Speaking of Mike Rowe . . .
A few years ago I met a guy named Mike Rowe. I’d never heard of the “celebrity” with that name. We became, and still are, good friends. Multiple times I’d mention Mike to someone, only to have the person say, “the Mike Rowe”?"
Now Mike is a good guy, with a pretty important career, so I’d answer, “yes, the Mike Rowe”.
Then one day I learned about the celeb Mike Rowe, and since then it’s been Mike Rowe 24/7.
This was several years ago but for me it was Tilapia. I saw it written on the specials board of a restaurant and it was like an Alien word to me. I had literally never heard of it. I wasn’t even sure what kind of animal it was. But then the floodgates opened and it was and still is everywhere.
I always name unusual events after European terrorist networks, its such fun,
I’m working on how to fit PKK or ETA in, shall I go for the full name or the anglicised version of their name, choices choices…
The planet Arrakis.
This morning I was asked a trivia question about this planet that I’d never heard of, and then I just encountered it moments ago in another thread.
Day before yesterday, I read this thread: Saw the farm featured in the book “The Egg & I”
Last night my stepson, who was visiting from another city, spoke of going through the drive-thru at a restaurant called “The Egg & I”.
Once, I came to visit a friend who was organizing an Inca-themed live action RPG. She told me about how they were going to integrate the Popol Vuh into the game. The what? 
The Popol Vuh. And she explains to me what it is and stuff.
Next day or the day after or something, I take the train back home, and opening the paper, I find in the culture pages a whole article about…the Popol Vuh. Huh. Fun coincidence, I think. :dubious:
I get back home, and see my then girlfriend, a music teacher. And she tells me about the lessons she’s planning about world music, that will cover this time Latin American music, and will include some presentation of the Popol Vuh. :eek:
I picked an illustrated book for kids/young teenagers about the pre-conquest Latin American cultures (that was pre-internet for me), and yes, the Popol Vuh was there. 
Doesn’t really count as a coincidence, though, since I was specifically searching for it this time.
It let me a bit weirded out. Let’s see…I must be part of a virtual reality game, and whoever is running the game just added a new cute feature in his virtual world’s background, updating the decor and characters around me, and letting me, the player, puzzled at the sudden appearance everywhere, and knowledge by all the NPCs around me of something that I swear didn’t exist three days before.
I too thought this thread would be about far-left terrorists from the 70s when I opened it.
Actually, I read “The Cask of Amontillado” years ago. So I have heard the Latin phrase before, I just didn’t remember it. Which is a good demonstration of how this phenomenon works.
Freshman year of college, I started seeing “a priori” everywhere. Not just in academic texts, either – all over the damn place, even in speech, even on NPR, even in overheard conversations.
A priori. I still don’t know what it means.
I never let details and accuracy get in the way of a quality OP.
I will point to Life Event-related words. When we got married, I heard this word “caketopper” - never heard it before. Then I heard it regularly and by the time the SSMarriage movement got visibility it was all over the place, to my eye.
Same with my wife getting pregnant. I had never heard words like Braxton-Hicks contractions or preeclampsia (except maybe for that one ER episode - poor Dr. Green), and then I picked them out regularly in conversations.
Oh, and “auditory processing” and “executive management function” as my kids aged through various stages with those things on the radar.
Sunday morning I was laying in bed thinking about random things, and for some reason remembered looking at the old Lillian Vernon catalogs…" junk magazines," my mom used to call them. Hadn’t thought about them in years.
Heard on the radio this morning that THE Lillian Vernon died.