view of the chord (shown below). Both Indy100^[4] and MediaHQ^[3] reported on the conspiracy.