I think it happened to me in 1989.
I think you folks only mean “particular elements of pop culture”.
I’ve been oblivious to most new music groups for ages – to the vast majority of them, in fact, back when most people my age were very heavily into them. But I’m still into many popular authors. I’m nowhere near as much into TV as I used to be, but I’m familiar with the most popular shows. I’m a movie freak. I still read some comic books. The Dope Board helps keep me up on internet trends.
I’m not even remotely hip, and never have been (and I’ve never known what the current slang for “hip” has been), but I can’t honestly say that I disregard Pop Culture.
I’m 30 and still hip to the new stuff, but I’ll admit that I work damned hard at it and I tend to dismiss a lot more stuff than I used to, much like **An Arky ** said… Being a Snooty Music Jerk was easy when you’re 15. Not so much anymore.
I lasted a little longer, I think Nirvana - Godsmack era was when the unwinding of my pop-rock culture occurred. I do have a 16 year old son who keeps me up to date on the latest shizzle though, so I’m not lost yet.
I’m 27. I think I’ve been out of it since 23.
I’m 26. I’m already there. If I don’t have an actual interest in it, I know nothing about it. I couldn’t care less about American Idol, Survivor, Lost or whatever else is the TV phenomenon du jour. And I’ve never cared about celebrities or pop music.
I’m 46 (and childess) and I still follow a lot of new music (we seem to be defining pop culture in musical terms). Ironically, I’ve occasionally found myself having to explain who some new group is to a co-worker who’s ten years younger than me.
My pop music knowledge spans 1980 -1989 (my teen years) for the most part. Anything outside of that range, and I may be able to name the bigger songs and acts only (e.g., Pearl Jam), but that’s about it.
I grew very much attached to New Wave (whatever that means), but by 1988, R&B, rap, and hair metal were moving up the charts, and I kept wondering where my music was. I kept waiting around for New Wave music, but it was getting more difficult to find. I was irritated at Whitney Houston, Bel Biv Devoe, Poison, Cinderella, Run DMC, and The Fat Boys for clogging up the charts with their crap.
By the early 90s, grunge and country had also grown, and I was still wondering why nobody was putting out any good New Wave. I kept waiting and waiting without realizing New Wave was dead.
I would think to myself in the early 90s that music sucks these days, and I paid little attention to the music scene.
Now that I understand New Wave died, I can go back and appreciate 90s music on its own merits without thinking of it as simply “not New Wave.” However, I had almost completely checked out of the music scene by perhaps 1991.
By 1996-ish, I had to write an email to my music-loving friend to let him know I had checked out of the music scene and asked for recommendations of good albums I had missed. I went back and got a bit more familiar with Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, Mad Season, and whatnot, but trying to get back into the music scene retroactiovely was not helping much. It’s just not the same as appreciating music when it’s fresh.
Now, I am only vaguely familiar with some post-1989 and current stuff. I also listen to 80s stuff almost exclusively. My concert attendance over the past few years has included Duran Duran (three times), Depeche Mode, The Fixx (twice), Psychedelic Furs, and The Alarm. My wife has taken me to see Coldplay a couple of times, too.
I recently had a little impromptu contest with some friends. One of us had some 80s mix CDs and he would play a song. The first one to name the artist got a point. I enjoyed kicking some serious ass in that contest, being able to name most of them in the first couple notes. I think everyone else quit playing once I was able to pull out “Wall of Voodoo.” If that had been anything but an 80s contest, I would have been dead in the water.
Now, I have come to terms with the fact that I am pretty much “stuck in the 80s.” I don’t ignore new stuff, but I don’t follow it either. Oh well.
I can tell you exactly the moment it happened. When my wife gave birth to twins.
When our daughter was born, we tried to be hip young parents. We’d throw the kid in a car seat and head off to the big city for a long weekend, blah, blah.
But once the second pregnancy came along, those days were over, and when that pregnancy turned out to be more than we expected, any attempts to be hip were totally doomed.
