# What cultural changes have caught you completely by surprise? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 1, 2007, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192 "2007-03-01T18:58:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Can_Handle_the_Truth)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/61 "2007-03-04T00:12:48Z")
One of the biggest shockers for me is the names kids have these days. I noticed it when I started substitute teaching about a year ago. Often I am unable to pronounce correctly a single name from the roll. Some are real shockers: I had a girl named “Latrine” on one class. :eek: And even traditional names are being spelled in every tortured way (“Synthia”, “Aimi”), also the proliferation of “stripper” names like “Destiny” and “Bambi”. ---
**Author:** ![Emeria](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@Emeria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emeria)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/62 "2007-03-04T00:49:15Z")
> [@](#): > > That MTV is no longer about videos, and hasn’t been for quite a while. I don’t have a TV (quite seriously), so forgive my ignorance. Also, I’m in Canada, so we have MuchMusic instead, though I’m fairly certain it’s possible to get MTV as well. What is it about these days, if not music videos? ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/63 "2007-03-04T00:52:07Z")
[QUOTE=Can Handle the Truth] [snip]…also the proliferation of “stripper” names like “Destiny” and “Bambi”. [/QUOTE] Bambi’s a _boy’s name_! ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/64 "2007-03-04T01:36:17Z")
[QUOTE=Emeria] I don’t have a TV (quite seriously), so forgive my ignorance. Also, I’m in Canada, so we have MuchMusic instead, though I’m fairly certain it’s possible to get MTV as well. What is it about these days, if not music videos? [/QUOTE] Reality shows and celebrity worship. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/65 "2007-03-04T06:55:02Z")
Oh, here’s one: the proliferation of different types of food. I remember when balsamic vinegar, goat cheese, and pomegranates, for example, were all extremely fancy; frankly Dijon mustard was about as crazy as we were likely to get. Fair trade coffee? What’s that? Now they’re staple products at my local supermarket, and my area is far from ritzy. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_C](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/66 "2007-03-04T07:17:03Z")
Another vote for the rise of the Latino culture. I live in central Michigan, and have probably been out of the state for all of a week total in my entire life. I don’t think I have ever met anyone of Latino origin (or at least, anyone who obviously was). We’re about 90% white and 10% black around here. But it seems like TV, radio, all kinds of media are pulling out all the stops to bring in this invisible demographic. I was watching PBS and they had some cartoon that spoke half Spanish and half English. I suppose it is supposed to be educational to children. This seems odd to me, as I was always raised that English was our national language and people who moved here would learn English. Unless you intend to move to Spain or Mexico, there would be no reason to learn Spanish. I mean, I wouldn’t move to China without first learning Chinese, because that would be rude. Note I don’t mean to sound offensive or racist or anything in the above paragraph. I’m just… perplexed I guess. I’m 23 years old and I feel very behind the times. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/67 "2007-03-04T07:58:38Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > When I was a kid (not that long ago – I’m 26) the US still seemed very much a black and white nation, racially speaking: there was a kind of tangential awareness of Asians and Latinos, but blacks and whites were historically the two big groups (racially, and arguably culturally) and for all I knew it would always be that way. I knew very few Hispanics, never saw Hispanics on TV or in the movies, don’t remember hearing or seeing the Spanish language when out and about, wasn’t taught basic Spanish in grade school (we learned French – doubt that would happen much today) Heck, I’m only 20 and that’s a (pleasant) surprise to me too. Of course, I have a different perspective on this, living in San Diego–where Mexican and American culture are probably more interwoven than anywhere else. But I went to grade school in the DC area in the early 90s, when there was no real chicano population to speak of there, and my contemporaries took French. By the time I moved here in 1997, the idea of making Spanish-speaking children take classes in English was becoming controversial in this county. Ten years later, I can exchange pleasantries in Spanish with almost everyone I know, even if they don’t have a drop of Hispanic blood in them. What amazes me is that popular culture didn’t acknowledge the presence of the Mexican-American/chicano demographic earlier, outside of stereotypical portrayals in the movies. There have been