# Have you met someone who didn't know a really well-known pop or historical reference?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 22, 2013, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658 "2013-03-22T17:57:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/41 "2013-03-22T21:37:30Z")
I’ve mentioned this one in similar threads. It shocked me.
Within about a week of the 2008 election we were standing around at work at the end of the day. Sarah Palin was in town for a quick campaign stop and one of the women mentioned it. This other lady, about 30-35, asked who that was. She was not joking! Absolutely no idea.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/42 "2013-03-22T21:48:38Z")
> [@Ponch8](#):
>
> Initially I was surprised whenever someone told me they’ve never heard of my favorite pop culture topic, Ke$ha. Then I started noticing a pattern: childless people my age (36) and younger generally do know who she is. People who are older than me and/or have kids generally don’t. It’s just one more reason I’m glad I don’t have kids. 🙂
My awareness of pop culture dipped dramatically when I had children. Then about four years after that I became aware of things on Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. About eight years after that I started becoming aware things happening in music again. Still, there’s a period of more than a decade when I didn’t know what anything was.
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### Author:  [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/43 "2013-03-22T21:54:34Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#):
>
> Others have already commented but Yosemite Sam. Bugs Bunny. That you are laughing at a person from another culture not knowing these characters when you don’t know their actual names is what makes your post sound like a joke.
Fair enough, but I wasn’t laughing at nobody. And in my defence, my first Google reference for Yosemite Sam came up as Yo Sammity Sam. And the Buggs thing is completely my fault. Please, excuse my ignorance.
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/44 "2013-03-22T22:05:31Z")
I have made some good money selling stuff I found lying around in the quarry.
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### Author:  [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/45 "2013-03-22T22:11:06Z")
> [@Procrustus](#):
>
> I have never read or watched _Lord of the Rings_, and would not get any reference to “second breakfast.”
I just have to point out, Tolkien did not invent the concept of second-breakfast. Hobbit culture was modeled on various aspects of real rural European cultures, and that’s one such.
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### Author:  [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/46 "2013-03-22T22:39:25Z")
Years ago, my friend and I were laughing about [this jokey trailer of The Shining](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0) when our coworker said “That looks really good, I want to see that!”
Not only hadn’t she seen The Shining (no crime), but she hadn’t even heard of it.
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### Author:  [@Ella\_Megalast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ella_Megalast)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/47 "2013-03-22T23:59:15Z")
The woman I sit next to at work (in her 30s) had never heard of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) until yesterday. That surprised me. But I don’t know how unusual that really is.
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### Author:  [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/48 "2013-03-23T00:10:49Z")
My housemate apparently has never heard of ‘Chicken Little’ (or the UK variant name ‘Chicken Licken’).
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### Author:  [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/49 "2013-03-23T00:30:16Z")
> [@kunilou](#):
>
> My awareness of pop culture dipped dramatically when I had children. Then about four years after that I became aware of things on Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. About eight years after that I started becoming aware things happening in music again. Still, there’s a period of more than a decade when I didn’t know what anything was.
Yeah, my son is three, and I’m just getting into the second stage now. I know a lot of stuff on NickJr and similar channels; not much else from current pop culture.
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### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/50 "2013-03-23T00:37:31Z")
Yo Sammity Sam? :eek:
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### Author:  [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/51 "2013-03-23T00:46:46Z")
My desire to be an educator arises from a conversation a couple years ago with my then 14 year old nephew. He had no idea what the Holocaust was. His parents are bible-thumpin’ Pentecostals, and have no interest in anything that doesn’t directly relate to Christianity or the bible. It was up to me, apparently, to fight his ignorance. That was an akward conversation.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/52 "2013-03-23T00:47:55Z")
A few years back, my dad was surprised to learn that U2 was still touring, despite their lead singer’s recent death in a skiing accident.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/53 "2013-03-23T00:54:18Z")
> [@Honey](#):
>
> I met a girl once who was totally amazed that Paul McCartney had been in a group before Wings.
Didn’t they have people throwing a lot of stuff on top of them? 😃
I heard a lady in a record store ask, “Is this the same George Harrison who is in the Beatles?” Do you know more than one?
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### Author:  [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/54 "2013-03-23T01:09:43Z")
We were having lunch at a Red Robin in Tempe last month, and the waitress recommended one of their special milkshakes.
The specials menu listed it at $5, so my wife immediately went into Pulp Fiction mode, quoting Travolta’s line.
Blank stare, but to be fair, the girl was probably around 20. I just ended up recommending the movie to her. God knows there’s plenty of time in the PHX area to watch movies, after all. 🙂
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/55 "2013-03-23T01:16:07Z")
I’ve never seen _Pulp Fiction_\* either and often miss those references, though have absorbed a few of them accidentally.
On an unrelated note - **Coldfire**! Holy crap! Don’t see you around these parts often.
\*_And have no interest in ever seeing it or any other Tarantino movie, thanks very much._
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/56 "2013-03-23T01:37:15Z")
> [@cher3](#):
>
> I was listening to a call-in radio show this morning and the caller was very excited because her kid got to go on a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia with her high school class.
>
> The radio show host, who is about 60, joked that he and his colleague almost got to go on a field trip to Vietnam back when they were younger. I don’t think the caller got the reference.
I wonder if anyone will get the reference to a certain Dead Kennedy’s song if I were to drop it in here.
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### Author:  [@Ms.Pumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms.Pumpkin)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/57 "2013-03-23T02:34:10Z")
I recently brought “The Princess Bride” to work to lend to a couple people who kept giving me blank stares when I quoted lines.
A friend told me he was going to Reno. I asked him if he was planning on shooting someone just to watch him die. A lame joke, I admit. The horrified look on his face…!
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/58 "2013-03-23T02:37:34Z")
I’ve related before about the young saleswoman at Sears who had absolutely no idea what Velcro was. I thought she was trying to be funny. I even made that teaaarrring noise for her. Nothing. By the time it was over, I was nearly apoplectic and she still had no clue.
A guy in the Navy introduced me to his new girlfriend. He told her that we had been in Japan together and that we both hated earthquakes. Her response: “What’s an earthquake?” I watched in disbelief as he explained it to her. Next day I walked up to him and said “What’s an earthquake? Really?” He was a bit sheepish, but said “Yeah, she’s pretty dumb, but wild in the sack.”
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### Author:  [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/59 "2013-03-23T03:00:28Z")
Last night I saw [this](http://veryhilarious.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/wizard-of-oz-dorothy-i-miss-kansas.jpg) and laughed aloud. My other half asked what I was laughing at so I showed him. He didn’t get it. I said “‘Africa’ is by Toto”. He said “I don’t know what that is”. I put the [song](https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDAQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DaCca5mPMp9A&ei=vBlNUeuEL4-iiAezz4CoDg&usg=AFQjCNEcJmOWO4Z4ZWfpeFR-sPHRRlXGvw&sig2=hS3sd8Q0ty62KV-LAg9W4A) on. He didn’t know it.
I swear he grew up on another planet.
Also, thanks for the correction you were going to post but we all know already that the lyric is a mondegreen and it’s “bless”, not “miss”. That’s not really relevant to the story.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/60 "2013-03-23T03:27:21Z")
I don’t listen to any current music. Whatever. I miss out on ALL SORTS of current references.
But…I am catching up on my Thackeray!
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