Curious about this particular metric, the Reddit Beatles group has 369k members (53 on-line at the moment) and the Reddit KotH group has 379k users (100 on-line at the moment).
Cite?
But of course this works both ways. If someone wants to have a semi-serious question answered, as opposed to ranting (where it would ideally be in the Pit and no one would likely care) it would be equally the work of two seconds for the OP (in the case of the spawning thread, @MW_Degen_Gamblr) to include a link to the character or show.
For me, I’ve heard of King of the Hill, and probably watched 5-10 minutes of a couple of episodes while someone else was channel flipping, or waiting for something else to come on, but found the characters grating, and yes, especially the voices! But obviously I wasn’t the target, so no harm, no foul.
But I didn’t associate the name with the show, because I didn’t know enough about the show to make the connection, and yes I googled it. But, in terms of time wasted, figure if even a dozen of us had to blow our 2 seconds doing so, plus a good bit more for reading enough to get context and maybe even listen to a clip, then the OP of the originating thread wasted a lot more time in aggregate than if the OP had spent the time to link a clip.
Low stakes either way, just pointing out the two sided nature of the complaint.
Token “Fuck it!” for the sake of the Pit. 
For certain definitions of “wildly popular.”
It had its best ratings in its second season (1997-98), when it was ranked #15 in the Nielsen ratings, with an average audience of 16.3 million viewers (cite). In the rest of its seasons during its original run, it averaged more like 6 to 9 million viewers.
That certainly made it a fairly popular TV show, but even in its peak season, when there were 276 million people in the U.S., it was still only being watched by about 6% of Americans.
Modern shows would kill for those numbers.
Yup; even the most popular shows in the U.S. are still only being watched by less than 10% of Americans, and most of them by less than 5%.
Just as a reminder to all of us that even “wildly popular” TV shows, movies, etc. are still only really seen by a small minority of us, so don’t f***ing assume that we all know what you’re talking about.
[Bolding mine]
Once upon a time, I was in extremely interested in pointing out to posters that it’s not effective communication to post initialisms that most people aren’t likely to know. I still believe that, of course, because it just makes sense to not post acronyms, pop-culture references, foreign words, etc., that most folks don’t know.
Back then, even as seemingly 75% of the Board was calling for my head, a good number of folks still agreed with my main point but took issue with me for attempting to “teach people” not to post so confusingly and jerkishly. I thought then, and still think, it’s important to point these things out to people so they see where they went sideways and might possibly improve their posts in the future. I’m heartened to see @LSLGuy advance a similar philosophy.
Basically, think before you post. Don’t expect people to have the same life experiences you have. There are initialisms and pop-culture references that 99.99% of Dopers are going to know. E.g. “USA” and “The Beatles”. Use these with impunity! There are others where one can be sure they’ll not be recognized by almost anybody. E.g. “YYDHGH” and “The Sneetch-Cuntz”. DO NOT post these without explaining what you’re on about.
But there’s always going to be a grey area in between. In that case, why not just be a nice person and explain what you mean?
And that touches on the question if this is a message board where you can ask esoteric questions understood by a very few and get esoteric answers known by a very few, or a casual chat amongst a few dozen people where everything is required to be understandable to everybody. I stand by my assertion (made in a seperate pit thread I started) that if you don’t understand the question then the question wasn’t for you and you have nothing useful to contribute.
That’s not how that works.
I am an expert on IT matters, particularly desktop and network support issues. But if you ask a vague question, I’m probably going to be unable to figure out what you’re asking me. If you use an acronym that might have a half dozen potential definitions, I might not be able to know what your actual question is.
Being esoteric, especially when you’re starting a thread, is being lazy. And as someone who has helped people for a living as a professional for decades, I can tell you that I might be able to help you if you don’t ask shitty questions.
If nobody can understand your question, then nobody will have something useful to contribute. So where does that leave you?
@LSLGuy previously posted that he watches very little TV. He’s not the only one here in that boat. My TV gets turned on to commercial broadcasting maybe once every couple of months (though very frequently during the NHL playoffs!). Low content quality and incessant commercials eventually tire one out.
I happen to know the show because it’s old and I watched more TV back then, but name any current “wildly popular” TV show and chances are that I’ve never even heard of it, let alone know anything about it. Don’t assume that everyone and their dog is in exactly the same cultural milieu as yourself.
My TV is mostly used for watching sports and news. Very rarely is there a show that captures my attention such that I watch it weekly. Mostly, anything else are movies that I have DVR’d or have on DVD.
