I was playing a board game with a group of people yesterday. It involved giving clues so people could guess a word.
One of the words was decathlon and somebody used the clue Jenner. I figured out what I thought was the obvious connection and the person who used it obviously did. But everyone else in the group was confused; they all recognized the name Caitlyn Jenner but none of them understood why she would be associated with a decathlon. None of them were even aware that she had been an athlete early in her life (this was years before she transitioned).
Is this unusual? I’m assuming people my age know this but has Jenner’s early athletic career faded from popular memory?
It wouldn’t have been surprising if Jenner had totally disappeared from memory. If some young person told me they didn’t know who Nadia Comaneci or Mark Spitz was, I wouldn’t give it a second’s thought. But it just seemed strange to me that people could know that Jenner is famous without knowing how it is she became famous.
I know because I remember when it happened but I can see that a younger person might have come to know her from whatever TV show she was a regular on (was it that Kardashians show?). To them, that would be how she became famous.
I’m of a certain age, so I remember the 1976 Olympics. But see how many people remember that Jenner substituted for Erik Estrada in seven episodes of CHiPs.
What made Jenner (or Comaneci or Spitz) famous to people of our age was their performances in the Olympics in the 1970s. It was, specifically, “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” (which began running in 2007) which made Jenner famous once again, especially among people who were far too young to know much, if anything, about the 1976 Olympics.
It’s interesting that the Olympics don’t dominate television like they used to in the three channel era so you’re also not bombarded with older Olympic champions. Someone seeing the 84 or 88 Olympics was going to see Jenner highlights from 76. And, in that era, the other networks didn’t compete against the Olympics so you most likely were watching.
I know that Jenner was an athlete, but beyond that didn’t know it was decathlon. I would’ve guessed tennis, then maybe golf, and then after that had no freakin idea. Mid-forties, pretty terrible at celebrity and sports trivia.
I knew that she was an Olympic athlete, in something under the general umbrella of “track and field”, but I couldn’t have told you “decathalon” specifically.
And yeah, it seems odd that people would know that she’s famous without knowing why, but then again, everyone knows why Kim Kardashian is famous, and nobody knows why she is.
I had to actually stop and think, “Caitlyn? Is that the one who used to be Bruce?” I don’t follow the Jenners/Kardashians, but I was a teenager when Jenner won the Olympic decathlon so that (and the Wheaties box) is what’s indelibly stamped in my memory.
I knew she was in some sort of sports, but I cidnt remember it was the decathlon. And I didn’t know about her at all before her transition, though I might have guessed she was related to Kylie Jenner. At most I might have recognized the name as familiar from some other references.
Of course, I’m 36 and this wouldn’t have actually seen her in the Olympics or anything. I thought the Jenner’s were just friends with the Kardashians, who I did care enough a out to find they are all related to OJ’s lawyer.
I realize celebrities who were once quite famous can be forgotten. But I guess I figured that if a celebrity was currently famous, it would be enough for people to retroactively know their past.
Take Cardi B as an example. She wasn’t famous as a stripper. But once she became famous as a reality show star and a rapper, people who knew her from that also knew that she had been a stripper.
Yes, but she’s only 28, and she was a stripper within the past decade. All of that occurred within the personal knowledge timeframe of everyone over the age of 20 or so.
Jenner, on the other hand, initially became famous (and, she was, for a couple of years, really famous, at least in the U.S.) 45 years ago. Then, after a few years of TV appearances, she largely faded from view until the Kardashians’ TV show started, 14 years ago. Anyone under the age of 50 has no memory of Jenner being famous for being an athlete, and unless they are particularly interested in Olympic history, or 1970s celebrity culture, would have no good reason to know about Jenner’s decathlon victory; all that they would personally know about her “fame” would be from appearances on that show, and her role within the Kardashian/Jenner family.
My first exposure to Bruce Jenner was in the song Spam by Save Ferris -
“Spam
To get me to eat it at dinner,
They said id grow up like bruce jenner,
He was a winner that never knew defeat
And when he got hungry,
When he got hungry,
He’d crack open that special treat
Spam!”
When I was on the track team in college I learned more about great Olympians including Jenner. I didn’t know anything about the Kardashians except for the sex tape until my wife made me start watching the show in ~2016, shortly there after Bruce became Caitlyn so I would have been able to follow the chain.
I am old enough that I vaguely remember the 1976 Olympics and the cereal boxes. But if someone gave “Jenner” as a clue, I wouldn’t have come up with “decathlon” . I might have come up with “track” or “Olympics” and I wouldn’t have been surprised that he was associated with a decathlon - but to someone born in say 1990 who wasn’t particular interested in sports or Olympic trivia, his name would have been as unfamiliar as any other medalist but for his association with the Kardashians. I just looked up a list of medalists in the 1976 Summer Olympics - and aside from sports I had an interest in back then, the only name that was familiar was Greg Louganis. And that was because of events that happened way after the 1976 Olympics. The association with the Kardashians would have made Jenner famous even without any Olympic medals.