Mexicans in Hollywood since before the Civil War, fercrissakes. If you think about it, the entertainment industry actively ignored Mexican-American culture for decades. If anything, we should be shocked that we didn’t see the integration coming. > [@delphica](#): > > I was out to lunch with a friend the other day, and she got a cell phone call from her daughter, who was calling to say hi. From FRANCE FWIW, at the very least it’s still a major pain in the ass to call home from overseas (Israel, at least). That said, my cellphone has an area code from another state, and nobody bats an eye at getting a call from it. > [@LifeOnWry](#): > > Now, my daughter is an officer in the Gay/Straight Alliance in her high school… and they have a FACULTY ADVISOR! My high school (I was Class of '04) was the same way, and I was a member of our GSA; but unfortunately that’s not the case everywhere. You don’t have to go 30 miles east of my high school to find the one where a kid found a dead cat and a burning cross on his lawn the morning after he founded his school’s GSA. That said, I’m glad to know there’s a high level of acceptance somewhere in suburban Chicago, and not just in (almost downtown) San Diego. > [@sinjin](#): > > Funny thing about engineers, I swear that 90% of them quit smoking between the 70’s and the 80’s Did engineering students drink like fish back then? > [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Because that was still there as of 2003, when I learned that Canadians really should not try to eat chicken-fried steak. I’d be surprised to find out that many New Yorkers have ever eaten chicken-fried steak. Actually, I’m surprised to hear that it’s considered “regional” cuisine there. > [@fessie](#): > > That MTV is no longer about videos, and hasn’t been for quite a while. That one shocks me too! I can’t watch MTV or VH1 anymore, because I can’t wrap my head around the fact that there’s no actual music. > [@Captain\_C](#): > > But it seems like TV, radio, all kinds of media are pulling out all the stops to bring in this invisible demographic. Invisible to you, maybe–you live in Michigan. I don’t think I know anybody except my parents who eats more ketchup than salsa. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/68 "2007-03-04T08:16:17Z")
[QUOTE=fetus] [QUOTE=Captain\_C] But it seems like TV, radio, all kinds of media are pulling out all the stops to bring in this invisible demographic. [/QUOTE] Invisible to you, maybe–you live in Michigan. I don’t think I know anybody except my parents who eats more ketchup than salsa. [/QUOTE] I don’t know where in Michigan **Captain\_C** lives, but Hispanics are definitely not invisible throughout the whole state: I had a summer job in south-west Michigan a couple years ago, and we had to hire extra Spanish-speaking staff to cater to the local Hispanic population. ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/69 "2007-03-04T10:29:24Z")
[QUOTE=delphica] The fact that long distance calling is no big deal. I was out to lunch with a friend the other day, and she got a cell phone call from her daughter, who was calling to say hi. From FRANCE. The mind boggles. [/QUOTE] It is amazing. I call my parents in Arkansas from Japan all the time; it costs 6 cents a minute. The connection is immediate and clear as a bell, most of the time. It’s fantastic. I, too, find it strange that no one (except my family) drinks tap water anymore. Why are people willing to pay such exorbanite prices for bottled water? I honestly cannot taste the difference in the places I’ve lived. I do like to have water with me, though, when I remember to bring a bottle filled with tap water from home. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/70 "2007-03-04T10:43:10Z")
[QUOTE=Shagnasty] I was born in 1973 and grew up in the 1980’s. It was is a much underappreciated period in its bleakness and hellishness. I don’t mean that personally or on a micro scale. I mean that everyone told us very seriously that our towns and cities were going to degenerate into urban warfare anarchy and decay while the Japanese invaded us economically because we were so pathetic educationally and our work ethic was poor. That was the positive outlook. The negative outlook was that Soviet Russia could have nuclear warheads over the North Pole into the continental U.S. within 30 minutes at any given time. The supposedly deterrent strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction meant that all of the U.S. and much of the globe could end within less than 1 hours notice starting any time. [Declassified Soviet documents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov) revealed that the world almost ended on September 26, 1983 but the Colonel in charge refused orders to start WWIII binging the movies of the same year like War Games to very near reality. We were told this stuff at an almost daily rate. Movies like [The Day After](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After) told us what it would be like when nuclear annihilation came. Other movies showed