True, as the infants turned into kids, then teenagers, then young adults, I’ve had more exposure to contemporary culture. But do I care anymore? Not one damn bit.
My dad turned 70 last year. One of his favorite bands is The White Stripes. A few weeks back, I took him to see Iron Man at the local theater, and he loved it. I’ve also got him hooked on Futurama and Firefly. So I think there’s still hope for me yet.
I think it just shifts: oldsters couldn’t give a damn who’s come out with the popular $16 CD, but stampede to get the $800 granite countertop.
Oh, me too.
Two years ago we were watching TV really late and one of those awful mail-order CD commercials came on. We scoffed. Then we heard “our” music…then we were sad.
We bought three.
When my pre-teen brother wants to listen to music on the radio, I desperately resist the urge to say, “Oh, that stuff sucks, here’s some real music!”
Ha! I’m 22, and I’m out of touch with the vast majority of pop culture references. You durned kids had best git offa mah lawn b’fore I call the cops on ya! shakes can feebly
Thankfully, that won’t happen to the music from 2000 onwards with the fragmentation of the musical scene.
At least I hope it won’t, or if my grandkids give me a Best of the 2000’s CD on it with Britney Spears and Nickelback on it, I won’t know whether to look at it bemusedly or throw it at them.
The last popular TV show I followed was ER in 1995-96 (at age 28, now 40); the last popular(ish) music a few years before that.
Happened to me at 15…
Honestly don’t give a rats ass what music, television shows, actors, etc, are popular and never have. I very rarely watch television, and then it’s almost always a movie and not a show or a series. Most of the music I listen to is current bands, but obscure enough to make Radiohead seem mainstream. So I haven’t been inside an actual music store since before Bill Clinton was president.
Can’t get enough of those 80’s power ballads eh? Whatever happened to Night Ranger anyway?
With the exception that I never did go back to trying to listen to the early 90s music I could have written the above. Hell, I was just listening to Wall of Voodoo the other day.
My pop culture tastes started forming in the mid-late 80s and went backwards so my interest stills lies in '76 to '91 and starting dying off in the early 90s and I can only name 5% of so or artists, actors etc. of the last decade. I’m 35 now so I actually stopped paying attention in my early 20s. I think for most folks they probably start to ignore current pop culture in their late 20s.
I haven’t paid attention to what’s in heavy rotation on top 40 radio stations since I was a teen (1980s). The music I like has never been considered mainstream anyway, but without digital cable music channels or streaming Internet music options available to me for my music choices at the time, I had to settle for what was played on the radio or on MTV and I knew what was popular, whether or not I wanted to know it. Most of the time I listened to the classic rock stations, which back then didn’t include any of the heavy metal acts of the 80s that are now considered to be within the realm of classic rock. Once the 1990s hit we finally got a decent alternative rock station in our area, so this allowed me to keep up to date with the latest rock acts out there without having to settle for pop crap on the FM band. With the abundance of music choices available to me now I can listen to what I like without having to rely soley on my CD or MP3 collection.
As for TV, I’ve never watched a lot of mainstream TV shows, so even if I were 15 today and like the 15-year-old I was in 1985 I’d probably still have no clue what’s going on with American Idol or Survivor. I do follow a select handful of current shows such as South Park and always have, but most of what I watch is on Discovery or TruTV (formerly Court TV).
I know which movies are current and I read up about them on this board and on other resources, and if it looks good and I got the time and money I’ll go see it. I’m 38 and I’ve pretty much held these habits with regards to my pop culture radar and I don’t expect this to change within the next 10 or even 20 years.
Heh, I’m 30 and it happened to me at about 25, but of course for years I was too cool for school and all the bands I listened to were too underground for you!! Now, I’m not even in touch with that.
Heh, I’m 30 and it happened to me at about 25, but of course for years I was too cool for school and all the bands I listened to were too underground for you!! Now, I’m not even in touch with that.