I don’t know who anyone is, anymore

[Nobiggerthanyourhand]

Does anybody else not understand popular culture?

I do a bit of MN and I look at the Daily Mail online (please stay with me), and sometimes I watch programmes like Strictly and Masterchef and … I don’t know who any one is.

Molly-Mae
Tommy Fury
Zara McDermott
Sam
Pete from strictly with the tattoos
someone called Maud who he might have been in a relationship with

What can I do to understand this better? How do these people become so important?

No I don't, then I look them up and realise how boring they are and carry on as normal.

If you really don't know who Molly Mae is or Pete Wicks then you obviously aren't interested in reality TV/celebrity culture. And that's absolutely fine but I don't see why you need to know who they are if that doesn't interest you.

Pete Wicks was on TOWIE. TOWIE is a TV show. Would you understand if someone got famous from big brother or coronation Street? Its the same. He was on a TV show. Same with Mollie Mae, Tommy Fury, Zara Mcdermott, Sam Thompson and Maura Higgins. They were all on famous TV shows watched by millions.

I really don't think its a hard concept to understand. You obviously don't watch celebrity programmes or reality TV or pay attention to social mmedia. Which is fine. I don't watch eastenders but I don't get puzzled by eastenders actors being famous

Sam Thompson/Zara McDermott/Maura have done some presenting jobs. Pete Wicks/Sam Thompson have done a lot of celebrity shows, some people find them funny hence why they enjoy watching them

I don't think anyone is sitting at home worshipping Pete Wicks. They just find them a bit funny.

Molly Mae was on probably the biggest series of love island, she posts about her life on social media and people again became quite invested in her relationship and her life. I guess to some people her life is aspirational. I don't think its confusing and I don't think these people are important or will go down I the history books. They are just mildly famous people. There has always been mildly famous celebrities.

Towie is essentially acting though. With the added benefit of the characters being slightly real. It's basically a slightly less scripted soap. People are invested in the characters in the same way people get invested in soaps or long running TV series e.g. greys anatomy

Most people are famous in their trade because they've been on TV. Reality TV is no different.

@Nobiggerthanyourhand if its the sam i think it is, he is the brother of louise who was both starred on the made in chelsea show, and louise used to date spencer Matthews

The problem is that there are so many platforms for people to become celebs these days. I won't list them all as I haven't got a clue what they all are but Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram and on TV we now have a million different TV channels and you can access TV from all around the world too. Back in the day (80s and 90s) there was TV with 5 channels and radio. So everyone watched and listened to the same things so everyone knew celebs, or at least most people.

Just watch what you like and listen to who you like and don't worry about it!

I do get puzzled by Eastenders people now @FiveTreeHill . I wouldn’t know when or where to watch Eastenders these days. Does it still have that lovely theme tune?

bbc or iplayer, I havent had a tv licence in years but it’s not going to have drastically changed channels or the iconic theme tune without it being in the news

are they related?

no not in the slightest

towie is a strange tv show
i used to watch Made in Chelsea with dd, 8 years ago, i think
structured reality, or something.

We are simply getting older as pps said😁
Like our parents used to when we were younger.
I often think "the fuck is this" when many new songs play. So did my parents😂

We will survive

Born in 1984 and no I don't know who any of them are either! 🤷🏼‍♀️

When I was 30 I watched the Kardashian’s as they had a fun tv show
now I am 5o I joined insta in lockdown really because I thought they would but just as fun light entertainment to follow
I unfollowed all of them in a week because all their post were mind boggling cryptic I.e looking pensive in a car …or looking sleepy in a blanket ( little did I know they were selling shite ???
it drove me bikers watching them unbox v expensive crap everyday
v v v boring
do I followed ordinary people who do interesting things like make amazing cake or renovate Victorian mansions or manage kids with asd like me …
in Jan I deleted instagram and will deactive Mumsnet ( totally utterly addicted to Mumsnet … only ever watch , follow or engage with social media which uplifts your soul and makes you smile …

I don't think that not knowing who reality TV people are makes you ignorant.

It certainly doesn't.
Surely every age group has it's own 'popular culture' ?
Unless you want to enter a lot of pub quizzes who focus on such trivia, why do you want to 'know about' a group of people you obviously don't have any interest in ?

If you were interested, then you would presumably already be following their social media.

I mean, I know people who are really interested in F1. Personally, I'm not interested, so don't really 'need to know' anything about it. If I wanted to show interest (say, one of my dc were interested), then I would look it up, and ask them questions, but, as we have plenty of other stuff to talk about, and my friend has plenty of other people to talk F1 with, so I don't "need" to know anything about F1. It's the same with Z list celebrities. If you are interested, go and find out. If you aren't, then you don't need to know.

Same here.

Er, wasn't that Peter Beale with the fruit and veg stall? 😆Married to Kathy, father of Ian.

I mean, it's quite normal to have a finite amount of precious free time due to commitments of work, family, chores, friends and God knows what else. Why would you want to waste that time boning up on shit you're really not interested in?

@MabelMora

Haha it was Simon Wickes in east enders - Peter Beale was his dad

Yeah I know that. I was responding to pp saying Pete Wicks was an EastEnders geezer with a fruit and veg stall, when it was actually Pete Beale.

Tommy Fury and Molly Mae were on Love Island a few years ago, got together and had a baby, then split up.
Sam? Not sure... Sam Ryder from the Eurovision Song Contest? Came second?.. There's lots of Sam's around though...
Pete is Pete Wicks from The Only Way is Essex and got a big career out of it. Don't know about the others though.

Sam = Armstrong(?). Was on Chelsea programme, won I'm a Celeb, lives with Zara McD and does a podcast with PW.

Any 'celebrity' version of a show, eg Bake Off, SAS, Masterchef etc is now heavily populated by these scripted reality types in a revolving door formation. See also Vicki Pattinson and Charlotte Crosby. As pp said: famous for being famous.

Are these people bots, really? When will Strictly just stick a bot in and none of us will notice?

Not knowing who these people are doesn't indicate ignorance in my mind. Usually it's just that you don't watch the TV programme they appear in. They aren't important or influential people normally just 5 mins of being in the public eye doing nothing useful on the whole. The so called news about them only ever seems to be about their relationships or their looks anyway.