(no subject)

[elizilla]

Last night some friends with kids came over and we played Apples to Apples. I never noticed just how many names there are on the red cards. Jonathan, who is ten, doesn't know who all these people are. Who is Marilyn Monroe and how could she possibly be more glamorous than snails? But he's funniest when it comes to names he does have a glimmer of knowledge about. King Arthur? He was in Spamalot! Michael Jordan? He makes shoes, right?

Comments

[foms.livejournal.com]

It all sounds a bit like the Beloit College Mindset List (www.beloit.edu/mindset/2018/) as an object lesson.
This sort of thing happens interculturally, too. I've found myself defending francophone friends against looks of amazement when they had not heard of someone like Pierre Berton (I shot right back with Gilles Vigneault).
On the whole, I agree that it's hard to imagine anything that could be more glamourous than snails.[g]

[elizilla]

I don't know who either of those people are, without asking google. In my own way I am as bad as Jonathan.

[foms.livejournal.com]

I chose my example specifically because Pierre Berton is known mostly to Canadians and Gilles Vigneault is known mostly to Quebecois (and it did happen in just that way). Your response was to ask and/or to search for more information and I'm glad of it. (see https://xkcd.com/1053/ and Spider Robinson's penchant for turning people on to the good stuff).

Now that I'm thinking about it, in this context, though, I'm wondering what might happen in a few years when there are people who have never heard of those who are currently famous for being famous. How will we explain it to them? On the other hand, what happens, today, when we make reference to the ground-breakers of that field?