us what the Japanese would be like as our economic overlords. We also got to see what would happen as gangs took over our cities and middle-class people fled in fear leading to complete decay. What I am leading up to is the absolute surprise that happened in the mid-1990’s and continues to this day. Everything turned around seemingly by itself and most of these threats went poof or at least into remission. The Golden Period continues to this day although many people seem to have a memory blockage of the horrors of previous decades. [/QUOTE] I’m a lot younger than you, but even I remember my childhood in the early 90s when New York City was thought of by a lot of people as an extremely scary, dark and evil place. Re-watching childhood movies like _Adventures in Babysitting_ and _Home Alone 2_, and older action movies like Sylvester Stallone’s _Cobra,_ I notice the cities are made to look like dungeons: dark alleys with steam everywhere, dilapidated or under-construction buildings all over the place, proto-barbaric gangs roaming around. And I remember people talking about New York and Chicago as places where you were guaranteed to be mugged or assaulted. I don’t hear much talk like that anymore, or see such negative portrayals of big cities, so I think your assessment is right on the money. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/71 "2007-03-04T16:18:25Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl] Is that the really large restaurant in lower Manhattan, with the regional food? Because that was still there as of 2003, when I learned that Canadians really should not try to eat chicken-fried steak. [/QUOTE] I think that might be the place, I remember one of the kids had mac and cheese for dinner. [QUOTE=fetus] Did engineering students drink like fish back then? [/QUOTE] Oh god yes, and the faculty did too. [QUOTE=Rick] Going back a little longer affordable pocket calculators. When they first came out pocket calculators cost about $300. [/QUOTE] I bought one in 1973 and it still works! ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/72 "2007-03-04T17:15:46Z")
I just learned from [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=410852) that there are _car seats for eight-year-olds_. I’m thirty and childless, and I think the idea of a normal, non-developmentally delayed eight-year-old in a car seat sounds utterly bizarre. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/73 "2007-03-04T17:23:41Z")
[QUOTE=Captain\_C] Another vote for the rise of the Latino culture. [/QUOTE] This definitely depends on where you live. I’m your age, and it wasn’t uncommon to see Mexicans and hear Spanish in the NY farming area I grew up in. This wasn’t a diverse place either. The difference is, around 1996 or so, they started staying for good instead of relocating after farming season was over. This might be another regional thing, but I’m surprised to see the change in what it means to be a responsible pet owner. When I was a kid, it was okay for your dog to live outside, and if you went on vacation, you’d just ask a friend to check on him. Now some people don’t even let their pets go into a secure yard alone, and drop them off at a kennel or sitter if they go out of town (or they take the pet on vacation too). There’s also a huge amount of toys, strollers, videos (!) and all kinds of other stuff that are meant to be used by pets. ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/74 "2007-03-04T17:37:59Z")
With regard to the GSA stuff **matt\_mcl** and **fetus** posted, as I said, unfortunately there’s still plenty enough bigotry to go around. However, it is now Officially Not Cool for these things to happen. When I was a kid, it was truly acceptable for gay (or suspected gay) students to be shunned or attacked. A boy I went to school with was very good-looking, had a slight lisp and was not into sports. He was constantly and consisently abused by other students and even by teachers (one teacher referred to him as “you - girly man there.”) When his parents came to the school to complain about the treatment he was receiving, the principal told them, “It’s his own fault. If he wouldn’t act like that, people would leave him alone.” When my daughter told me that one of her friends was gay, she delivered this news with all the drama she would use to tell me so-and-so’s favorite color was blue. It was an incidental anecdote, hardly worth her mentioning at all. THAT mindset, that being gay was merely one aspect of a person’s makeup, floored me. I was active in HS and college in various gay-rights organizations, and again, though reprehensible things still do happen, I can’t help but feel that we have made enormous, tremendously gratifying strides. ---
