He’s been putting out some singles I guess but not albums. The news I see mostly now is about how he owned a minority interest in the Nets. Was instrumental in moving them to Brooklyn. Then sold his share to become a sports agent. He now has some very big named talent signed. Thats from memory. See I’m not a fan of his and in fact I hate the genre but I read the news a lot and I’m pretty aware of the world around me.
Like this?
Yes, that’s what I’ve been saying all along. I believe that being well-informed about US news requires one to at least have some general awareness of current events as covered by respectable mainstream US news sources. I gather that you believe it means only paying attention to news stories that have familiar names in the headlines and remaining totally ignorant of everything else. I have to say I think my definition is a bit closer to the standard usage of the term.
Funny - a Journey album in the top 100 makes me lose my faith in humanity.
Jay-Z is on the cover in order to sell magazines. Be honest: exactly how many of the other 99 “most influential” names on Time’s list do you recognize? Personally, I only recognize six of the 20 names on the cover (including Jay-Z), and around 35 of the 100. I don’t think you can consider recognition of names on that list as a touchstone for being “well-informed.”
I personally try to be “well-informed” in that sense. I do follow entertainment news to a certain extent, even of performers that I have little or no interest in. I did read the stories about Cuba stories in the Miami Herald, but mainly because I am interested in Cuba. But I don’t concede that someone is not well informed if they are informed about politics, science, economics, and other major topics but unaware of pop culture figures.
I one of those people who don’t follow celebrity news, and I’m certainly not rich or white. I won’t comment on entitled or elitist, as those are matters of opinion.
.
Define willfully ignorant please. I don’t know who Beyonce is married to because I don’t care for her music and so see no reason to read an article about her. But even if I did care for her music, I probably wouldn’t know whom she was married to, because I don’t read People or watch TMZ. Time spent doing that is time I could spend playing with the baby, or reading an Iain Banks novel, or walking through the Old Forest at Overton Park.
I love Adele, Bonnie Raitt, Seal, and Christina Aguilera, but I couldn’t tell you if any of those are married either.
How is my life edified or enriched by finding out about Beyonce’s private life, or the life of any celebrity? I find the topic boring, and it’s certainly not going to help me be a better father, husband, or boss; nor will it make me any money.
And I’m not ignorant of Beyonce’s life. I’m UNINFORMED of Beyonce’s life. There’s a difference.
For myself, I’m pretty familiar with many contemporary music acts, but haven’t a clue who Jay-Z is, other than some name in a musical genre that I don’t pay attention to. Back pre-internet, everyone who read a magazine would know who Michael Jackson was even if they didn’t know his music in detail, but the only people who would know who REM were would be those in their niche media environment (college alternative, Spin magazine).
I’m tuned heavily into pop culture, but by necessity I have to tune my blinders to filter out the media noise that I have no interest in (tween Bieber music, boy bands, R&B, country, daytime soaps, Jersey Shore) and resultantly know nothing about those other than a name that I skim over. Media is so fragmented now that to compare Jay-Z on a cultural awareness level as Elvis is absurd.
The judging panel on The Voice is a great example. All of them music superstars, who I’d never have been able to identify any song of theirs, and out of curiosity You-tubed some songs of theirs wondering why I hadn’t heard of them. None of their music appealed to me, genres that aren’t in my interest, so I had apparantly already filtered them out of my pop culture awareness.
Well-said.
Another question. Do read every single news story? If not, how do you determine which stories you read and which you do not? If a story is on a subject you have no interest in, do you read it anyway just because it is headlined?
Most days I read all or most stories in the Miami Herald main section, and at least skim the business news, sports, and special sections. But I think most people are more selective than I am.
This is just wrong. What makes you thing EVERYONE liked the Beatles back then? Yes, the world is bigger, but it’s also flatter and far more well-connected. Even though there are far more entertainment options, it’s much easier to remain loosely connected to popular culture and general trends than ever before. Just look at how Facebook as enabled people to have “closer” ties to far more people, and how iTunes allows you to not only know what other people are listening to, but also to sample it yourself.
