I waited for @Spice_Weasel to answer first, but I have a possible answer, too. I only know Olivia Munn’s name because I watched her on Attack of the Show and the Daily Show. Sure, she’s been in more famous stuff now since she’s been in Marvel movies, but I wouldn’t have known her name from that, as no one I know talks about her like they do other Marvel stars. And none of the rest her filmography stands out to me.
So if I weren’t the type of person who watched those two shows, (or didn’t watch the Daily Show during her brief stint), I could see myself not knowing who she was. I actually don’t know the names of most actors these days. Standup, on the other hand, requires me to know the comedian’s name to find more stuff.
Plus I’ve seen a whole lot more John Mulaney memes, using quotes from his standup.
Yeah, if you’re not a musician, a relatively famous computer scientist, a race car driver or a hockey player; I’m probably going to have to google your name to know who you are. Also, I kind of have face blindness. I used to mistake tons of actors for Raul Julia (it actually became a joke around my house). If you change your haircut and I meet you in a different context than I had before, I’m probably going to act like this is the first time we’ve met until I figure out it isn’t.
That reminds me: when Rodgers recently announced his engagement to Shailene Woodley, Katie Nolan had a semi-facetious “debate” about who was more famous, between Woodley and Rodgers, on her Sports? podcast. IIRC, they decided that which one you thought was more famous was likely informed by how into sports (read: American football) a person was.
That’s kinda funny. I’ve really enjoyed Mulaney’s stuff and have watched lots of it. I’ve heard Munn’s name, but couldn’t name anything about her last week, and now all I know about her is from this thread.
Different interests. I know who Zaretta Hammond and Lloyd Alexander and Dave Arneson are, but couldn’t name two hockey players or five quarterbacks if my life depended on it.
Heh. I’m only familiar with the name of Zaretta Hammond because of a handful of Black intellectuals I follow on Twitter. You could have told me that the other two were the names of fictional characters.
As far as hockey players, I can give you Radko Gudas (The Butcher!), because they interviewed him on LeBatard’s podcast last week, and PK Subban. Other than that, I got nothing. I actually loathe American football, but I watch a lot of sports talk “debate” shows, so I find myself absorbing a lot about the sport, via osmosis: I could probably name five quarterbacks, but I wouldn’t be happy about it.
Everyone has different interests and different pop culture blind spots. Or are completely blind to pop culture. That doesn’t mean that some people aren’t objectively more popular or famous than others. I know who all of the Kardashians are despite the fact that I haven’t watched 30 seconds of any show they have been involved in. They even try to use math to measure it with Q scores. I don’t have access to the marketing company that calculates Q scores but I would bet her score is higher than his. Since I’ve watched everyone of Mulaney’s stand up specials he’s more popular with me but I think in general she is more famous.
But that doesn’t change the fact that no matter how famous you are, there’s still a giant threshold between “currently famous for certain people right now” and “actually, durably famous”. Really, one should never be surprised that someone hasn’t heard of a celebrity that you personally are familiar with, or even a historical figure you are familiar with. We all live on the same planet, but we live in different worlds.
Of course, I live in a world where I can’t believe people don’t know who Dan Gurney and A.J. Foyt are. But I’m not surprised, because I know that fame is fleeting, at best. Everyone mentioned in this thread probably has more name recognition in modern western culture than Gavrilo Princip, but he’s probably more important.
Surprisingly I know who A.J. Foyt is (loosely) based on remembering him from the interminable car races me and my step-brothers used to watch on the Wide World of Sports as little kids, hoping to see crashes (basically the only reason we ever watched auto races).
But I couldn’t have told you who Dan Gurney was before I googled him if you had held a gun to my head - he had stopped racing before we were old enough to have been watching WWoS. Probably wouldn’t have remembered him anyway - I remember exactly zero of Foyt’s contemporaries. As a geek A.J. Foyt probably sounded close enough to A.E. van Vogt to form a linkage in my brain. That plus the ‘orange coyote’ = Wile E. Coyote cartoon connection .
Now people who don’t know who Wile E. Coyote is are the real freaks .
I only know who Olivia Munn is because I used to watch the cable channel G4 back in the day and she was on a few shows back then. I vaguely remember her from The Daily Show but I don’t remember her at all in Iron Man or X-Men: Apocalypse. I know who John Mulaney is because I’ve seen him on SNL.
Olivia Munn is from New Girl and also Chuck. John Mulaney does stand up, writes for all the sit-coms, had his very own terrible sit-com and who I just found out is having a lot of personal problems that I hope work out for him. That he and Olivia Munn date is a little strange but no where near as strange as when I found out Jimmy “JJ” Walker and Ann Coulter dated.
Olivia Munn was also on the Aaron Sorkin show The Newsroom. She played the female presenter, rather than the English producer, or the bulbous headed underling, which were the three female roles. That’s where I knew her from.
I remember Olivia from the occasional Attack of the Show episodes I’d run across while surfing. I saw her on The Newsroom, and I remember she was on The Daily Show briefly, but I didn’t know why it was brief. Why was there a backlash?
I first learned of John when he was the SNL writer that made Bill Hadar break during the Stefon sketches. I googled him, and followed him ever since.
John Mulaney is famous to me because his name and picture were flashed at me every time I visited Netflix for several years. If I scrolled for 30 seconds I would see him, along with Bill Burr, Jim Gaffigan, Kevin Hart, etc.
Usually I visit Netflix a couple of times a day, so even before I’d heard Mulaney speak, I knew the names of several of his specials, Kid Gorgeous, New in Town, The Comeback Kid.
I don’t watch many comedy specials, so I suspect that most Netflix viewers saw similar menus. Eventually I watched The Comeback Kid, hoping Mulaney might be one of those comedians who specialize in burning hecklers.
And Mulaney appeared on Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, which, to me, makes him a known commodity.
I’ve known of Mulaney for years because I am a fan of stand-up comedy, so I’ve seen all of the Netflix work. I watched the one-season series he had with Martin Short, mostly because one of his co-stars was the brother of my daughter’s college roommate. I’ve also seen The Sack Lunch Bunch, which is a load of self-indulgent ironic crap (don’t bother, really).
Olivia Munn? It appears that I have seen things that she is in, but she never distinguished herself to me beyond “generic hot actress”. It is interesting that she has worked within the comedy eco-sphere (Daily Show, etc.), but that work never left an impression on me. It seems that one of her talents is dating well?
And when I hear Mulaney’s name, I think of the horse/hospital thing first and foremost.
What the what now? Please tell me that’s a joke. I’m still recovering from the recent discovery that Gavin Newsom and Kimberly Guilfoyle used to be married.
.
.