Stuff I don't get

[UnquietDad]

And probably a good place to ask about it.

Celebrity-worship. All those magazines called things like NOW! and HOT! They appear to be about people I have never heard of or have no interest in, yet who are inexplicably worshipped by the (almost 100% female) readership. And all those letters saying things like "ooh, I adore that belt Kate Moss is wearing in such-and-such, where can I get one?"

What is Ashton Kutcher? What does it DO? Ditto Lindsey Lohan and Meg Matthews and Fran Cosgrove.

Jeans tucked into boots. Any chaps here find that a good look? Boots, yes. The glossy and spiky-heeled and knee-length variety on a well-turned leg, oh yuss. But - with JEANS? WTF is all that about??

Sex and the City. Nope.... don't get it.

Shoes - probably a bit of an obvious one. I have three pairs. Smart, casual and very casual. Some blokes would consider even this a bit excessive. If I ever thought of going and buying six more pairs of exactly the same style in different colours, I'd think I'd gone mad.

[mosschops30]

its because you're a man.

I live for Heat magazine every Tuesday (and dh likes to look at the pictures when using the toilet )

You wont see jeans tucked into boots this season so youre ok there

Sex and the City ...nuff said, its a classic that can be watched in any mood at any time of day or night and still be enjoyable

Shoes are often better than sex, they make you feel good, and you're always the same size even if you're having a fat day

Hope thats clears it all up

[colditz]

Celebrity worship - that's not what it is, really. It's another form of gossiping, and women lurve to gossip.

sex in the city - like sitting in the pub having cocktails with your girly mates, having a rundown on what they've been up to all week.

Jeans tucked intyo boots - kind of related to the shoes thing - women want to wear the boots, they really want to wear those boots, but they don'have (or don't think they have) the legs for them. So, they wear the jeans to hide the leg, and it does work, because the attention is then on the boots, not the legs. To women this is a good thing.#

Shoes - you know how men feel about tools and car stuff? As in, it doesn't matter if you will never use a rechargable sideboard planer with dual sanding function, because you are going to have one anyway? Women feel like that about shoes. I personally cannot walk in stilletos. I know for a fact I cannot walk in stilletos. But whenever I am in a shoe shop, I try on a pair of stilletos. As for the different colours, do you have the same thing for your dinner every day? Thought not.

[CatBert]

who needs to add more, when so utterly and consisely put by these two here...

Ditto everything said...

(p.s. know quite a few guys who dig the jeans into boots thing...)

But fear not. My DH could have written your post.

But then HE doesn't get MUMSNET!!!!!

arf.

[bubble99]

Andi MacDowell. I don't get her at all. I feel the urge to slap the TV during her.... 'Because I'm worth it' nonsense.

Yes, very un-sistally of me, I know.

Also, Andi Peters....A bloke? Called Andi? Sheeeeeesh.

[UnquietDad]

I've liked Andie McDowell ever since "Sex, Lies & Videotape." By the way, that's Glenn Close doing the voice.

Andi Peters, though, I always want to slap.

[UnquietDad]

Surely if you want to gossip then it makes more sense to gossip about what Julie from Accounts was doing in a bar at 8pm with Alan from Marketing? Or why Araminta at the school-gates turned up with one shoe on and her lipstick smufdged? I don't get the point of gossiping about people you have never met.

[colditz]

UD we do that too. the more people there are to gossip about, the better.

[moondog]

UD
I don't get any of that either and I am a woman!
(I also like to think of myself as reasonably urned out and smooth of armpit.)

[fullmoonfiend]

Can I be a man too? I don't get this stuff either....

[fullmoonfiend]

(just seen MD's post and would like to emphasise, no armpit spiders here either!)

[niceglasses]

I'm told men don't get dresses/skirts over trousers, so called granny fashion. Is this true? Cos I'm done for if so, its all I wear.

[moondog]

To me,celebrity worship is a way of saying 'God,my life is so shit and dull,I feel obliged to inject it with some life by slavishly following the inane activities of those with far more money than Ii will ever have.'

Jeez,vive la revolution!

