# Things You Were Surprised People Could Be So Passionate About **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 19, 2018, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409 "2018-06-19T22:58:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/141 "2018-06-22T21:30:30Z")
Circus peanuts Plus sports ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/142 "2018-06-22T21:32:08Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Are the comics really aimed at adults, or are there just a lot of adults who never evolved their tastes for more sophisticated art? :eek: Them’s fightin’ words, mister! ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/143 "2018-06-22T21:37:13Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Are the comics really aimed at adults, or are there just a lot of adults who never evolved their tastes for more sophisticated art? I do hope you’re not attempting to imply that any significant percentage of adults have _ever_ had tastes ‘evolved for more sophisticated art’. I mean, heck, in this very thread we’ve talked about the ongoing popularity of _sports_. Comics and movies, sophisticated or not, at least _are_ art. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/144 "2018-06-22T21:38:49Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > I’m a little curious, as an American do you know what cellotape is? Wouldn’t it annoy you to have to look it up right in the middle of reading a book? Nope. Often the meaning is fairly clear from the context. I became a Beatles fan around 4th grade, so I read plenty of books about them from the UK. This was way before the internet so I’d occasionally have to look things up. I think even in 4th grade I could have figured out that cellotape was Scotch tape. Admittedly, I was a voracious reader and was used to having to figure out words. I read a lot of the original Hardy Boys books which used some vocabulary from the 1920s that wasn’t common in the 1970s. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/145 "2018-06-22T21:43:31Z")
> [@](#): > > Are the comics really aimed at adults, or are there just a lot of adults who never evolved their tastes for more sophisticated art? Like soap operas are more sophisticated? Really, comics often are soap operas with lots of fights and a little added humor (depending on the title). But then, the same can be said for popular prime time shows with their story arcs and so on. I don’t see anything about comics that are any less “sophisticated art” than your standard television show. I remember someone commenting (almost 20 years ago now, probably) that comics had finally caught up with who was reading because they advertised a Toyota Prius in the issue. [Here’s an article about the average age of comic readers going down recently](https://www.newsarama.com/33006-is-the-average-age-of-comic-book-readers-increasing-retailers-talk-state-of-the-business-2017.html). Though it’s unscientific in its approach to buyers. [Here’s another](https://graphicpolicy.com/2011/04/27/who-are-the-comic-fans-on-facebook/) from 2011. Publishers would probably like a younger demographic - older teens and young adults, maybe. And readership is still very male. Of course, different titles are aimed at different demographics. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/146 "2018-06-22T21:56:04Z")
> [@Heracles](#): > > :eek: Them’s fightin’ words, mister! Yeah, I know, but given the thread title it doesn’t make sense to get passionate with me about it. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/147 "2018-06-22T22:03:50Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Yeah, I know, but given the thread title it doesn’t make sense to get passionate with me about it. Dammit, I succumbed too. There are few threads I can think of where the obvious response to _nearly every post_ is always off-topic! ---
**Author:** ![squidfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@squidfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squidfood)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/148 "2018-06-22T23:55:47Z")
> [@Pixel\_Dent](#): > > There’s nothing mysterious about this anymore as it’s been thoroughly studied. When watching sports our bodies react in a very similar manner to if you are actually participating. Heart rate increases, testosterone is released, and our brains release chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, and cortisol. Exactly. Last February, I went from flipping through channels, to saying “what’s this weird olympic sport - oh, I’ve heard of curling” to listening to the announcers explain the rules over a couple rounds, to deciding what team I wanted to win based on their uniform color (neither were my country), to holding my breath at every shot, to jumping around when “my” team won, all over the course of a single match. It was rather astounding. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/149 "2018-06-23T00:04:17Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > Star Wars. > > It was a good movie. I watched it with my family when I was a kid, and life as a tween in 1977 was incomplete without having seen it. > > But… > It’s just another film. > It’s really a tween/teen film, with a fairly standard plot–the plot to 2001 was far deeper and thought provoking. > The special effects were groundbreaking, but not so much so. > > Many other great films were made in the forty years since that just don’t get the fawning attention given to this one and its progeny. > > If you go to Cracked, where 70% of the articles seem to be about movies these days, you will find that almost all of the movie-related articles mention something Star Wars-related. Why should one film dominate everything so much? Twenty years later, the same thing was said about “Titanic”, and to some extent still is. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/150 "2018-06-23T00:20:41Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Whether Taiwan is part of China. > > Paraphrase of actual conversation I had with two of my otherwise reasonable Chinese roommates. > > Me: Isn’t Taiwan a separate country form China? > Them: Oh no not at all. > Me: But it has its own government, and its own set of laws and its own distinct economy? > Them: yes of course > Me: and this isn’t going to change? > Them: No, no one is advocating changing the current system. > Me: But if they came out and acknowledged what has been obvious for all practical purposes for 30 years, namely, that they are a separate country… > Them (shocked): That would be totally unacceptable! We would have to invade them no matter what the cost! Do you seriously not know the history? It is fine if you personally don’t think this should be a big deal, but anyone with a passing knowledge of 20th century history will certainly understand the Taiwan versus PRC disputes. I was too young to understand the isolation of the People’s Republic of China and the gradual acceptance that it should be accepted as China and the change in the UN status of Taiwan. But, the opening of China was important and it was silly to pretend that an island was the ‘real’ China as opposed to a nation of one billion. It was a huge breach of etiquette when Trump took the call from the President of Taiwan. ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/151 "2018-06-23T00:25:53Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > [Civil war reenactments:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War_reenactment) > > Odd, nobody seems to want to reenact the Vietnam War, or WW1. Good friends of our were Civil War reenactors. My best friend from high school made all her own costumes. Her name for what Wikipedia called thread-counters was underwear Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/152 "2018-06-23T00:29:01Z")
