# Have you met someone who didn't know a really well-known pop or historical reference?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:** 4
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/61 "2013-03-23T03:41:06Z")
I’ll admit this one on myself. I don’t have kids. Back when the Barney the Dinosaur craze was huge, I had sort of heard of it but had no idea what it was. So I asked a friend, who I knew had kids, to explain it to me.
When I told him I had never seen the show and knew nothing about it, the first thing he said was “You are so lucky.”
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### Author:  [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/62 "2013-03-23T03:44:02Z")
> [@Ms.Pumpkin](#):
>
> 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…!
I made the SAME lame joke to my boss the other day. He was just back from from Reno and I asked if he had shot a man just to watch him die. He was like 😕
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/63 "2013-03-23T03:54:19Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> I’m often the guy who doesn’t get pop culture references. I don’t follow sports, for instance, so references to sports figures either go over my head or completely unnoticed as a reference. Like reality show memes.
Ditto.
And most non-country music of the last forty years.
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### Author:  [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/64 "2013-03-23T04:23:48Z")
On a football weekend at Ga Tech a friend fixed me up with his Girlfriend’s sister for a game against Auburn and then a party afterwards.
She was marveling at the tailgating and all the people. Making small-talk, I said something like “We are not in Kansas anymore”. She told me in no uncertain terms that she is from Carrollton Ga, and never been to Kansas before.
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### Author:  [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/65 "2013-03-23T04:55:44Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> But…I am catching up on my Thackeray!
Is he on Downton Abbey?
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/66 "2013-03-23T04:57:46Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#):
>
> Bon Jovi, wasn’t he in Van Halen or something?
the movie or the play?
I got thoroughly reamed on this board for not knowing the group “The Smiths” even though I recognized the song “How Soon is Now”. there seems to be an infinite number of musicians I can’t name.
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### Author:  [@CatherineZeta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatherineZeta)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/67 "2013-03-23T05:07:42Z")
> [@Magiver](#):
>
> I got thoroughly reamed on this board for not knowing the group “The Smiths” even though I recognized the song “How Soon is Now”. there seems to be an infinite number of musicians I can’t name.
That’s funny. As soon as I saw this thread I was going to post about how my entire family- parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents- have never heard of The Smiths or Morrissey. I’m a huge Morrissey fan, that’s how it’s come up in conversations with them.
I once got into a strange argument with a friend who didn’t believe me that “I Wear My Sunglasses At Night” was by Corey Hart, not by Corey Feldman, and she was convinced that Corey Feldman’s dead when in fact it was Corey Haim who died. In her defense, I can understand getting confused by all the Coreys, the main issue was that she didn’t believe me when I was trying to tell her who was who.
I mentioned Ike Turner to my grandma and she told me she, “couldn’t keep up with all these new, young artists.” This was circa 2008.
One of my co-workers has never heard of The Killers. He’s a 20 year old indie kid, you’d think he would have come across them at some point.
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### Author:  [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/68 "2013-03-23T05:21:34Z")
Up until some point late last year, I had no idea that the Washington Redskins were from D.C. and not the state of Washington (even though I should have reasoned this out on my own knowing that Washington is not nearly a big enough state to warrant having 2 NFL teams).
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### Author:  [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/69 "2013-03-23T05:31:30Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#):
>
> I wonder if anyone will get the reference to a certain Dead Kennedy’s song if I were to drop it in here.
I would 😃
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### Author:  [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/70 "2013-03-23T05:45:56Z")
I think I’ve mentioned somewhere that I was having lunch with a middle aged, ostensibly graduate-level educated dude, and I mentioned that I had just finished reading Slaughterhouse Five. (Blank look.) OK, you know, Kurt Vonnegut? (Continued blank look, with a tinge of increasing suspicion.) Not having read Vonnegut I can understand, but having never heard of him at all? Strange. And the guy now thinks I’m into some kind of gory slaughterhouse themed fiction, to boot.
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/71 "2013-03-23T05:49:37Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> In the '90s, I knew someone who thought Sting sounded kinda like that guy from the Police.
In the '90s, I had no idea the WCW World Heavyweight Champion had been in a rock band.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/72 "2013-03-23T06:15:31Z")
I met a middle-aged (late-50-ish) female person a few years ago whose knowledge of the world is apparently derived solely from the supermarket tabloids. In conversation once I happened to mention something about the Cold War, and she knew nothing about it.
Myself, I have never had a TV in my adult life, and never regretted it. And I don’t listen to music much. So I am, like, near-totally lame on pop references, except for the occasional things I pick up from message boards where ignorance is fought.
> [@Shakes](#):
>
> One time I had a layover in some airport (Can’t remember which) I’m sitting at a table with some lady I don’t know. Playing on the TV is Buggs Bunny and Yo Sammity Sam. This lady couldn’t stop laughing to save her life. At one point she asked me if I knew who that was. (I told her) [. . .]
At an airport layover once, I saw a TV playing a cartoon show that was all Pink Panther cartoons. That was fun watching.
> [@Filbert](#):
>
> My housemate apparently has never heard of ‘Chicken Little’ (or the UK variant name ‘Chicken Licken’).
Now, I really wonder what happened with this one. The correct name is certainly Chicken Licken (along with her friends Foxy Loxy, Goosey Loosey, Henny Penny, etc.), but the name has somehow morphed into Chicken Little. How did that happen?
> [@Leaffan](#):
>
> Yo Sammity Sam? :eek:
No, not I.
