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March 28, 2024, 09:43:36 AM

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People with massive cultural voids

Started by George White, December 14, 2018, 08:58:28 PM

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Golden E. Pump

If someone told me they'd never heard of Michael Jackson I'd tell them that I'd never heard of them and pretend they didn't exist for the next fifty years.

flotemysost

Quote from: king_tubby on February 10, 2019, 07:41:31 PM
See, I had no idea that song was by Maroon 5, who though I only did that one about girls' names or something

Nah, that's Mambo Number Five you're thinking of there. (I don't actually know if Maroon 5 did a song about girls' names - they may well have done, I am 29 and am therefore probably on the cusp of 'should/shouldn't know these things'.)

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: flotemysost on February 10, 2019, 07:29:02 PM
I worked with a 20-something in 2012 who didn't know who Barack Obama was.

I know this doesn't sound very nice, condescending even, but you do have to wonder about the lives of people who are that ignorant of pretty much everything.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: king_tubby on February 10, 2019, 07:41:31 PM
See, I had no idea that song was by Maroon 5, who though I only did that one about girls' names or something. I thought the Jagger one was Azelia Banks, but I have no idea why.

In my defence I am in my mid 40s and shouldn't know these things.

Why would anyone want to move like Jagger anyway? He got away with those ridiculous shapes when he was young, sexy and dangerous, but even then no one ever thought, "Man, I wish I could move like Jagger".

king_tubby

Maybe people would like to move their earnings across various tax havens like Jagger?

Yeah. I went there.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley


Talulah, really!



grassbath

I wonder how relative this all is. I sometimes despair at these people with massive cultural voids, but then I wonder if that's just snobbery, and maybe I am pretty myopic myself in certain areas.

Sport for instance - I have nothing against it and I realise you have to 'follow' it to be able to make ongoing everyday conversation, but I think a general lack of interest since I was a kid has led me to be pretty ignorant about historically famous sportspeople and iconic sporting events. Pele's supposed to be good isn't he? England won the world cup in 1966? Something something Jesse Owens something something? (Disclaimer - I do know who Jesse Owens is.) When the Olympics happen, our athletes become household names, but I only seem to catch up with who these people are years later, and even then I'm pretty rocky on who is who. Sometimes I really do feel like Armando in the pub, with a skewed and unfocused angle on it all - 'oo-ah oo-eh, Derby Countayyy.'

This despite having otherwise pretty good knowledge of popular culture and an especially retentive memory for music, film and books, years of release/publication, stuff like that. I think my brain just glazes over sport - I wish it didn't, I'd be a much more valuable team member in the pub quiz. Is it just that if someone's not interested in that particular field, they aren't specifically listening out for it? That would explain why someone as young as 13, if they weren't particularly interested in music, wouldn't know of Michael Jackson, or why someone in their 20s who thought global politics was boring might not have heard of Barack Obama. Or at least it's the only explanation I can think of.

rue the polywhirl

Taxman

Her Satanic Majesty's RC Request

Jockice

Quote from: grassbath on February 10, 2019, 09:38:06 PM
I wonder how relative this all is. I sometimes despair at these people with massive cultural voids, but then I wonder if that's just snobbery, and maybe I am pretty myopic myself in certain areas.

Sport for instance - I have nothing against it and I realise you have to 'follow' it to be able to make ongoing everyday conversation, but I think a general lack of interest since I was a kid has led me to be pretty ignorant about historically famous sportspeople and iconic sporting events. Pele's supposed to be good isn't he? England won the world cup in 1966? Something something Jesse Owens something something? (Disclaimer - I do know who Jesse Owens is.) When the Olympics happen, our athletes become household names, but I only seem to catch up with who these people are years later, and even then I'm pretty rocky on who is who. Sometimes I really do feel like Armando in the pub, with a skewed and unfocused angle on it all - 'oo-ah oo-eh, Derby Countayyy.'

This despite having otherwise pretty good knowledge of popular culture and an especially retentive memory for music, film and books, years of release/publication, stuff like that. I think my brain just glazes over sport - I wish it didn't.

A young woman in her mid-20s asked me a couple of years ago, in all seriousness, if David Beckham was the greatest footballer of all time.

I mean, for fuck's sake. There's nothing more I could possibly say in the face of such spectacular ignorance.

Blue Jam

Quite right. It's obviously Ronalado.

Quote from: grassbath on February 10, 2019, 09:38:06 PMSport for instance

I don't follow any sport apart from snooker. I have a friend who doesn't follow any sport apart from Formula 1. Those appear to be the two main Sports For People Who Don't Like Sport.

Does baseball also fit into that category? It seems to appeal to a lot of people who are into stats and who get more of that from baseball than other sports.

Jockice

Quote from: Blue Jam on February 10, 2019, 10:28:47 PM
Quite right. It's obviously Ronalado.

