“Amy Winehouse? Who?” - What’s your “surely everyone knows who/what” moment?

[hotpotina]

I was with some fairly new Canadian friends recently and "Valarie" by Amy Winehouse came on. I immediately started humming/singing along and one of them asked “what's this song?” I said (probably with a confused expression) “ It's... Valerie... by Amy Winehouse...” and they both said they'd never heard of her.

Now, I KNOW. I KNOW there are massive cultural, generational and geographical differences in what people know. Obviously I do. But for some reason Amy Winehouse is just so completely embedded in my personal schema that for a second I genuinely couldn't compute someone not knowing who she was. She feels (to me) like one of those people who are simply there in people's consciousness; whether you actually like them or they were ever particularly relevant to your life seems almost beside the point.

It made me realise how funny these little cultural blind spots are. There must be many things that are ubiquitous to one person, that another person has somehow just never encountered.

Have you ever had this happen, where someone didn't know something/person that you genuinely presumed consciously or subconsciously was universal known? And do you have a “surely EVERYONE knows who/what they are” person (or thing etc) that you'd be surprised if someone had no knowledge of that thing?

This is the age group I was thinking of as people 55 plus would have been mid 30s around height of her fame. AW appeal was partly about writing about the things that young people are more likely to experience like first love heartbreak and chaotic living. I think you are kind of over that reaction when you are mid to late 30s. It was trying to appeal to young people who were sick of mainstream pop being pushed on them.

@PauliesWalnuts · Today 18:12

I was doorstepped by two Mormon missionaries who had never heard of the Pope. Like, ANY Pope.

I'm sorry but I don't believe that anyone has never heard of The Pope - or ANY Pope! I'm not saying you're lying, I'm saying they are. That's like saying you've never heard of a King,

One poster said she knew a Mormon girl who was home-schooled in her Mormon community who hadn't heard of The Holocaust, but that is slightly more believable as she hadn't been out of the community/never watched TV/never spoken to anyone else/only read the books they let her read. The adults doorstepping would have been out in the world a bit.

I was watching Broadchurch with my 17 year old Daughter, and I said "I forgot Lenny Henry is in this." She replied with "Who?" 👵🏼

I can believe the first 2, but I am shocked that he hadn't heard of Harry Styles. he is HUGELY popular in America.

Did he lived in a very controlled religion?

Surprised at this too, as Lenny Henry is still about a bit.

Richard Ashcroft is kind of understandable. Urban Hymns was released in 1997, when she was a preschooler. Bittersweet Symphony, The Drugs Don't Work and Sonnet were played on the radio a lot at the time but aren't the sort of boppy little tunes that are played at weddings and school discos for years afterwards and if you are too young to understand the words , the melodies aren't all that catchy so she probably didn't mindlessly sing along in the car aged 4.

People not around or very young in the 90s probably missed a lot of good music from the UK and Ireland (and across the pond eg The Strokes , and even further afield,) and won't find it unless they go looking.

Ha, absolutely not 😂

Very liberal upbringing, grew up on the East Coast, has European parents and is very well-travelled.

The mind boggles.

I don’t know of anyone who watches the soaps.

I watched all of them and can’t remember who he played? The dad? Other than that, I’ve also never heard of him until MN

The soaps aren't watched by as many people now, and the days of Angie and Den and Stan and Hilda and Annie Sugden have gone. But I am shocked that there are people who haven't heard of Eastenders and Coronation Street and Emmerdale.

Who? Never heard of him

But I would have thought that most probably have at least heard of them by name at least and wouldn't say 'what's that' if they were mentioned, I'm surprised that people have no awareness at all of them

Pondering the music thoughts.....and wondering about the music before my time or before I was old enough to understand it. What do older mumsnetters think? If you were around for the 60s, 70s and early 80s, what singers, bands and songs were pretty big then, played a lot or that you liked that kind of vanished except on obscure "Best of the 70s , Volume 6 Disc 4 " compilations when CDs were a thing and haven't been revived as a soundtrack on a Netflix series or sampled or covered by some hot young thing?

She could have asked you who The Hip were and it would have been the same thing.