> [@Green\_Bean](#):
>
> I made the SAME lame joke to my boss the other day. He was just back from from Reno and I asked if he had shot a man just to watch him die. He was like 😕
Here’s a story I heard from Johnny Cash himself, when I saw him play at a county fair in Paso Robles: He tells of a fan who approached him and asked: Hey, if you shot a man in Reno, whatcha doing in _San Quentin?_
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/73 "2013-03-23T06:21:50Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> Now, I really wonder what happened with this one. The correct name is certainly Chicken Licken (along with her friends Foxy Loxy, Goosey Loosey, Henny Penny, etc.), but the name has somehow morphed into Chicken Little. How did that happen?
Actually, come to think of it, I think there are two distinct stories being scrambled together here in many peoples’ minds, mine included.
There was one story about a Little Female Chicken of Reddish Hue who had to make bread all by herself because nobody wanted to help, so when it was all done, she ate it all herself.
And there was a separate story about a little juvenile chicken who got dripped on and then ran through the streets, Archimedes-like, yelling The Sky Is Falling!
So now, I have no idea really which of the other characters appeared in which of these stories. So much for MY knowledge of pop culture!
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/74 "2013-03-23T07:36:54Z")
> [@CatherineZeta](#):
>
> I once got into a strange argument with a friend who didn’t believe me that “I Wear My Sunglasses At Night” was by Corey Hart, not by Corey Feldman, and she was convinced that Corey Feldman’s dead when in fact it was Corey Haim who died. In her defense, I can understand getting confused by all the Coreys, the main issue was that she didn’t believe me when I was trying to tell her who was who.
It’s a good thing you weren’t discussing baseball or the name of a certain Milwaukee Brewers player might have turned the conversation into “Who’s on first?” 😃
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### Author:  [@diggerwam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggerwam)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/75 "2013-03-23T11:50:12Z")
My elderly retired for 15 years mother knew nothing of the Simpsons. Only the longest running show on TV. Figured she would have stumbled accross it at some point.
I had somebody say “Get errrr dun”. I had no idea why they said that phrase in such a manner.
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### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/76 "2013-03-23T12:24:45Z")
My profound lack of interest in professional sports is widely enough known amongst my friends and colleagues that they’ll pre-emptively add the information in now when they mention players. 😃
I’ve run into more than one first-world adult person who’s never seen _Star Wars_, and I once worked with someone who’d never seen any of the Indiana Jones films. Vaguely knew there was a guy with a whip and a hat in them, and something about treasure, but otherwise nothing.
The good thing about my friends and colleagues is that none of them are hipsters so they’re not into obscure bands whose music will never even manage an EP on iTunes, but at a previous job I was definitely The Guy Who Didn’t Know Anything About Contemporary Music, apparently.
I also seem to encounter a lot of people who say they’re “Gamers” but are completely unfamiliar with things like the _Grand Theft Auto_ series, the _Fallout/Elder Scrolls_ series, _Doom/Quake_, _Bioshock_, the _Civilisation_ or _Command & Conquer_ series, any of the _Total War_ games - because it turns out their definition of “Being a gamer” is playing Bejewelled or Plants vs Zombies a lot, or _maybe_ stretching to _World of Warcraft_.
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### Author:  [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/77 "2013-03-23T13:48:55Z")
> [@interface2x](#):
>
> 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.
I’d never heard about it until just now. Nor half the stuff mentioned in thi thread.
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### Author:  [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/78 "2013-03-23T13:51:16Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> Actually, come to think of it, I think there are two distinct stories being scrambled together here in many peoples’ minds, mine included.
>
> There was one story about a Little Female Chicken of Reddish Hue who had to make bread all by herself because nobody wanted to help, so when it was all done, she ate it all herself.
>
> And there was a separate story about a little juvenile chicken who got dripped on and then ran through the streets, Archimedes-like, yelling The Sky Is Falling!
The first story is [_The Little Red Hen_](http://www.enchantedlearning.com/stories/fairytale/littleredhen/story/), in which the characters are referred to descriptively (The lazy dog, the sleepy cat, the noisy yellow duck).
The second is [_Chicken Little_](http://eleaston.com/chicken.html), in which the characters generally have rhyming names (Henny Penny, Foxy Loxy). Although Henny Penny is a separate character in the linked version of the tale, she is apparently the title fowl in [some tellings](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Little), as is Chicken Licken. A scholarly study of the evolution from the apparently original “Licken” to “Little” does not appear to have been made. More’s the pity.
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/79 "2013-03-23T13:57:10Z")
> [@Procrustus](#):
>
> I have never read or watched _Lord of the Rings_, and would not get any reference to “second breakfast.” But, I’m probably as old as your parents.
>
> I did meet a guy in college who didn’t know who won the American Revolution. But, that’s not really pop culture.
Sometimes it doesn’t pay to answer a question with a question, as I found out when my college roommate asked:
“Who did we fight in the Revolutionary War?”
“Well, what language do we speak?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything!?!?”
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/80 "2013-03-23T14:19:14Z")
> [@Leaffan](#):
>
> I haven’t read or watched any of The Lord of the Rings movies.
>
> I have no idea what’s on TV these days.
>
> It gets very easy past a certain age to not give a shit about pop culture any more.
Same here.
I haven’t watched TV in 15 years. This includes reality shows, talent shows, and cable TV shows/series. I have never watched, for example, American Idol, Survivor, Grey’s Anatomy, Walking Dead, Mad Men, The Big Bang Theory, NCIS, Jersey Shore, House M.D., etc. I mean, literally \*nothing \*in 15 years.
Lord of the Rings? Hobbit? Have never watched them or read the books. Totally clueless.
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