I have never read any of Tolkien’s books, nor do I really know or care what they are about. I have, at least HEARD of them, though. I do know for a fact that I have several friends that would very likely give me blank stares if I asked them about Tolkien or Lord of the Rings.
DEAL with it! Some of us have no culture, and we know it. In fact, we are proud of it.
Actually, I lifted that almost word-for-word from an episode of “Third Rock From the Sun”. 
And Rosebud, I’ll bet of all the 6 billion people on the planet, 5 billion have never heard of Star Wars, the Beatles, or the Lord of the Rings.
As I said in Esprix’s thread, I’m bisexual. It is possible, affer all, to be neither gay nor straight:)
Getting back to the OP: I’d be willing to bet the majority of Sub-Saharan Africa has never heard of TLOTR. Probably there are more people who haven’t heard of it than who have.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Lizard *
**
Third rock from the what?
Wow punha, from what you said, it kinda looked to me you were saying you were gay. I mean afterall i’ve never heard any bi or straight man claim ANY of the Victoria’s secret models were “too skinny”. I hardly think Tyra Banks is skinny at all.
I’ve read the Hitchhiker’s Guide.
Laetitia Casta is the most beautiful woman in the world.
But I’ve never read the bible. I guess i’m the ignorant fuck after all.
Woohoo! Kilgore Trout is gonna be [so happy to hear this!
What I find amazing is that most people don’t know that Leornard Nimoy put out a song about Bilbo Baggins.
[Leonard Nimoy]
Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins
He stands only 3 feet tall.
Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins
Greatest little hobbit of them all!
[/Leonard Nimoy]
Oh, agreed, but I’m talking about people who grew up in areas/eras where the examples I mentioned where truly hard to miss. Granted LOTR, as a set of books, would be easier to bypass than the others, but my boss, for instance, was living and going to grad school in New York City in the mid-60s. I can’t figure out how she managed to miss the Beatles entirely.
And speaking for myself, there are plenty of elements of pop culture I wish I didn’t know about, but do 
For instance, I’ve never heard that “Who Let the Dogs Out” song in its entirety, but people talk about it so damn much I’m painfully aware of its existance, right down to who sings it (the Baja Men, right?).
But like I tried to imply in my previous post, I don’t think lack of familiarity with otherwise well-known things is a sign of ignorance. If anything it’s a chance to introduce a friend/loved one to a new thing; I can’t even tell you how many times my BF has shown me movies I’d never seen (though according to him I should have!), and I’ve ended up loving them.
Wow. I feel like an idiot. I had no clue iampunha was bi. Huh.
See Thief, you learn things every day.
And, ironically enough, that brings me back to my point- do you want to learn things in a day or be laughed at?
And more important still, how do you want to learn?
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be friends with the person who would educate me, rather than laugh at me and call me stupid.
I once lived next door to a schoolteacher who had three kids, the oldest being 12. We were talking one day, and I asked if she liked Calvin and Hobbes. This was in 1990; Calvin was ubiquitous, even sqeezing out the Far Side in popularity. I described a few of the situations, like C&H forming Get Rid Of Slimy girlS so they could exclude Susie. She said, “No, I’m not familiar with that. What time does it come on?”
I was floored. Now, my astonishment was not at the fact that she didn’t read C&H (probably didn’t have time to read the daily funnies), but that she didn’t know that it was a comic strip. None of her kids read it? She’d never had a kid bring one of the collections to school? She never went in a bookstore and saw a collection on display? Maybe she just didn’t recognize anything that didn’t have toys spun off from it.