“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?

Today at cardiac rehab , I wore an Ariana Grande top. I was quickly met with lots of people turning their heads to look at the upside down image with puzzled faces.. I said “it’s Ariana Grande” to which they all stared blankly and I was all too aware of just how young I am in that room.

Our DCs as teenagers (late 90s) were amazed when we told them Cilla Black used to be a singer.

My DS is 26. I mentioned Michael Jackson a few years ago. His response “who?” I thought he was joking but no, he had no idea who MJ was 😂. To be fair he doesn’t watch TV much, and has very niche musical taste so I guess he just never came across him!

I remember, around 1979-80, a woman my age (18-19) at Univ had never heard of Queen. I asked if she'd not heard Bohemian Rhapsody and she hadn't. I was amazed, I didn't know how you could avoid it.

About 20 years ago I was doing some stuff at a local high school science fair. I was really excited that Johnny Ball was there too. The headteacher introduced him, and said that the kids wouldn’t know who he was from TV, but he was Zoë Ball’s dad. Blank faces. “Married to Fat Boy Slim?… “. More silence. The 15 year olds of 2005 had no idea. At least in South Yorkshire. This was obs before she made her Radio 2 comeback.

When I was little I thought the book was Alison Wonderland.

My 18 Yr old niece not knowing who Ali G was shocked me lol

That's really odd.

My eldest went to school wearing purple. The teachers turned a blind eye seen as he never got in trouble.

We met a taxi driver in Sri Lanka 8 years ago who had never heard of the Beatles. We gave him some song titles and even sang a few - he didn’t know them at all. He was in his 20s - said his favourite artist was Alan Walker (Norwegian/Brit DJ).

Is the moon a star? No it’s a Sun.

The one I think I'm most shocked about on this whole thread is a 60 something (presumably British born and bred?) man not having heard of Jeffrey Archer. Has he never in his life watched the news?

I know, I was very confused about it. I think at the time of the big Jeffery Archer libel case scandal etc in the early 1990s, DP was setting up and running a business and was so busy that he literally didn’t watch the news. He’s not a book reader and doesn’t watch much telly these days. So maybe Archer never came up on his radar. I dunno!

i can understand how people might not have heard of certain singers. My own DSs and my parents would know entirely different artists to who I would consider to be well known names.

people may well not have heard of Amy Winehouse but I’d be more surprised if they didn’t recognise “Valerie” the song, if they lived in the UK

however as for not knowing who Neil Armstrong was or who the current prime Minister is, that’s just ignorance IMO and far more disappointing

My husband (born in the 80s) had a very sheltered upbringing and I found out a while ago he’d never heard the Pulp song Common People?! I was astounded!

Watch pointless and see that not even 100% of people have heard of the Beatles. Or PM Tony Blair. Or President Clinton.

In "The Beach" a character hums "A mouse lived in a windmill" and is surprised that his friend has never heard of it.

After reading that, I asked quite a few people if they'd heard of it and none of them had. It still surprises me.

They probably think it’s a new song and are shocked when you tell them you were listening to it in the 80s.

In primary school we seemed to sing the ‘ mouse in a windmill ‘ song every week. A teacher told us it was a Dutch song, so why we sung it in the east end of London was a mystery to me!
Maybe children don’t do a lot of singing these days ? We sung hymns every day too ( not a religious school )
I bet many children won’t know well known hymns unless they go to church these days ( or maybe a faith school )

I just asked Alexa to play Valerie to see if I knew it (I'm not good with music).

I do know it, but didn't know what it was called. I thought until today that where Amy sings "Why don't you come on over Valerie" was "Why don't you come on over right away" enunciated badly!

So did we, which is why I was incredulous! The people I was asking were my age too!

It's a UK novelty song from the 60s. Not Dutch, despite the reference to Amsterdam.

Oh it’s not a Dutch song then! Amsterdam , windmills and so on. Obviously my teacher thought it was lol

I was also recently with a group of people in their 20s and 30s, and none of them knew what the problem pages we used to have in magazines were.

Watching Celebrity Traitors last week, I was the only one who knew who Maya Jama was. DH, 15 year old DS and 11 year old DD had not a clue. I was surprised, I thought she was a household name. Clearly not in my house.

I have a friend who is 40 years old and had never heard of the film ‘Grease’. How???