Amy Winehouse wasn’t big on the other side of the pond. Same as Robbie Williams. Same as Take That.

@powershowerforanhour Blondie, Pretenders, Police, Kate Bush, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Kim Wilde, Hazel O'Connor, Queen, The Jam, David Bowie, Elton John, Soft Cell... all these were big when I was growing up...

.

My mum said a similar thing about Judi Dench to a hairdresser recently and the hairdresser said, "Who's Judi Dench?"

I know someone who did not know what Alice in Wonderland was. He was English.

I think it's also a cultural thing within the UK at least. I remember Adam Buxton being totally shocked that Zadie Smith had no awareness of Bowie growing up, despite him and her being the same age. Her experience was in the PoC culture around West London where Bowie meant absolutely nothing whilst he was a White art school boy.

Even if that's true, which I'm not totally sure it is as her songs had top 10s in the US charts and she won multiple Grammys, even if she wasn't known for her music her infamy for her drug use and celebrity is pretty huge and made global news and infiltrated pop culture in the US and so many American artists have talked about her influence on them, especially after her death.

Not to mention her being part of the '27 club', which many people are aware of.

I'm sorry but I don't think your example of 'the hip' seems like an appropriate comparison as they don't appear to have had much commercial success in the UK and nowhere near as much historical or global success or renown.

My son’s partner has apparently never heard of Tom Cruise. I can kind of understand it as Gen Z seem to be very insular but he seemed to be very proud of himself for not having heard of a famous actor with a movie just out.

Thanks for the list. Interesting, I'll have a go

Blondie- yes, like, Heart of Glass etc, would probably get Debbie Harry OK in a picture round (do picture rounds still exist? Do table quizzes still exist??)
Pretenders- were still kind of around when I was old enough to watch TOTP. I'll Stand by You. Chrissie Hynde was on that charity single that was played loads (do Christmas charity singles still exist? Does Comic Relief still exist?? It was huge)
Police- only because of Sting. Englishman in New York
Kate Bush- yes, only knew her as wafty mad looking white dresses Wuthering Heights high notes lady but then she got popular again due to all those big drama series on services I don't have
Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, - heard of, can't remember any of their hits
Culture Club- Boy George I think. You can sinv along to Karma Cameleon when you're very small. When you're very small and someone is called Boy George but has long hair sticking out from under a hat and lots of makeup on, you might spend ages trying to work out if they're a boy or a girl. Ditto Michael Jackson.
Kim Wilde- poster girl type? Think older boys fancied her. Can't remember songs.
, Hazel O'Connor- most interesting as never heard of in my life
, Queen,- Yes Freddie Mercurey, the cool tune and odd but fun lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody , Barcelona at full decibels (are the Olympics still as much of a thing? )
The Jam-heard of, don't know songs
, David Bowie,- yeah weird looking skinny very pale guy, Ziggy Stardust makeup, lyrics like "take your protein pills and put your helmet on"
Elton John- Candle In the Wind guy
, Soft Cell - Tainted Love. David Gray covered another song. Thought Don't You Want Me was theirs but looked up, is Human League, don't know if embarrassing to get them mixed up.

As a Canadian, I can say hand on heart, her music was super popular here, but also that was 15 years ago, so she will have left most people's radar, unless they were keen enough to buy an album.

My DS’s paternal grandfather is a name most people would know so when DS was doing his ‘local’ badge at Cubs and needed a famous person I said ‘That’s easy, you can write about Grampy’ to which DS said he wasn’t a celebrity. I said he could use the picture of DGF with Muhammad Ali and it got worse because of course DS said nobody knows who is is either 🤦‍♀️

Talking to a work colleague recently, she’s in her thirties and has never seen Grease or Dirty Dancing.. Crazy.
A few months back I was talking at work about going to see Take That and another work colleague had never heard of them.
She did know Robbie Williams though, she’s from Maldova, They must not have made it in that part of the world.

I was in a baby group years ago and got chatting to another mum. She was early 30s, British, very normal. I mentioned I was making an apple crumble that evening and she had never heard of crumble! I was stunned.