I work with these people. I can’t smoke or take a crap without reading something. If I’m sitting down for more than two minutes by myself, I have to read something.
As the signature says: an American flodnak in Oslo. If you’re foreign here, you hear foreign languages all around you, and always seem to be bumping into people who are from Someplace Else. One of my neighbors is British, another neighbor family is German, and so on. But most Norwegians who live here assume all the white faces are Norsk, and only the brown and black faces belong to foreigners. (Some of the brown faces belong to people who were born here and have lived here all their lives.)
I remember the good old days (2 years ago) when I had no idea what that was. As soon as I found out of its existance it seems like one out of five people I meet are somehow involved in it. I liked it better when I’d never heard of it.
Same goes for NLP and the whole David Deangelo how to get chicks thing. That’s another thing I’d never heard of til a couple of years ago but now it seems like it’s everywhere. I’d like the veil to go back up on that stuff too. There’s a whole teeming subculture of mostly guys in their 20s who practically believe in voodoo.
One other thing is the “cocreating reality” thing. I meet a lot of new age types at work and even though I don’t like new age stuff, it’s apparently a whole movement. In some circles, Deepak Chopra is a regular guru.
The people of the world are divided into two categories: those that understand that a joke is only a joke and everyone else.
I have to watch myself with people I never met before and who don’t understand how my straight-face sarcasm can be a joke. “I was just kidding” just does not seem to be a valid excuse for some people.
I don’t know how much on topic this really is, but this is what I thought of when I read the OP. That there is a world of people who can’t take jokes and I don’t really know how to be myself around them.
Message boards themselves are also divided. Most people who frequently post on message boards never imagine that obscure topics can be discussed at the level that they are discussed here.
Two things:
As someone else said, pregnancy. When I was pregnant, it seemed like every woman I knew was pregnant or trying to get pregnant. I saw pregnant women everywhere I went.
Now that I’m not pregnant, and pretty much past child-bearing years altogether, I simply don’t notice pregnant woman at all. One of my students dropped out of class in the middle of the quarter, and when I asked someone about it, they said it was probably because she was in her third trimester–I never noticed!
Other thing:
Using computers. I live and breath computers. I check e-mail several times a day, surf the web regularly, visit message boards. Most of the people I know do the same things on computers.
Then I meet someone who does not own a computer, and who does not know how to use one, and who really doesn’t feel left out. It’s like there’s a whole different subculture of non-computer users that I simply can’t see or understand.
Actually, that can apply to any sort of Geekery. There are SCA people who are just as weird as any ST/SW people.
Wonders if the SCA is going to come to his door now
Obscure sexual subcultures like furries and Goreans.
Not to mention the small segment of fandom that has taken cosplay to fetish levels.
BDSM. Even have their (our?) own symbol.
Online RPGs.
I don’t know that it’s nonexistent to the mainstream. It’s pretty well known there, at least the existence of it and the general idea of what it is.
There’s a lot in this thread that can be said for, but I do think BDSM is a good example of what I’m after in the OP (admittedly, somewhat of a nebulous, *ad hoc * thing). Furries is another good example.
(What are Goreans? 
Anything to do with the artist E. Gorey? :graspingatstraws: )
Star Trek/Star Wars is not a good example, though. Everyone – and I mean everyone – knows who Captain Kirk and Darth Vader are … even if only as icons.
Another: I think people who don’t read know at least what reading is, and that many people do it for recreation (even if it’s no one they know personally).
As opposed to Harry Potter?
Wine Making.
When people come over to the house and see six different wines being being created at the same time they become VERY interested. They are completely caught off guard when I show them the final product, looks like something off the store shelf. Lots of the folks in my family are used to the way my Grandpa made wine. One batch at a time and the bottles were stuffed with a cork and the labels were sharpie and masking tape.
But friends that stop over can’t believe that it’s as easy as I claim it is. I briefly go through the entire process (takes about 3 minutes) and show them the finished product. I can’t believe the law lets you make up to 100 gallons per year without a license. I have a hard time keeping up with 33 gallons at a time.
Valid point. Perhaps the OP should say “The pervasiveness of Harry Potter” instead of just “Harry Potter”.
Put it this way – the incident that happened to Sampiro (linked in the OP) blew my mind. Yes, everyone’s heard of Harry Potter by now (though I dare say that without the movies, this would not quite be true). But most people (ISTM) think of Harry Potter strictly as a popular book series for kids – maybe what Nancy Drew or Choose Your Own Adventures were in times past.
But few people live in a “world” where every breath of every person hangs on the adventures of one Harry Potter. A world in which everywhere you turn, everyone is talking, talking, talking about Harry Potter. A world in which you can go to a restaurant, or to the grocery, or to work, and some random anybody might well spoil the new book! You turn on the news, and the damn weatherman is – yep – going on and spoiling Harry Potter! (m**fer!). And that new billboard they put up on the interstate the day after Half-Blood Prince came out? The damn billboard has the pot twists of HBP laid bare for everyone to see! People get in ten-car pileups because they have to avert their eyes from the road, lest Harry Potter be spoiled for them.
Harry Potter.
Harry Potter!
Harry Potter!!
:eek:
:shrug: … and I don’t experience any of that, so I just wonder about it all. Harry Potter’s books and fanship aren’t nonexistant to me and most all peole I know. But the sheer pervasiveness of HP certainly doesn’t exist for me – it’s still very much a niche interest from my personal vantage point (but obviously not from other’s).
You only listen to Boy Bands anyway, so what the hell.
Yeah, you are right, but that doesn’t stop the fact that Hangin’ Tough was the best album EVAR!!!11111!!!
5K races. Both days of every weekend from spring to fall there is a race within 15 miles of my house. (Proof!) But because they move from small town to small town every weekend, you would never know about it if you didn’t go looking. (The other interesting thing is that these are big events in each town for a group of townfolk who’ve been preparing for weeks… but to the runners it’s just another race.)
I imagine there is the same thing for bike races, but since I’m not involved in that I wouldn’t know.
Dude, you need serious help.
I’ll second musical theatre, although there are plenty of people who only see one or two shows a year. But those of us who see everything (or practically everything) and know about cast changes before they happen live, eat and breathe Broadway.