I do know “King of the Hill,” and I know who Boomhauer is, but that’s only because my TV choices were a lot more restricted back in the day. Oh, I had video cassettes and 57 channels, but video cassettes were clumsy, and of the 57 channels, only three to six had anything worth watching at any given time. “King of the Hill” was a fallback; something to have on when there was nothing else that interested me.
That being said, I see nothing wrong with a little explanation for those who may be unfamiliar with the reference. I well remember, maybe 20 years ago, a post that referred to “Chandler Bing,” and assumed we all knew who he was. That led me to ask, “Who or what is ‘Chandler Bing’?” Turned out that he was a character on “Friends.” Same for Boomhauer: “He’s a character on ‘King of the Hill’ who mumbles, and who nobody can understand.” A bit of description helps, and it’s just as easy as I demonstrated.
But I come here to learn new things. If I don’t understand the question, how will I understand the answer?
Neither have I.
I think it is a song by The Beatles.
No, that’s The King on the Hill.
mmm
No, that’s King of the Road, and it’s by Roger Miller, not the Beatles.
Roger Miller. Now there is someone cooler than the Beatles.
mmm
Never watched more than 5 mins of KoTH, and woulda had no idea who Boomhauer was. But didn’t read the thread in question either.
If you find a reference obscure, is it preferable to ask the writer for an explanation, or to provide the explanation yourself, perhaps with a parenthetical (for those, like me, who did not understand the reference)? Which is more helpful? Less dickish? Which better advances communication?
I had one recently where I started a thread asking if you have “ever had your house TPed?” In the Chicago suburbs where I’ve lived the past 35-40 years, there is a practice by some of festooning houses with toilet paper - either as a prank, or as a sign of respect/inclusion among sports teams or other groups. This was NEVER done in my part of Chicago when I was a kid, so I have no idea if this is a recent or suburban development. I’ve never heard it called anything other than TPing, and I’ve (not terribly frequently) heard folk refer to toilet paper as TP, so TP didn’t strike me as needing to be defined.
The first response I received was asking if my thread title asking if you had “had your house TPed” referred to some Transportation Pressure whatever. Sure, if you google “TPed”, that is what you get. But if you google “house TPed”…
I’m not singling out that poster - don’t even recall who it was. But I’m not sure that their response was really in furtherance of some noble cause of improving communication.
As others have said, we each have our own experiences, and differ in what we consider common knowledge or obscure. When writing a post, it can be challenging to figure out how much you need to explain. Each post need not be a heavily footnoted law review article. (Need I explain what a law review article is, and the practice of footnoting therein?) Speaking personally, I think my suggestion of responding with, “I didn’t know who Boomhauer was, so I looked it up” - with or without a link - is the pleasanter response. Of course, I’ve been accused of being less-than-pleasant in the past. So demand or provide a cite however you prefer at the moment, and I’m sure these forums will go on.
That is just about exactly my situation. And my attitude towards the OP’s choices. I had no idea who Boomhuaer was other than clearly a public figure that that OP @MW_Degen_Gamblr expected everyone to know of. A politician, a sports commentator, a famous YouTuber? The idea it was a cartoon character was about possibility number 40.
As to this thread’s OP’s (and @Dinsdale’s just above) quite reasonable suggestions that if I had to look it up I ought to either skip the thread or at least say so and provide a cite …
Yup, I do that a lot. Just not that time.
As to @MW_Degen_Gamblr’s reasonable points here, I’ll just comment that the average Doper is now in their mid 60s or 70s. What we think of as our pop culture is 20 or 30 years before what you think of as your pop culture. IOW, most of us are about your parents’ age.
So when providing anything about pop culture, or nostalgia, or history, or … it’s helpful to understand your audience is generally not in quite the same place you are.
One last point …
After almost 22 years here, and over 56K posts, I’ve finally gotten myself pitted. Thank you @Snarky_Kong; I was wondering if I’d ever earn that particular badge.
Good on ya’ … you bastard.
My wife teaches at a community college. She regularly struggles with appropriate references for her students. She teaches business law and previously used Jean Luc Picard for the “reasonable man” standard. Then she used Jon Stewart. Not sure who she uses now, or if she really tries.
She used to hae the students list what shows they watched or where they went on-line, just so she could TRY to find common ground. I recall one year we tried to watch South Park… These days, it seems the students’ interests/habits are. so diverse that it is quite challenging to come up with any common references.
I share your surprise that it has taken so long, you goat felcher you!