**Author:** ![Tully\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ab992/32.png) [@Tully\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tully_Mars)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/75 "2007-03-04T17:56:20Z")
The one that caught me most by surprise is satellite televesion. I was in my late teens in East Texas when the big dishes hit the market. The price tag was $3500 - $4000. I thought there was no way people would pay that much just to watch television. Now, bear in mind that this rural area had one TV channel available up until that point. I vaguely remember when we didn’t even have a television. At the time, you could still buy most cars for under $10000. Boy was I wrong. I bet within two years, over half the households had dishes. A lot of those people had no business spending that much money on entertainment. We didn’t get one, but the parents of a friend did. Several of us teenage boys found execuses to be at his house on Saturday night to watch movies with naked women in them on HBO. On one hand, it was a good change. It gave people, especially children, a window to the world that didn’t exist before. On the other hand, the programming content sure did sink to the lowest common denominator really quick. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/76 "2007-03-04T18:24:04Z")
Re: Spanish and Hispanic culture… I checked in on the website of my old high school in Whitby, Ontario, and was interested to discover that the third language offered there was Spanish. (The second language, mandatory, was of course French.) When I was a student there (I976-1981), it was German. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/77 "2007-03-04T19:15:08Z")
> [@Renee](#): > > I, too, find it strange that no one (except my family) drinks tap water anymore. I don’t know what the tap water is like in Okinawa or Arkansas, but I’d rather drink Drano than the city water here. It’d probably be safer, too. See [Union-Tribune article calling the system “substandard”](http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070221-9999-1n21projects.html). The water that comes out of my tap isn’t even completely transparent. > [@Argent Towers](#): > > I’m a lot younger than you, but even I remember my childhood in the early 90s when New York City was thought of by a lot of people as an extremely scary, dark and evil place. Seems to me like most people in the world still think of NYC as a scary, dark and evil place. And when I moved to San Diego in the mid-90s, my classmates warned me that “people over there shoot you if you interrupt them”. My best guess is that that image came by association with LA, which they knew primarily through gangster rap. > [@Fretful Porpentine](#): > > I just learned from this thread that there are car seats for eight-year-olds. I’m thirty and childless, and I think the idea of a normal, non-developmentally delayed eight-year-old in a car seat sounds utterly bizarre. Similarly, the idea of putting kids on leashes and harnesses blows my mind. The fact that such sheer dehumanization comes out of such good intentions is totally weird to me. ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/78 "2007-03-04T19:32:21Z")
[QUOTE=VCO3] I’m really surprised by the proliferation of Ipods, because _most people just aren’t that into music_. 10 years ago, if you saw someone walking around or riding the train with a walkman, they were a die-hard or weirdo that just _had to have their music with them_. In fact, if the person wearing headphones in public wasn’t a sulking teen, it looked weird because it was generally only sulking teens and weirdos that you’d see wearing headphones in public. These days, almost everyone on the train is using an Ipod. I really wonder **what** the businessman, the fratboy, the sorority chick, the office secretary, and grandma over there are listening to! [/QUOTE] Spanish lessons. At least for me. I LOVE making that commute COUNT. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/79 "2007-03-04T19:53:06Z")
[QUOTE=fetus] And when I moved to San Diego in the mid-90s, my classmates warned me that “people over there shoot you if you interrupt them”. My best guess is that that image came by association with LA, which they knew primarily through gangster rap. [/QUOTE] Sorry, this was a little unclear. I was referring to when I told my classmates in Maryland that I was moving to San Diego. ---
**Author:** ![Mouse\_Maven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@Mouse\_Maven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mouse_Maven)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192/80 "2007-03-04T20:03:08Z")
Open ignorance, maybe even intolerance, of science. When I was in middle school and for the first few years of high school (I graduated in 1995), “evolution” was not a dirty word and the scientific method was taught. Now, my ten year-old nephew is taught that evolution is “only a theory” and that all research is flawed. I’ll add my voice to the normalization of being homosexual as a change for the positive. In High School, I didn’t date, I didn’t belong to any of the major churches, so I was gay and was treated like shit because of it. Sadly, my nephew is being educated by this same school district. ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-cultural-changes-have-caught-you-completely-by-surprise/394192.md?page=5)