# Examples of actual knowledge disseminated by pop culture? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 12, 2006, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384 "2006-08-12T01:45:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/1 "2006-08-12T01:45:47Z")
My job occasionally requires me to publically handle reptiles. For several years I routinely helped to present an educational display featuring a family of leopard geckos. Maybe one in three hundred people knew what they were; other guesses ranged from ‘salamander’ to ‘baby alligator’ (!) Then, all of a sudden, everybody recognized them. The reason, of course, was the mascot featured in the Geico TV commercials. Of course, afterwards everybody thought it was hilariously original to ask if they could save money on car insurance, so this phenomenon kind of cut both ways. The other day a similar thing occurred. Sometimes I have to carry snakes around, and since a lot of people are kind of jumpy if you approach them holding a snake, I try to give folks a heads-up when I move about. ‘Snake coming through!’ I’ll holler out, and other such phrases. Since the purpose of this shouting is to get people to notice my approach rather than to communicate any sort of meaningful information, I vary the actual content largely for my own amusement. One of the things I’ll yell is, “Ophidiophobes be warned!” For years this has never garnered anything other than blank looks, but the other day I noticed people smiling and laughing in recognition. It appears that the reason for this is the advertising for the upcoming movie **Snakes on a Plane** , in which the term for phobia of snakes is mentioned. So the movie evidently does have at least some marginal educational value. I know movies and TV are notorious for perpetuating incorrect information, but what are other instances where a previously obscure fact suddenly becomes common knowledge? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/2 "2006-08-12T02:46:01Z")
when I was in high school, we had to take a course called “Problems of Democracy.” The class was pretty much worthless. One assignment we had was each of us had to get up in front of the class and recite the Preamble to the Constitution. All of us could do it beautifully because we all knew Schoolhouse Rock. We just had to remember to add an “of the United States” to the first line. Oh, and not to sing. But since Schoolhouse Rock was designed to teach, it probably doesn’t fit your OP. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/3 "2006-08-12T03:05:35Z")
According to Billy Joel, history teachers were telling their classes to use _We Didn’t Start the Fire_ to study with. “Forget the textbook, just buy the Billy Joel record and you’ll pass the test.” --Billy Joel paraphrasing letters from teachers ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/4 "2006-08-12T03:12:46Z")
There used to be this TV series based on a series of books called “The Straight Dope” that I heard was killer as far as disseminating knowledge, almost as good as “Ripley’s Bleive It or Not,” but it didn’t last long. ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/5 "2006-08-12T03:13:50Z")
I know several people who learned The Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner because of the Iron Maiden song. That count? ---
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/6 "2006-08-12T03:29:20Z")
When I applied to get on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” a couple of months ago, one of the questions was “What is a quahog?” There’s no way in hell I would have known that if it weren’t for _Family Guy_. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/7 "2006-08-12T03:29:22Z")
Another from the animal kingdom, I feel like meerkats were suddenly popping up everywhere after there was a meerkat character in Disney’s _The Lion King_. I don’t think this was an animal that the average person would have recognized prior to that. Not _common_ knowledge by a long shot, but I know tons of people in my demographic (that would be people who spent their high school years wearing a lot of black, being dramatic, and languishing away in the cultural void of the suburbs in the 80s) who read _The Stranger_ by Albert Camus because it is referenced in a song by The Cure. “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” by They Might Be Giants helps _me_ remember which is the the present-day name of the city and which is the former name, and I suspect other people as well. (hijack) Dude, you carry snakes around at work! That’s crazy. Every time I see a person with a snake at the zoo or whatever, I think “hey, I like animals, I’m going to go see that snake.” Everything goes well until I get about two feet away from the snake, and then some other part of my brain takes over and I have a complete “Eek! Snake! It doesn’t have legs! Run, run for your life!” freak out. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/8 "2006-08-12T03:34:47Z")
