Do people pretend not to know who people are in order to seem intelligent?

[coulditbeme2323]

Do people pretend not to know who people are in order to seem intelligent?

This question is prompted from reading comments online re The Met Gala?

Now let me prefix this by saying I have no interest in reality tv, Showbiz mags, etc - but surely there are some people who you know who they are because everybody does!

There were people saying "who" on a photo of Kim Kardashian. I have never seen an episode of the show, have no interest in her, but of course I know who she is - because how can you not?

Another British example is Jordan/Kate Price. No interest in her, but she has literally been headline news in The UK for 20 years. If you live in The UK - surely its impossible to not at least know who she is?

I think some people try and avoid all popular culture as they think it makes them appear more intelligent or elevated in some way and they are basically insecure about how intelligent they are, or their social status. Then there are lots of things or people can be genuinely not aware of if you don't follow celeb gossip or reality TV for the famous for being famous types. Personally I have teenage/young adult DDs which helps or I would know a lot less. Not on purpose, I actually try to keep a bit up to date and know who people are and don't feel the need to be "above" all that. I particularly like to keep up with music and very much like contemporary music. I'm not very good on film and current actors as I have a backlog of films to watch from about 2005 onwards (since I had kids) and will never catch up! TV I'm so so, there is so much to watch now and also so many other interesting things to do.

She’s also famous for having acquired a large arse

I’m not going to convince you the Kardashians are interesting, I don’t find them particularly so. Kim K was all over the national news recently when her ex husband Kanye West was banned from entering the UK. Recent business news because Emma Grede, who made her fortune in Skims with Kim K, had launched a memoir. A little further back, Kim K became very involved with Trump and was in political news for that. If you like crime, when she was held at gunpoint in Paris and the subsequent trial, that was all over the national news. Of course the Oscars, recent tv shows, Met Gala etc all fall under entertainment so I guess you would have skipped that. Sports? Well she’s dating Lewis Hamilton but that might be a bit gossipy.

NRFT but I don't know who most of these socalled celebs are because I'm not interested in reality tv, social media and the like.
It's not about looking down on anyone who likes that stuff but I'm just not interested in finding out / knowing anything about them.

I have seen bits of the Kardashian programmes because DDs watch them, it's not really for me but I can understand the attraction, it was quite interesting. It's a bit like a glamorous slow motion car crash at times.

My parents would honestly have no idea who either are. They listen to Radio 3, take The Economist and Gramophone magazines, and watch the BBC 6 o'clock news. The cultural highlights of their year are Glyndebourne and their local early music festival. That is their sum and total exposure to the cultural zeitgeist.

I think it’s more a comment that certain elements of culture have passed them by. Eg I often do not know who celebrities are because I don’t watch reality tv anymore and social media moves so quickly, making people famous just as fast. Some of the biggest artists in the world have passed me by entirely. There’s no superiority in it for me, I’m just out the loop, but I’m sure for some people that’s a factor.

It's pretty common to pretend not to recognise famous stuff or to understand simple things to perform superiority.

It can work sometimes, I guess, but rarely. I still snerk when I think of an exchange on here when someone declared that she had "never understood the concept of Christmas pyjamas" and someone replied with, "What the fuck are you struggling with?"

Kardashian - know who she is. Don't care/follow her whatsoever. Could maybe pick her out of a line up if the rest weren't too similar, I have seen photos of her in the past.

Katie Price - don't think I ever heard the name.

Do you live in The UK?

I would recognise the Kardashians are but I couldn’t tell you which is which. I wouldn’t know many current actors as I don’t really watch films.

It still doesn’t mean she’s that to everyone.

I genuinely wouldn’t recognise Kim K. I know her name but have no idea what she looks like

Stuart Hall certainly knew a lot about both high and low culture what with his professorship of sociology and hosting It's A Knockout.

Was she really all over the news when KW was banned?
News - Wireless Festival cancelled after Kanye West blocked from coming to UK - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gxk3kxjr0o Here's the article from BBC
Had no idea she was dating LH and watching DT in the news is bad enough without watching KK as well so i probably would have scrolled past that.
It's perfectly possible to avoid people you have no interest in. No superiority here

What annoys me is on quiz shows like Pointless, Richard and Xander pull younger people up for not knowing about 1970s music or TV, ridiculing them for saying something is "before their time"- when I think that's actually quite reasonable when you haven't lived that long and there is an awful lot of music or TV to know about. When there are a whole host of older contestants for whom anything after about 1975 is "after their time". I think it's a good idea to keep up a bit, particularly if you are going on a quiz shows. I'd certainly be brushing up on my contemporary film and TV knowledge.

Some people at actually a fairly young age seems to cut themselves off quite deliberately from anything "popular" and just become old before their time, to my mind.

To be fair, the reason I opened this thread was because I had just been scrolling through the Mail Online pictures of the Met Gala saying to myself "Who are all these people? And why should I care?" But I would never bother posting "Who?" on a thread about it, as what's the point? I'm not that interested. But this thread has interested me as I genuinely think the OP is wrong about how recognisable some of these people are.

I think I could pick out Kim Kardashian in a line up, but I'm not sure as all the Kardashians look pretty similar to me. I know who Taylor Swift is and, again, I think I could pick her out, but I'm not sure. Adele I don't know - did she recently lose a lot of weight and does she look very different now? Or is that someone else? The thing is, I've heard all these names and seen pictures of these people, but because I'm not particularly interested in them, I won't focus on the picture or read the article - I'll just glance at it and move on.

I was surprised the other day talking to a younger family member that he didn't seem to know who Netanyahu was - now that is the sort of news I don't think you could avoid. But I've just scrolled through the BBC Met Gala pics and honestly, apart from Nicole Kidman, I wouldn't recognise most of them, though I've heard of Rhianna and Beyonce and Anna Wintour and quite a few more.

I remember years ago I used to complain about people who loudly announced their complete lack of interest in sport (especially football), as if that in itself was a mark of intellectual superiority. Surely this is the same kind of thing. "I don't interest myself in prolefeed".

OP why do you berate people who don't know who 'z listers' are?

Many People genuinely don't care about who these people are or what they do. They have lives they are busy with and have much much more interesting stuff to spend time doing.

You seem overly invested in whether other people recognize celebrities or not. I think this is less about other people feeling superior and more about your own inferiority complex.
Enjoy following celebrities if you like, everyone has pointless interests and you don’t need to justify them to anyone. Personally I quite like sudoku (but then I am extremely intelligent!)

lol

I don't enjoy following them, I just don't walk around with my eyes closed.

I know Kim Kardashians name but I wouldn’t be able to pick her out of a line up.
I don’t read magazines, watch much TV or follow those kind of things on social media.
Celebrity stuff isn’t my thing and I don’t watch reality TV.

Not everybody knows who these people are and it’s got nothing to do with pretending to be intelligent!

I have no idea of who many, many celebrities are. I exist in my own little world where I listen to old music, watch a few movies here and there and read fantasy novels! The real world and most of the people in it, celebrities included, don't interest me much.

But why read an article about the Met Gala and write "Who?" when you don't know who someone is? People are often doing it to appear superior, at least in their minds, over the "little people" who like such common pursuits. If you truly we'ren't bothered, you wouldn't read the article and certainly wouldn't comment.