PopCulture

Disclaimer: I do not think people who have a lot of pop-culture knowledge are bad or that they are wrong for being familiar with things I know nothing to little about. Don't @ me.

I will admit to being mostly ignorant of pop culture, mostly because of avoidance. I don't think I've watched a network television show since season 2 of Survivor, and that's been more than twenty years ago. Furthermore, I haven't listened to a commercial radio station by my choice since high school. I was excited when Christopher Reeves made the first Superman movie in the 80s, but I've just about totally opted out of the entire Marvel Comic Universe. This means I've missed most, if not all, the top-grossing movies of all time.

I'm not a total cultural Luddite. We subscribe to most of the streaming channels and regularly watch them, but I opt for as much British TV as I can get (but not Doctor Who). I never watch the Superbowl or the World Series or the NBA Finals. The best I can do is catch a few stages of the Tour de France every July. I recently saw Gladiator 2 and today, Wonder Woman bought us tickets to see the new Bob Dylan biopic starring that kid they hold lookalike contests to match.

I rarely read books published within the last year unless I receive one as a gift. Beyond that, I love to read book reviews and keep up with what's hot but surfing the Internet has ruined my concentration skills and sitting still with a novel is just an advanced form of torture these days. I find a lot of modern fiction to be pretentious and difficult to read anyway. I'd rather stick with golden age science fiction or a good detective novel.I enjoy non-fiction, but that's hardly pop culture, is it?

What interests me not at all is celebrity news and gossip. I do not care one whit who is married to whom. I might pay attention if one of them says something political, just to make sure I don't give a conservative any of my money or brain space. So yes, I know about James Woods, Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammar, and people like that. I don't like them. I like folks like Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé who, although they probably have no clue anymore what regular people are like, are still loyal to us when it comes to our country's leadership.

The closest I get to discovering new music is through Apple Music playlists. The genres I like are (other than classic rock) Americana, Alt-Country and Folk. Occasionally, they'll add in a group new to me or songs from after I stopped buying music, which was approximately 2006. Wonder Woman makes me listen to Nickelback and that red-headed English guy and various late-stage music that I occasionally enjoy, but not enough to learn anything about them.

Don't try to talk to me about super-hero movies or any of the other franchise series like Mission Impossible of the one where Vin Diesel drives cars. My eyes will glaze over, and I will move away from you. I don't know anything about Harry Potter apart from that the woman who wrote the books is a TERF bully who picks on Olympic athletes. I can possibly name one or two people from YouTube (Mr. Beast and PewDiePie)and one from TikTok (Gerron, the funny Irish guy). These days, I hardly even know any podcasters because I no longer have a commute where I can listen to what they produce.

I hope we can still be friends.

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