> [@DooWahDiddy](#): > > When I applied to get on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” a couple of months ago, one of the questions was “What is a quahog?” There’s no way in hell I would have known that if it weren’t for _Family Guy_. 😛 Different generation. I know it from Rosie Perez in _“White Men Can’t Jump”._ ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/9 "2006-08-12T04:10:48Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > Another from the animal kingdom, I feel like meerkats were suddenly popping up everywhere after there was a meerkat character in Disney’s _The Lion King_. I don’t think this was an animal that the average person would have recognized prior to that. While we’re on the subject of Disney, I’m sure a lot more people now know what naked mole rats are thanks to _Kim Possible_. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/10 "2006-08-12T04:13:17Z")
> [@DooWahDiddy](#): > > When I applied to get on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” a couple of months ago, one of the questions was “What is a quahog?” There’s no way in hell I would have known that if it weren’t for _Family Guy_. 😛 Did they ever point it out on the show? If you were going with _Family Guy_ knowledge alone, the answer would probably be “The fictional Rhode Island town where _Family Guy_ takes place” rather than “a type of clam.” ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/11 "2006-08-12T04:14:29Z")
I didn’t know what the fear of spiders was called until **Arachnophobia** came out. > [@delphica](#): > > Another from the animal kingdom, I feel like meerkats were suddenly popping up everywhere after there was a meerkat character in Disney’s _The Lion King_. I don’t think this was an animal that the average person would have recognized prior to that. People who’ve never seen **The Lion King** but who watch indie movies would know what a meerkat is from **Junebug**. That’s not quite popular culture, but Amy Adams was nominated for an Oscar, so it’s not totally obscure. I came in here to mention the They Might Be Giants song but you beat me to it. I keep hoping Kate Bush’s song “Pi” from her newest album will be released as a single and get big. It would teach a bunch of people at least some of the numbers of Pi (yes, she sings a good many of the numbers in the song, and it’s quite beautiful and catchy too). But then, Kate’s songs are a fountain of tidbits that send fans to the dictionary and encyclopedia and elsewhere to learn more about words, literary references, film references and history references in her songs. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/12 "2006-08-12T04:24:21Z")
Do these count? [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uCKkX1_Iiw) [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXSHMSDrShE) ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/13 "2006-08-12T04:27:12Z")
::mouth full of cake with no milk in sight:: AARON BURR! Aaron Burr! ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/14 "2006-08-12T04:46:03Z")
Some fairly obscure rites in the Catholic church are well-known because of movie titles, like “The Exorcist” and “Bell, Book and Candle.” (Although the latter wasn’t actually about excommunication…) Prior to a cheesy 1973 movie, “The Clones,” the term “clone” wasn’t widely known outside of biology labs. Thanks to that kid from “Jerry Maguire,” more people today know what a human head weighs than used to. I learned about the perils of explosive decompression from “Goldfinger.” ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/15 "2006-08-12T04:59:11Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > I learned about the perils of explosive decompression from “Goldfinger.” Sorry, this one is not true, and has been disproved by the Mythbusters. From [Wikipedia:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldfinger_%28film%29) > [@](#): > > In a 2003 episode of Discovery Channel’s [MythBusters](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters), the mythbusters attempted to recreate a scene in several movies (including Goldfinger) in which a window in a jet at high altitude is punctured by a bullet, resulting in complete window blowout and a passenger sucked through the window hole by the force of the atmosphere. The popular idea that this was a realistic possibility almost certainly dates from the Goldfinger book and film (Bond in the film claims a .45 bullet fired at 35,000 feet will cause people to be sucked into “outer space”), and it had settled into the national consciousness enough to be mentioned as a possibility for window breakage in a jet, by the time of the 1970 film [Airport](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_%28film%29) (where a character tells the story of seeing this happen). > > MythBusters’ attempted recreation of the incident by over-pressurizing a commercial airliner sitting on the ground to a differential of 8 p.s.i. (the normal pressure difference between inside and outside a commercial airliner at cruising altitude), then firing a handgun at the window. They were unable to re-create any kind of window blowout or sudden cabin decompression, using a firearm (instead, a small hole merely