Learning about the Beatles in the sixties might have meant a trip to a record store. Learning about Jay-Z now only requires a two-second google search, or a cursory look at any number of sites where you can hear basically every song he ever wrote. Your conclusion just doesn’t hold.
Dude, you apparently pay about as close attention to popular culture as you do to the posts you are reading. I don’t think it’s necessary to know who Beyonce or anyone else is married to. I thought I made that clear when I said:
[QUOTE=Me]
Let me clear, I am not talking about trivia like who is married to whom. I am talking about have no idea who two (or three if you include Prince) of the more popular and influential musicians of the last 25 years are. Particularly when they both have put out albums recently, are constantly in the news, hang out with the current president of the US, and are utilized by some of the world’s biggest companies for advertisements. To me that is not just ignorance by happenstance; it’s actively deciding that certain things and people are not worth knowing about or researching despite the fact that said things are influencing the world around you with your without your appreciation and/or understanding.
[/QUOTE]
So no, if you choose to not spend time remembering who has a new album, or who beat up whom, so be it. What I am talking about it being proud of the fact that you don’t know who two or three of the most visible and influential people in the US today are. If you don’t fall into that category, then the comment is not aimed at you.
It might. Certainly being able to relate to and converse with the average person will help. I don’t know anything about you, but the fact is that not knowing or not caring anything about people the younger generation revere will certainly make it harder to connect with the average kid.
That’s what I think you are missing. There is a reason why culture is important. Yes, not knowing who wrote Macbeth, or who Michael Jordan played for, or what the Superbowl is will likely not kill you; but it does mean you are divorcing yourself from the reality most people are living in. It makes the community weaker. Different interests are fine, but when it comes at the expense of a common basis of understanding amongst countrymen, we are all worse off.
That’s why we educate kids the way we do. How much of what you learn over the course of your life is directly applicable to your financial and general well-being? Very little. Most of it is taught to socialize us, and allow us to better relate to others. It’s taught to help us understand the world and our place in it. Pop culture is in many respects a distilled version of that. It helps us understand the direction our world is heading. And that heading is not gonna be determined by Iain Banks, but rather folks like Jay-Z, Garth Brooks, and Beyonce. Their relative value in your eyes has no effect on the impact they will have. Ignoring them primarily affects you.
Not really. They are synonyms. More importantly, I find it very hard to believe you are actually “uninformed” seeing as the media takes great efforts to INFORM nearly everyone about them and basic details about their lives. You may not know these things, but to act as if it’s not a conscious choice (particularly in the case of J&B) is grasping at straws.
Total lack of awareness of all pop culture figures is such a large gap in a person’s knowledge of current events that I would not describe them as well-informed about the news. Well-informed about certain types of news perhaps, but not the news in general. You also described your friends as being unwilling to read a news story if it had a name they didn’t recognize in the headline. That’s not just skipping the entertainment section, that’s avoiding anything outside one’s familiar little bubble.
No, but I’ve already said that I don’t consider myself to be particularly well-informed about the news. Still, I possess some recollection of recent headlines that I have seen even if I didn’t care enough about the subject to continue on to the story, and when I keep seeing an unfamiliar name in the headlines I take a moment to find out who on Earth that is. I don’t just think “I’ve never heard of this person before, so he or she can’t possibly be of any importance and there’s no point learning more.” If that were my attitude I’d have missed out on news of far greater significance than what Beyonce is up to these days.
See? SEE?
Twenty years from now, those crazy kids will be saying, ‘The Foo-Faws have beat out Jay Z and Beyonce combined for the most #1 albums ever!’ and the Jay Z and Beyonce fans will be going, Foo-Faws? Really? Huh. I think I saw a picture of them on a magazine cover…
OK, have it your way. It’s a conscious choice. So what?
I stay uninformed about them because I couldn’t give a shit about them, their “music,” their “lives,” or their impact on the great unwashed. Pop culture is just that - “pop.”
[QUOTE=Lamia]
and when I keep seeing an unfamiliar name in the headlines I take a moment to find out who on Earth that is. I don’t just think “I’ve never heard of this person before, so he or she can’t possibly be of any importance and there’s no point learning more.”