I don't follow any sport apart from snooker. I have a friend who doesn't follow any sport apart from Formula 1. Those appear to be the two main Sports For People Who Don't Like Sport.

Does baseball also fit into that category? It seems to appeal to a lot of people who are into stats and who get more of that from baseball than other sports.

I think we've had this discussion before but I do know several people who like Formula One, go to races etc, but know bugger all about other sports. I think snooker has a wider appeal though. And I have never met a baseball fan in my life.

touchingcloth

Quote from: king_tubby on February 10, 2019, 07:41:31 PM
See, I had no idea that song was by Maroon 5, who though I only did that one about girls' names or something. I thought the Jagger one was Azelia Banks, but I have no idea why.

In my defence I am in my mid 40s and shouldn't know these things.

I'm astonished that the Jagger song is by Maroon Five. I thought all I knew of their output was the This Love song, which may as well be by a different band. I can't imagine hitting play on an album for it to lurch from the This Love pap, to the more frenetic but no less pappy Moo Ooo Ooo Ooo Ooo Ooo Ooves Like Jagger. It'd be like including Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! and A Day in the Life on the same LP - the act of a cloth-eared lunatic.

Avril Lavigne

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on February 10, 2019, 08:52:11 PM
I know this doesn't sound very nice, condescending even, but you do have to wonder about the lives of people who are that ignorant of pretty much everything.

I've mentioned her before but a girl who has been in a relationship with a friend of mine for a little over a year just has no interest in or knowledge of music in general, and refuses to watch films or TV shows that came out before she was 10 (about 2004 or something) because none of them look or feel realistic enough to her.  She really enjoyed the Ghostbusters remake but said she turned the original off after 5 minutes because she 'didn't understand it'.  Hated Back To The Future as well.

Bazooka

I was in a taxi the other day with my girlfriend, as a laowai(foreigner) in China 99% of the time it is assumed you are American, because remember only four countries exist, America, Africa,China and Japan. My mandarin is subpar, but I know enough to understand in listening to conversation when nationality and countries are being discussed.

I knew my girlfriend and the driver where talking about English, my girlfriend turned to me and said "What country is English from?" Now I could have gone down the route of like every language its a mix of Latin, French etc, I just said the clue is in the title.

mothman

A coworker has not seen, and actively refuses to, any movies from the last century. Apart from a few random Disneys, and Titanic. But she's also a fan of The Pixies, whose two great albums are older than her...

Icehaven

Quote from: Avril Lavigne on February 11, 2019, 12:18:38 AM
I've mentioned her before but a girl who has been in a relationship with a friend of mine for a little over a year just has no interest in or knowledge of music in general, and refuses to watch films or TV shows that came out before she was 10 (about 2004 or something) because none of them look or feel realistic enough to her.  She really enjoyed the Ghostbusters remake but said she turned the original off after 5 minutes because she 'didn't understand it'.  Hated Back To The Future as well.

Quote from: mothman on February 11, 2019, 08:16:49 AM
A coworker has not seen, and actively refuses to, any movies from the last century. Apart from a few random Disneys, and Titanic. But she's also a fan of The Pixies, whose two great albums are older than her...

This is quite depressing given one of the best things about the internet making most films and music so easily available regardless of age, is how many younger people now watch and listen to stuff decades older than they are without even thinking or caring too much about how old it is. Not everyone will agree this is a good thing but the apparent huge popularity of Friends among teenagers (mostly due to it being on Netflix) is one example.

Nowhere Man

Because of how Americanised the internet/social media tends to be, I've found that many of the younger UK lot are more likely to be aware/following whatever's happening culturally in the US i.e Kardashians, Ariana Grande ect. but if you talked to them about say, Peter Cook or Brass Eye they often wouldn't know what the fuck you're talking about.

I've met someone from England who inexplicably didn't even know there was a UK version of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

DrGreggles

Quote from: Nowhere Man on February 11, 2019, 09:08:48 AM
I've met someone from England who inexplicably didn't even know there was a UK version of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

Never heard of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - UK version or otherwise.
I'm assuming it's that shouty Gordon man.

St_Eddie


mothman

It is incredible though how soon the cultural landscape can change. As a youngster I spent a lot of time abroad so my cultural childhood was quite limited. Almost no TV, few contemporary films (I saw a LOT of old westerns, apparently they were considered suitable for children). And the books I exposed to were all your airport bestsellers of the time - Wilbur Smith, Jack Higgins, Len Deighton, Eric van Lustbader, John le Carré. All these authors are still alive, but apart from the last, when did you (i.e. the average Cabber) see any of their books in the bestseller lists - or read anything by them yourself? They probably do trouble the charts on occasion, but are lost among all the next generation of dross fiction writers.