appeared in the plastic). Even when explosives were used to blow a window out entirely, a dummy passenger near the window stayed in the cabin. A claim was later made by the MythBusters team in a [Skeptic Magazine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeptic_Magazine) interview, that the U.S. government had sought data from this particular segment, since federal agencies and their contractors had been seriously contemplating the exact same engineering tests, in conjunction with its armed sky-marshal program, after the events of [September 11th](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11%2C_2001_attacks). Fortunately, today’s airliner windows apparently do not behave in the same way as the window in the [Lockheed JetStar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_JetStar) used to represent a jet at 35,000 ft in the film. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/16 "2006-08-12T05:15:10Z")
> [@Bobotheoptimist](#): > > I know several people who learned The Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner because of the Iron Maiden song. > > That count? The myth of Icarus, too. ---
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/17 "2006-08-12T05:28:05Z")
> [@mobo85](#): > > Did they ever point it out on the show? If you were going with _Family Guy_ knowledge alone, the answer would probably be “The fictional Rhode Island town where _Family Guy_ takes place” rather than “a type of clam.” Well obviously that wasn’t a choice, but I think what did it is the fact that the bar they hang out in is called The Drunken Clam. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/18 "2006-08-12T05:51:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Some fairly obscure rites in the Catholic church are well-known because of movie titles, like “The Exorcist” and “Bell, Book and Candle.” (Although the latter wasn’t actually about excommunication…) No, of course not. It’s about driving spirits away from the entrance to Hades, so you can go get the crystal skull. …Right? While we’re at it, I can add the Monty Python song about “Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving and revolving at 1000 miles per hour”, etc. The speed (in MPH) at which the planet is revolving varies by where you are on the planet, but near the equator, 1000 MPH is indeed the right figure, and all of the other numbers in that song are correct, as well, to the precision given. Also the They Might Be Giants songs “Mammals” and “The Sun is a mass of incandescant gas” (the latter being quite popular in my department; we have a very large solar physics group). Also a few songs in similar veins from _The Animaniacs_, though I think those were deliberately meant to be educational. Apparently there are some sort of benefits to being able to describe a show as having educational value. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/19 "2006-08-12T13:14:23Z")
Jesus, you’re really the toast of Broadway And what a proper Superstar you look. A goldie oldie, a blast from the past. It’s great to see you’ve come back at last. And someday I just have to read the Book! –Tom Paxton’s “Jesus Christ SRO” Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell were partly responsible for the whole “Jesus Movement” of the 1970’s, which did get some young people to read the Book. And I’m sure millions of people wouldn’t know who Eva Peron was without “Evita.” ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384/20 "2006-08-12T15:10:56Z")
> [@Kat](#): > > According to Billy Joel, history teachers were telling their classes to use _We Didn’t Start the Fire_ to study with. > > “Forget the textbook, just buy the Billy Joel record and you’ll pass the test.” --Billy Joel paraphrasing letters from teachers Unfortunately, Billy’s track record on spreading information through pop music is spotty. In contrast to _We Didn’t Start The Fire_, his song _The Ballad of Billy The Kid_ is more or less completely made up factually: The Kid did not come “from a town known as Wheeling, West Virginia”, for example, nor “rob his way from Utah to Oklahoma”, starting with “a bank in Colorado” (he is thought to have been born in New York, and grew up and “worked” mostly in New Mexico, rustling cattle and not robbing trains/banks), nor is it true that he “always rode alone”, etc., etc. I read an interview once with Billy Joel where he described the song (which I love, by the way) as an exercise in “legend-making”, the idea that the essence of why we love the figure of a Billy The Kid character transcends mundanities such as, well, historical fact. He continues this playfulness by apparently referring to himself, another “Billy”, at the end (_From a town known as Oyster Bay, Long Island / Rode a boy with a six-pack in his hand…_), when in fact he was born in the Bronx and grew up in Levittown. OK, BJ, you had your fun, but I definitely walked around for years thinking I had learned something about Billy The Kid when I hadn’t!! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-actual-knowledge-disseminated-by-pop-culture/368384.md?page=2)