Until recently I didn’t know what he looked like. I still have never heard one of his songs. Not that I care.
So many things mentioned in this thread are given a lot of attention because they happen to have become the iconic examples of some larger idea, trend, prolonged “event,” culture, etc.
To me, it’s silly to fault the human desire to learn about at least one concrete, representative, bite-sized example of something. (Anne Frank is the example of this which cones to mind. Woodstock, mentioned above, too.)
If you’d rather argue that you know of some other example which would represent the larger thing better than the iconic example does, okay, fine, that would be more instructive (in my opinion).
The Titanic seems to fit this role least, so that strikes me as a truly overblown event with little illustrative value (some have promoted it as the epitome of late-Gilded-Age US hubris, soon to be dashed by the techno-slaughter of WWI. Okay, maybe, but that seems like after-the-fact narrative invention to me.)
American “Revolution” where a bunch of American aristocrats prevented the British from establishing an authority they had never really had before except in theory. A separate nation in North America was inevitable and once a sane government came to power they fell all over themselves giving the Americans whatever in order to disentangle themselves.
I suppose you’re joking, Frank.
JKelly, if anybody mentioned Anne Frank as an overrated historic event, I’d be agreeing with you, but I don’t think anybody did. As for Woodstock, what’s it represent? The importance of proper concert planning?
Well, I’m the one that mentioned Anne Frank for the first time in this thread. But you’re right – a bad example, since no one considers it a “historic event.” But like many things mentioned in this thread, it is the concrete example which for man people epitomizes something much larger – in this case, the Holocaust, of course.
Woodstock, for many, epitomizes hippies/late '60s “counterculture.” This is especially true when someone wants to emphasize the (arguably) positive aspects of that whole thing – “peace” and “love” and “good music” and all that jive.