Hmm. I see what you’re saying, but this does come off as a bit of monocle-polishing. There have been times when I’ve taken a recommendation from someone whose opinion I trust of something I found stupid, and have had a change of heart. At others, my reaction has been, “Nope, I was right: this is stupid.” Sometimes smart people just like “stupid” stuff, and sometimes they don’t find the stupid thing to be stupid at all. You just see things differently.
There’s no reason intelligent people can’t enjoy the things discussed here. Actually it sounds like a list of things that don’t look like they should be enjoyed by snobby pseudo-intellectuals, who then just watch, read, listen to, and play with them in secret.
I see a stigma among today’s educated professional classes against any activity that could be called a hobby.
Hobbyists as a group seem to be perceived as cultureless dolts - old putterers in bright plaids, carving and embroidering tiresome objects and sentiments, or pear-shaped middle-aged rednecks polishing street rods and running up slutty dresses out of satin and sequins.
I guess the intelligent person does nothing with their hands except perhaps cook, and collects nothing but good wine.
The Simpsons. I’ve met a lot of people who never watched it thinking it was all kiddie/bathroom/stupid jokes, but the show embeds a huge number of really interesting references. You have to be up to speed in a large number of areas to get many of the jokes.
One of my favorites from about 2 years ago: Nelson Muntz made a short film with a closing shot that mimics the one from The 400 Blows.
One word from last night’s Syfy premiere sums it up for me: Sharktopus. And I have a Master’s degree.
I do find it fun to watch really bad sci-fi and point out the constant mistakes.
Well, most educated professionals don’t really have a lot of free time to devote to anything other than their profession.
A lot of educated professional culture is an extension of elite college fraternity/sorority and white affluent upper middle class high school jock/cheerleader culture. That is to say making money, sports, working out, drinking, socializing, dressing, looking, acting, and thinking like everyone else are the acceptible “hobbies”.
Anything but a superficial interest in the arts or music is for weirdos and freaks.
Anime, comic books, videogames (other than perhaps Madden football) and general collecting of stuff are for nerds and geeks.
Anything not of sufficient “classiness” is considered “white trash” or “ghetto”.
You get the idea.
The problem with this question is that it assumes a very simplistic model of human nature. The mapping between likes/dislikes and various attributes of a person’s brain/personality (due to genetics, early experiences, environment, culture, etc.) is n-dimensional, not linear.
Football. The American kind. I started to really watch it for the first time when I met my husband, and you know? It’s a thinking game.
Sort of.
Touched on by the references to Lady Gaga and country, but pop music in general. Apparently an intellectual is only supposed to listen to difficult, deep, intense music that takes time and consideration. They’re not supposed to… listen to fun, fluffy stuff, or want to dance, or whatever.
I’m still not getting the sudoku mention in this thread, though. Most people I know who don’t do them assume that strong math skills are involved in sudoku, and those that do do them are often stymied by the more advanced techniques needed to solve harder puzzles. I’d say, by popular perception, they fall under the umbrella of “Things that look like they should be enjoyed only by intelligent people.” Now, word searches on the other hand…
Hahaa! Monocle-polishing. Hahahaaa!
Yeah. Like a simplified version of chess with really unreliable pieces.
This hasn’t been my experience. I’ve gotten to know quite a few very successful MDs and science PhDs who are very well respected, etc in their fields and communities, have good social lives, and also have hobbies on the side. They are the sorts of people who don’t really like to ever be not productive or have down time, if that makes sense. Many of them play semi-obscure instruments, or are into woodworking, love attending operas, that kind of thing.
Then again, they are all in academia (although the MDs do see patients), so they’re not the business-world types that msmith is usually talking about.
Two words:
Professional Wrestling.
Howard Stern.
I think intelligence increases your entertainment options, rather than narrowing them. Intelligence means you can enjoy Laverne and Shirley and Shakespeare. Sometimes you want to do something that doesn’t really engage your brain.
I feel that way about a lot of the movies I watch. When one of my friends is nit picking some action movie we are watching, my response is, “Cut it out. If I wanted to think, I would be reading a book.”. I figure it is nice that I can enjoy “Snakes on a Plane” and “Primer”.
It seems like it is actually more complex than chess when measured by the variables related to each players strengths/weaknesses and each position’s possible valid moves, number of different players, number of different positions, etc.
Quoted for nailing it. My thoughts exactly!
I think a less controversial way to discuss the topic would be to ask for examples of things that have more depth than their surface appearance would indicate.
An example I’ll offer: The Order of the Stick webcomic.
This is actually what I was trying to ask. Instead some people have given examples of superficial entertainment that’s enjoyed by smart people. The OP really should have been worded better.
I agree that smart people often enjoy shallow entertainment. There is value in mindless entertainment that doesn’t only apply to the less intelligent among us.
Hmmm, I thought that it had been squared away for at least 15 years now that The Simpsons is actually a very intellectual series and that one almost has to be well-read to appreciate everything in a particular episode.
The one that doesn’t seem like it should be enjoyed by smart people is South Park. I remember it starting out as crude potty-jokes and un-PC humor. Somewhere along the line, though, it morphed into a show that actually had something to say and that wasn’t afraid to use the aforementioned un-PC humor to attack taboo issues in an intelligent fashion.