[/QUOTE]
So? At one time I heard their names, ascertained that they were popular musicians, and as such could be ignored completely. That they are “popular” means nothing to me. I don’t listen to pop music, I actively loathe hip hop, and tabloid fodder is just that - food for domestic animals.
Again, your assessment of what constitutes a significant part of the news differs from mine (and theirs). Pop culture may make up a large part of your world, but it doesn’t for everyone. Given that my friends work in places like remote parts of the Congo, Brazil, and Madagascar, I also don’t think they can be characterized as “sticking to their own familiar bubble.” As I said before, I think their general knowledge of the world and current events is greater than most people who do know who Beyonce is. Knowing who she is doesn’t make someone well informed, nor does not knowing make someone uninformed.
Where are you making this about generations? As I wrote upthread I love Adele, who, I believe, is a considerably later entry to the pop culture scene than Ms. Knowles. The fact that I don’t like Beyonce has nothing to do with her youth. Hell, age-wise I’m a better match with her than with Bonnie Raitt or Adele.
Oh, good grief. Knowledge of a pop singer’s personal life is not part of one’s education, or at least I hope it’s not. I have plenty of friends, and we have tons of conversations without my needing to know whom some singer I don’t like is married to. (And yes, I know that I don’t like Beyonce’s music because I’ve actually listened to enough of it to have a reasonable sample.)
In what way is Jay-Z going to influence the direction of the world? Is he working to cure prostate cancer? Trying to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict? Planning to assassinate Kim Jong-Un? Or is he simply an entertainer?
I don’t demand that you like Iain Banks or JRR Tolkien or John Donne or Stephen Sondheim. I don’t think the fact that I like those makes me superior to persons who don’t. It just makes me different. And what you are describing is an attempt to force conformity, not t
Uninformed and ignorant have similar denotations, but different connotations. It was the latter I was referring to. “Uninformed” is neutral; “ignorant” is insulting. (The positive sense is probably “innocent.”) Calling someone ignorant it implies that the subject matter is something valuable, important,or expected. I don’t believe knowledge of Beyonce’s husband is valuable or important, and I deny that it’s something that anyone should be expected to have.
It’s one thing to encourage kids to get exposure to a wide range of experiences. Quite another for old folks like me. I honestly don’t see the need to care.they will have the impact they have, with our without my awareness of it.
He might not be curing cancer but he does have a personal (but probably not close) relationship with the current president. That’s a bit more than your typical one hit wonder. But I don’t know why you are taking up the banner. You obviously know about him and his wife. You chose not to look deeper into it. But you are not sticking your nose in the air and sniffing “never heard of him, some sort of jester is he?” It’s the people who wear their ignorance of anything like a badge of honor that are annoying.
Actually I’d never heard of Jay-Z before this thread–or, if I had, I’d never troubled myself to take note of this thread; when I clicked the spoiler box in the OP, the name meant absolutely nothing to me. But you’re right; I don’t think that makes me superior to those who know of him.
But I have a question, and it’s not meant sarcastically. Why should I care with whom Barack Obama has personal (as opposed to political) relationships with? Is Jay-Z influencing policy or something, or is he just some guy whose music Barry O likes?
Yeah, my faith in humanity is trying to kill itself with beer.
Ok, but you glossed over the first part of that post that was far more important, so I’ll repeat it in reference to this. What have you gained by knowing a particular set of facts about this man? I don’t care about basketball. I know plenty about news, but it’s on subjects that make a difference to me. How Jay-Z entertains himself isn’t worthwhile news in my world, and you haven’t provided any reason for me to change that.
I will be proudly ignorant on this subject. I am not wasting my time learning details of Jay-Z’s life. I knew he was a popular performer whose work I wasn’t that fond of, that’s plenty, thanks. I generally don’t want to know this kind of information about musicians I do like, much less ones I don’t. It’s generally useless fluff as far as information goes. More information about him isn’t convincing me that he’s more important than that.