Many people can tell you more than you never wanted to know about all kinds of things, some common knowledge while others are more obscure. I won’t call it my passion, but I can spend an hour telling you about Saipan. It’s more than likely you don’t know much about it, or even care, but at least I can make it interesting. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/153 "2018-06-23T00:36:50Z")
Is Mac Vs PC still a thing? Because whoo-boy did folks used to get riled up. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/154 "2018-06-23T01:00:02Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > Is Mac Vs PC still a thing? Because whoo-boy did folks used to get riled up. I don’t think it’s quite as a big deal as it used to be and thank God we don’t have the Linux people jumping into every computer thread telling us unwashed masses what fools we are. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/155 "2018-06-23T08:25:34Z")
> [@CelticKnot](#): > > Good friends of our were Civil War reenactors. My best friend from high school made all her own costumes. Her name for what Wikipedia called thread-counters was underwear Nazis. In the SCA, we call those “garb Nazis” or “authenticity Nazis”. Not like the _actual_[SCA Nazis](https://www.publicmedievalist.com/sca-swastika/), who tried to pass off their Nazi-ism by pleading authenticity… ---
**Author:** ![vperry1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ee7513/32.png) [@vperry1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vperry1)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/156 "2018-06-23T08:49:23Z")
Not sure if this is about being passionate or just baffling behavior, but I don’t understand how people brush off bad movie ratings, then bitch about how bad the movie was. They line up five miles around the block to see a prequel/sequel that was trashed by die-hard fans. The movie makes $100 million in it’s first three days, then more in the following weeks, but everyone says it sucked! When Siskel and Ebert (just two guys) gave a movie “two thumbs down”, people avoided it like the plague. But when thousands of online commenters say it sucks, the fans will abandon their newborns and dying grandmothers to go see it anyway. Then _they_ go online to trash it. WTF? Is it an inclusion thing? Do they not want to be socially criticized for being “the one” who didn’t see it? I’m stumped. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/157 "2018-06-23T15:14:41Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > Do you seriously not know the history? It is fine if you personally don’t think this should be a big deal, but anyone with a passing knowledge of 20th century history will certainly understand the Taiwan versus PRC disputes. I was too young to understand the isolation of the People’s Republic of China and the gradual acceptance that it should be accepted as China and the change in the UN status of Taiwan. But, the opening of China was important and it was silly to pretend that an island was the ‘real’ China as opposed to a nation of one billion. > > It was a huge breach of etiquette when Trump took the call from the President of Taiwan. Oh, I understand the history and political ramifications, and agree that Trump accepting that call was a diplomatic blunder indicating that he has no understanding international politics, but to hear two otherwise reasonable intelligent people stand up aqnd declare that they were willing to fight and die over purely symbolic verbiage gave me pause. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/158 "2018-06-23T15:35:47Z")
> [@vperry1](#): > > Is it an inclusion thing? Do they not want to be socially criticized for being “the one” who didn’t see it? I’m stumped. I think that it is done to be up on the nerd subculture of the fanchise. So while it might have caused some minor bran damage to sit through “The Final Frontier” or the “Phantom Menace” its worth it to appreciate jokes about “Why would god need a star ship?” or speculate on the fate of Darth Mal. Further, never underestimate the bonding power of a good griping session. While it nice to be able to be smug about the 15 bucks and 3 hours of your life that you saved. When all your friends are sitting around tearing apart the latest flik its much more fun to be able to join in the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/159 "2018-06-23T17:16:18Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Twenty years later, the same thing was said about “Titanic”, and to some extent still is. Part of my gripe is that there have been so many films made since 1977 that it makes no sense the adoration heaped upon one film. I’m not sure many folks realize how many films are made each year. In my few years as a projectionist in the late 80s I showed well into the hundreds of films just in my theater, mostly forgettable. But in that same time we showed such films as Rain Man, Die Hard, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Fatal Attraction, all great films in their own genres, and all politely left in their era with occasional reference. It’s just so disproportionate: for every time Die Hard or Rain Man is referenced in modern discussion, Star Wars gets 1000 mentions (possibly exaggeration, but I hope you get my point). ETA: How could I forget Goodfellas? That was one of my favorite films we showed, and it also sits humbly among its neighbors in film history. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409/160 "2018-06-23T17:43:07Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s just so disproportionate: for every time Die Hard or Rain Man is referenced in modern discussion, Star Wars gets 1000 mentions (possibly exaggeration, but I hope you get my point). Sure, but that’s just some things. Think about The Wizard of Oz or It’s A Wonderful Life - I don’t even think either was that huge when released, but they’ve become part of our culture and get referenced casually so that even those who haven’t seen the movie (like myself with IAWL), know certain things about it. Some things just end up sticking with people. Often, it seems, with those who were kids when it came out (with the first generation that were adults when it came out not viewing it the same way). And it goes from “a movie” to “a classic” even if it’s not what critics think is best. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-were-surprised-people-could-be-so-passionate-about/816409.md?page=9)