[WelshBoris]

Smooth of armpit hair?

You saucy minx MD

[UnquietDad]

I almost go to the other extreme and take a vicarious pleasure in seeing "celebs" fall from grace and having to live like normal people.

Must confess, skirts and trousers do seem an odd thing. Although some girls get away with it when they have a short skirt and tight jeans.

With shoes, I don't get the dinner analogy. Once you get out of the "one for best, one for work, one for gardening" zone, surely it's all just frippery? DW buys what seems to me like a lot of shoes, but she assures me it is NOTHING LIKE as many as some of her friends. I'm prepared to believe this.

[dh40k]

As for the rise of "celebrity worship" there is, of course, no such rise. It's just displaced social bonding.

Our mobile society, combined with longer working hours and more focussed leisure time has meant a constriction of our social circles. Humans are generally capable of knowing intimately (i.e. family details, history, life story etc) about 300 people at one time (slightly more for women, slightly fewer for men, in general terms). But within ones social circle, one will often find that we manage barely 100 people in whose lives we have routine daily interest.

The mental gap gets filled with "celebrities" - these become a surrogate extended social circle whose existences we can share with those whom we actually meet in real life. And the fact that they are already "in the public domain" means that we don't even have to worry about discretion, so we can gossip about them with ANYONE: making them a useful tool by which to make new friends and extend our REAL social circle.

It's a valuable social service for which they receive insufficient recognition.

And if you think men don't do it, too, ask a male football fan about his team's fitness, stats, cars and transfer fees!

However, I am powerless to explain jeans tucked into boots.

R.

[Twiglett]

oh fuck I think I'm a bloke

except I do know who Ashton Kutcher is cos I've watched Punk'd

but everything else I'm with OP

[moondog]

Yes dh.
Pertinant points
(as is jeans one too)

[moondog]

Although I despair when the copy of the Guardian by my side has an article entitled 'Why celebrities have gone goth,and how you can do'

Jeeeezuz....

[Blondilocks]

I hardly ever read these magazines, but it's always great to see celebrities not looking their best.

I learnt my lesson about liking clothes in magazines after seeing a lovely dress & then not finding it anywhere in any of the nearby shops that were meant to stock it!

[Joolstoo]

I think I'm really a bloke - because unquietdad, I feel exactly the same except I'm not into shoes either!

[Joolstoo]

ah Twiglett my virtual dd you take after me

[edam]

I'm with you on all of them, unquiet dad. Yeah, I understand the social bonding thing, but I just DON"T CARE about bloody celebs. Or shoes.

[JackieNo]

dh40k - been reading 'The Tipping Point', by any chance?

[harpsichordcarrier]

I don't do cele worship either. I do a fair bit of celeb mocking, but it gets harder and harder as I have only the vaguest notion who about 95% of these people are anymore.
SATC is shit. those women annoy the arse off me.
I have three pairs of shoes and two pairs of boots.
I'm a man aren;t I?

[UnquietDad]

Oh, the Guardian is well in on the act. I despair of The Measure in the Weekend section. With half the things it mentions I have NO IDEA what they are, and care even less. Every week they have to mention "Kate". I mean, I ask you, "Kate". Like she's a personal friend of theirs and doesn't even merit a surname because, yah, like, EVERYbody who's anybody knows who she is, yah?

There is always a section called SPACE which features some chiselled architect called Ingo and his trophy wife called Lucinda, who have knocked through six Islington terraces to make a steel-and-pine minimalist palace worth £3.5m, which, despite the fact that they allegedly have two children (Magnus, 9 and Penelope, 7), appears to contain nothing in the "living-space" but a chrome spiral staircase and a wooden bowl with three blue glass pebbles in it.

And they also did five pages on Paris fscking Hilton, a waste of a functioning pair of kidneys if ever there was one.

Also, God save me from Zoe Williams, who witters on like somebody has flicked a switch marked "witter" in her empty head.

In fact, pretty much all of the Saturday magazine is useless except Jon Ronson, the restaurant reviews (by readers) and the page about how someone's life changed. Oh, and the letters. Because they always take the piss.