Well, I did try to clarify… Westboro Baptist Church, “God Hates Fags” signs, picketing the funerals of service members, etc. Nope, nothing rang a bell. I realize I’m probably more familiar with them because they’re “local” but I know they were making the national news quite a bit when ol’ Fred was still alive.
My husband and I are far apart in age, but we both lived in Florida most of our lives. It seemed to me that Billy Joel music was inescapable.
Husband seems to have missed most culture and news during the 80s, but I understand. For him it was a decade of personal upheaval and young offspring. I missed most of the 90s for the same reason!
I was always confused about oak identification. Growing up in California, when I saw the “oak leaf cluster” military awards the leaves looked nothing like the oaks I grew up with. Eventually I learned that oaks have very varied varieties.
I know someone. I’ve shared the story before, but I’ll share it again, as she is/was the single most ignorant person I’ve ever encountered. And this happened about 38 years ago!
I was having a conversation with a co-worker. She was venting about how much trouble she was having to get a social security number for her son because he was born in England. She and her husband were on a military base when the birth occurred and both American citizens.
Another co-worker who overheard our conversation chimed in: “Oh, I know just what you mean! I’m having the same problems. My son was born in Hawaii!”
Ummm.
Does wishing I could have missed all of that count? I do remember getting pissed that the NBA finals got preempted to show an announcer saying breaking news OJ simpson is running away in his Ford Bronco with a gun to his head….. Did we mention that OJ has a gun to his head… This just in, OJ Simpson has a gun to his head while driving… For over an hour.
I did everything I could to avoid the whole thing from that point on, as I was sick of hearing about it.
Not if you had ever met her.
You also mean “The Ancient Aliens Channel”?
I once worked with a fellow pharmacist who didn’t know that lesbians menstruate.
That’s funny. What century do you think this is? Do you think JFK has a chance to beat Nixon?
Oh, right, you’re Society for Creative Anachronism. Oh we won’t give in, let’s go living in the past. In that case, carry on. (I’m not sure if having LBJ on the ticket helps or hurts.)
I recall reading in one of Herb Caen’s columns (SF Chonicle) around 1980 or so that he supposedly overheard a young teen in the Tower Records store on Columbus in San Francisco yell to her friends as she was sorting through the album racks, “Hey! Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings!” No idea how much of the story was true, but that was Herb Caen.
It’s true that digital natives have a totally different relationship to media, especially music, than we do. But at the same time, there’s a certain freedom that comes with that, an agnosticism about era. New music is new music, obviously, but everything else is this big amorphous blob of Stuff. One thing is just as good as another thing, regardless of where it came from or when it was made. All that matters is that you like it.
My older daughter is 14. She enjoys the Ramones and Bikini Kill as much as she likes The Warning or Dorothy or Måneskin. She ravenously searches through playlists and recommendation services, and as she finds things she likes, she adds them to her catalog. It’s literally all just music to her.
Naturally this leaves her with gaps, because she’s hunting randomly and just stumbling on stuff in an organic but haphazard fashion. Every now and then, I’ll notice she’s into something new, and I’ll ask her about something in the same vein. Recently, she started listening to Palaye Royale, so I asked if she knew My Chemical Romance. She’d never heard of them, but spun them up immediately, and pronounced them excellent.
My point is that, yes, she and others of her generation may lack certain knowledge, but the shape of their ignorance is completely different, and often wildly surprising.
Some months later, Newsweek magazine mentioned that the sequestered jurors had their media censored to remove references to OJ, and someone wrote in asking where he could subscribe to that service.
I also remember a reporter who said that his preschooler recognized OJ on TV before they recognized Bill Clinton. I thought that was very sad.
Also, when the Oklahoma City bombing happened, my first thought was, “Okay, so how long will this dislodge OJ from the top of the news?” The answer? TWO DAYS.
I have always believed that the verdict was because the LA riots were a little too fresh in the jurors’ minds.
Of all of these I have only heard of The Ramones. But I don’t know their music.
The Phelps’? I was sure you meant the Olympic swimmer guy. I was briefly upset. Not long because Dopers informed really quickly.
See? It just happened to me.
I knew it was close to Hiroshima because PBS had a couple shows about it running. Not Hiroshima Day. Never heard that.
That urban legend has existed since long before 1980. I could, however, picture someone saying, “Wow, Paul McCartney was in a band AFTER the Beatles?”
Or, for that matter, Darius Rucker was in a pop band before he became a country singer, or that Dave Grohl was in a band before the Foo Fighters.
Some years ago, I had to call an operator to connect me to an operator in Finland. I added – pointlessly, I thought – that I needed someone who spoke English. The American operator asked me what language they speak in Finland. I almost ended the call right there trying to process the ignorance.
A while back, the library I volunteer at got some vintage children’s books, and one was a “Three Bears” book, published in the early 1950s, where Papa Bear is sitting in his armchair by the fireplace, reading “Kon-Tiki.” Shortly afterwards, I was at a meetup with some fairly well educated people, and mentioned that the artist would have had no idea that people would still read that phenomenal best-seller 60 years later. The other people there all looked at me: “What’s ‘Kon-Tiki’?” So, I had to do a little explaining.
Well, it happened, to me, again.
I don’t know what language they speak in Finland. I could make a guess. But a client may be more thorough and want their exact expectations met.
Yeah better to ask, if you’re not sure.
Finlandian!
Yeah, add me as another who has never heard of “Hiroshima Day” before. Obviously I know what Hiroshima is, but I’ve never heard it called that before. I would have been confused as well.
Is “Hiroshima Day” a thing in Australia?
A what? 