I once met someone who had no idea who Charles Darwin was.
shareA younger work colleague of mine had never heard of either Crocodile Dundee or Paul Hogan. Even “That’s not a knife” got a blank stare from her. It made me feel quite prehistoric.
share I was talking about movies to some teen-agers a few years ago. They never heard of Marlon Brando.
Recently I mentioned an Al Pacino movie to a (very young) co-worker. She said, "Wait wasn't he a gangster?"
Turned out she thought I meant Al Capone. I don't think Capone made any movies though.
This made me chuckle.
shareNooooooo! *Wilhelm scream*
shareApart from the youngsters not knowing who Aretha Franklin is etc,
I'm sure there are countless celebrities who I have no idea who they are due to complete disinterest - who da kids know all about
1) pretty much every youtube celebrity not related to cars or electronics, even the billionaires like pew-de-puke
2) pretty much every musician who has come to fame since 1995 (exept megastars like lady ga ga etc)
3) there will no doubt be entire genres of music i havent heard of
4) most actors whove come to fame in the last 20 years
5) all the wannabe Z list not-real-celebs from the scourge of reality TV
i just looked at the horrible celeb click bait at the bottom of the page - scored 1 out of 4: Steve Buschemi
I’m definitely living in the same world you are.
shareNot me, I like to stay reasonably up to date with modern actors and musicians. Spotify has definitely helped with that, having virtually all new music at your fingertips is one part of the digital age I’ve fully embraced.
100% agree with point 5 though. People with no discernible talent finding fame through being a twat on the telly is one of the more curious modern phenomena
I certainly understand where your coming from. My take is that there is only X amount of time I can allocate to discovering new music and film, and I devote that time to genres I enjoy. Those genres, for me, don’t tend to include any newer things.
shareI agree to nearly all of this👍
Recent actors I tend to pay attention to, but phooey to the rest of it
Categories 1 and 4 are not really celebrities. If they were worth knowing, you would know them. Anyone whose celebrity is based on youtube, tiktok or reality TV is not a celebrity.
shareYou forgot all the Instagram wannabes "models" who consider themselves on the same level as all the A-list celebrities.
shareI can understand people not knowing who some actors/musicians are because that can depend on taste/interests, but it always amazes me when they don't know important historical figures.
shareit always amazes me when they don't know important historical figures.
Richard Dawkins
James Franco
Woody Allen
Colin Farrell
While I know who they all are, I have to say that some of these are fringe players. Outside there fan base, I would bet that a large percentage of Americans have never heard of Franco or Farrell.
Richard Dawkins is playing to a small segment of people who read philosophy and theology. It would not surprise me if half the adults in America don’t recognize his name.
I knew a guy in film class who didn't know who Spielberg was other than "I've heard of him". He couldn't name a movie and didn't know what he looked like.
shareI can understand not knowing famous people from particular fields you're not especially interested in--for instance, I don't follow racing, so other than a few top names heard on the news, I know practically nothing about it.
But it does amaze me that people in a film studies class wouldn't know some of the most important people in film, or that aspiring musicians wouldn't know some of the most important people in their chosen genre of music. Yet I've come across such people many times, claiming to be great fans, but lacking even basic knowledge of the major figures of their field of interest..
We thought he was joking at first. And then when he said that he heard of him but couldn't name anything he did, that's when we knew he wasn't joking. He was a smart guy too but we were just amazed.
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I don't recall what he was a fan of. He might have been a Lynch fan.
shareThat is pretty basic. Not knowing James Franco or some of the others mentioned here is not that big an issue. Darwin was a major figure in world history. I cant imagine someone getting out of middle school without knowing that name.
sharePeople not knowing who James Franco is pretty surprising to me cause of how many movies he's done as well as him being all over the news around the time the Interview came out.
shareIt may be a function of the age of the people. Someone like Tom Hanks or Jennifer Lopez is known to people of all ages. Franco seems to be a niche player with the young. He is very well known to the young crowd, but I think few people over 50 know who he is. (Then again, my friends may not be typical.)
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