After reading a lot of the music, television, and movie threads sprinkled throughout these boards, I have come to the conclusion that I, at age 45, am completely out of touch with pop culture.
I remember my dad, in the 70s, being totally afflicted with the same ailment. Oh sure, he loved music, movies and references from his time, but couldn’t give a damn about the newfangled music groups or actors, although he embraced “Laugh-In.”
It will happen to you, as it has happened to me. I don’t know, nor do I care, who most of the popular musicians and actors happen to be at this time. And I’m very, very comfortable with that.
Forty five here too (shortly 46). Don’t give a fuck about most popular culture. Was never really into it before, but now it’s a deliberate DON’T CARE thing.
Yep, old (65) codger here who began losing interest in pop culture way back when I was in my forties.
Umm, new band? What are they called? Eucharistic Chicken Fat; that’s nice. Sound just like a zillion other bands. Yawnn. Whozat on the cover of People? Who? Never heard of her. She stars in what? Is that a movie or a TV show? She’s married to who? Am I supposed to get excited about that? Yawwnnn.
Depending on how you define “pop culture” I’m definitely there already. I couldn’t care less about Survivor, American Idol, The Amazing Race (hell, “reality TV” in general), any celebrity’s personal life, almost all recent music, etc etc.
Isn’t ‘pop culture’ a little broad, much like ‘pop music’? Pop culture, to me, includes indie movies, emerging visual artists and novelists, fashion, TV, etc… doubt I’ll ever tire of them.
My mother’s sixty.* I recently sent her the new Radiohead album. Said she, “But how did you know I like Radiohead?” :rolleyes: Dunno, Mum, I didn’t think they were indie enough for your tastes, actually.
I can’t keep up with her. Oh well, that means she sends me good stuff too. I never would have listened to Ryuichi Sakamoto if not for her. I hope I never lose that interest in what’s shiny new and amazing in the realm of popular culture.
*Not that sixty is particularly ancient. Just a little under twice as old as I am, as a frame of reference for how long I hope to be hep to the scene.
Now that I’m back in College - and the only student close to 50 in my program - actually, the only student over 25 in my program(!), I realize just how little I care about the pop culture “the kids” talk about.
I recently worked with someone who is the lead singer in a band that is listed as one of the top bands to watch according to the BBC and CBC Radio 3 and New Music Express (or somewhere or other… I’m too old to care, really) - and decided to read their reviews… It seems the band got compared to Radiohead in every write-up… I guess that’s a good thing, but since I don’t know Radiohead, maybe it’s a bad thing…
When I was sitting around talking with the lead singer, I told him that I was really impressed that they were being called the next Radiohead, even though I didn’t know who that was…
(And to be honest, I actually liked one of their songs enough to buy it on iTunes… but not enough to actually listen to Radiohead…)
It’s starting to creep in on me, but not exactly in the form I thought it would. I think a lot of music today is a ripoff, because you’ve got these people who look like Rancid, but sound like Air Supply, for one thing. The other thing is, that, once you’ve seen a couple of cycles of pop culture, you realize that there is indeed nothing new under the sun and it’s not worth getting excited about.
My dad still lives in the pop culture of the years 1965-1975. Myself, I mostly lost touch with most things around 1998, which coincides with the last time I owned a TV. New bands? Well, there’s a bunch of those rappers and zippers and chavs or whatever about, right? Well, it’s all just bloody noise anyway.
Bit of pop culture I couldn’t care less about (mainly celebrities, reality TV, in fact a lot of TV) and what’s in the top ten best selling book list doesn’t influence what I read. Music however I like a lot and I follow a lot of the “In new music we trust” shows on Radio 1 which is a great font of gold in that respect and I like films too.
Does that mean I’m out of touch with pop culture, or just bits of it? One foot in, one foot out so to speak.
I started getting out of touch with music when I was 28 and now at 34 I’d consider myself completely out of touch with what is popular at the moment, be it mainstream or alternative.
But I still consider myself in touch with films and tv, although my tastes have changed.
In many ways, I feel my disconnection with music started with working full time - I just don’t have the time to listen to music like I did when I was a student.
I lost interest in music almost ten years ago. But I still like new movies coming out and new drama series on TV. As for celebs, I only follow those featured on my favourite satirical fashion site. .
TV-shows, I don’t follow so much. Perhaps I’m doing myself a disservice with that; yesterday my husband made me watch some recent show, and to my surprise it actually WAS young and fresh, and different from what I knew, instead of, as the Dutch saying goes, “old wine in new bags”.
I am usually kind of aware of pop culture entities and events that are passing me by. Perhaps not to the point of recognising them on sight, but at least knowing of their existence.
Except occasionally something will appear and I’ll look blankly at it not having a single clue what or who it may be, and yet everyone else seems to have been talking about them solidly for the past five years. And I think to myself - how can I have completely missed something so significant in so many people’s lives?
I can’t figure out how that can happen. Or how often it happens.
I certainly disregard pop culture, in that I don’t take into account the popularity of stuff when liking it or not, no matter if it’s popular or not. A sampling of the bands I go to and dance in the front rows to are Heart, Manchester Orchestra, and Coheed and Cambria. This disregarding is somewhat intentional, as I avoid pop music stations as they usually only play at most 1 listenable song per hour.
But sometimes it bites me in the ass. Just from the name and the pictures of the bands My Chemical Romance and Panic[del]![/del] at the Disco I could tell they are probably bands I would like, but my rational self told me “hey emotional self! Just cause these bands look good doesn’t mean you should go to their concerts even though they’re in a really small venue! They might not play the type of music you like! Don’t be influenced by marketing, just try to listen to some of their music objectively first.” Of course, I happen to hear their stuff after their tours pass and now they’re some of my favorite non-broken-up bands :rolleyes:.