Quote from: Avril Lavigne on February 11, 2019, 12:18:38 AM
I've mentioned her before but a girl who has been in a relationship with a friend of mine for a little over a year just has no interest in or knowledge of music in general, and refuses to watch films or TV shows that came out before she was 10 (about 2004 or something) because none of them look or feel realistic enough to her.  She really enjoyed the Ghostbusters remake but said she turned the original off after 5 minutes because she 'didn't understand it'.  Hated Back To The Future as well.

In some ways that's always been standard for young kids- when I was around 10 in the mid 80s you wouldn't even consider listening to a record from the seventies, Star Wars was year zero as far as films were concerned (anything black and white being an immediate no-no) and the swinging sixties seemed as historically remote as the Regency period. By the age of 16/17, however, your critical faculties tend to have broadened a bit. To still be thinking that way at 25 is a little grim.

Quote from: icehaven on February 11, 2019, 08:51:59 AM
This is quite depressing given one of the best things about the internet making most films and music so easily available regardless of age, is how many younger people now watch and listen to stuff decades older than they are without even thinking or caring too much about how old it is. Not everyone will agree this is a good thing but the apparent huge popularity of Friends among teenagers (mostly due to it being on Netflix) is one example.

Sadly I think that was more prevalent in the good ('00s) internet era- it wasn't uncommon to find 15 year olds downloading and enjoying the entire back catalogues of Devo or Joni Mitchell or Neu! or whoever because the notion of all history being up for grabs was an exciting new novelty in itself. Now it's just become a fact of life, so we're back to kids mostly living in the present.

Oh, except for Fleetwood Mac (and Friends) of course.

grassbath

Quote from: bim sherman shirts on February 11, 2019, 12:11:16 PM
Sadly I think that was more prevalent in the good ('00s) internet era- it wasn't uncommon to find 15 year olds downloading and enjoying the entire back catalogues of Devo or Joni Mitchell or Neu! or whoever because the notion of all history being up for grabs was an exciting new novelty in itself. Now it's just become a fact of life, so we're back to kids mostly living in the present.

Nah, I dunno about this. As long as kids are still interested in music (which they are) and music is still infinitely discoverable and downloadable on the Internet (which it is), I think there will be teenagers using the resource to get their fix of interesting artists from history.

Jockice

Cue my anecdote about a young lady from work telling me she was into Cream. Bloody hell, liking Eric Clapton at that age etc. Turned out that (wait for it) it wasn't actually that Cream!!!!!!

grassbath

Quote from: Nowhere Man on February 11, 2019, 09:08:48 AM
Because of how Americanised the internet/social media tends to be, I've found that many of the younger UK lot are more likely to be aware/following whatever's happening culturally in the US i.e Kardashians, Ariana Grande ect. but if you talked to them about say, Peter Cook or Brass Eye they often wouldn't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Is the Internet 'americanised' though? Seems a bit of a sweeping statement, doesn't it just depend on where you're looking? I know you're only using these as examples but Ariana Grande has a single out every 5 minutes and for better or worse the Kardashians are some of.the most media-covered people in the world. Brass Eye last aired in 2001 and Peter Cook has been dead for over 20 years and could probably be last classed a major celebrity figure in the mid 70s.

Quote from: grassbath on February 11, 2019, 12:54:50 PM
Nah, I dunno about this. As long as kids are still interested in music (which they are) and music is still infinitely discoverable and downloadable on the Internet (which it is), I think there will be teenagers using the resource to get their fix of interesting artists from history.

There'll definitely be a few outliers, but I'm just not sure the impetus to investigate the past is there to the same degree- music certainly has more of a background role now, after at least a decade of being downgraded to the status of 'content' by our silicon valley overlords for their exciting new platforms.

The initial downloading revolution happened at a time when music still largely had a central role in teenagers' lives- seeing Franz Ferdinand, the White Stripes etc on telly regularly encouraged a substantial amount of new listeners to seek out the original post-punk stuff like Gang Of Four, Wire etc or 60s Nuggets type garage they were influenced by. I'm not sure that happens to the same extent now- despite the hip hop influence on so much current pop music, even someone as recently popular as Dizzee Rascal is seen as a "really old and really bad rapper" (as mentioned by a poster earlier in this thread).

Captain Z

Not even having heard of the likes of Michael Jackson is a bit weird, but I have no problem with younger folk being more interested in current music than stuff before their time. Part of the problem with modern music may be that actually too many people are obsessed with older stuff, thus there are fewer emerging scenes or genres for the current decade to be associated with.

Quote from: Captain Z on February 11, 2019, 01:20:19 PM
Not even having heard of the likes of Michael Jackson is a bit weird, but I have no problem with younger folk being more interested in current music than stuff before their time. Part of the problem with modern music may be that actually too many people are obsessed with older stuff, thus there are fewer emerging scenes or genres for the current decade to be associated with.

I tend to agree. Many of the 'new' acts I hear on 6 Music (which I doubt has many listeners under 25) sound like they're creaking under the weight of history.