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 mean you’ve cited some very famous people as examples so of course even I know who they are!

But I do often miss people that others have heard of just through general obliviousness. Not trying not seem clever, but I can be a bit “switched off” to things sometimes. And I don’t think everyone can possibly have heard of every single so called “celebrity” these days (talking reality tv contestants, sports stars, minor actors and pop stars etc) because there are so many!

I tend to get my news from The Times. I can assure you that "people like Kim K" definitely do not appear in The Times "all the time", or at all really

But Trump is president of one of the largest superpowers and has acres of coverage on mainstream news. He is no longer just a reality star or the spouse of someone famous.

It seems to me that the insistence that someone MUST know who a celeb is no different from someone pretending not to know a celeb they consider beneath them. When I was a teen I would have known far more names of midranking celebs than I do now. Most of those “celebs” would be unrecognised as names by my DC just as I have no interest in the current iteration of middling celebs who are tomorrow’s chip paper.

I regularly see threads on MN about X or X’s spouse or their latest divorce/baby/affair/marriage/whatever where I have no idea who X might be. I just assume they are from reality shows or another area of culture I don’t follow. If I want to know who they are I can Google. Why is it so hard to accept that people well known in your areas of interest are not well known to those who don’t share the same interests?

Some people don't know who Scott, Wilson, Oates are.

Why is it Bullshit? I've heard of Kim Kardashian but would have trouble recognising her from a photo. I think part of the problem is that most of these reality TV personalities all look the same, fake tan, fake teeth, long hair, etc that they are indistinguishable.

I know and recognise Katie Price as remember her when she was Jordan. People like David Beckham and Adele who are famous for actually having a talent are more recognisable. I don't watch reality TV. I used to watch I'm a Celebrity back in the day when I knew all the people on there but now I might only know say 2 or 3 and I find it boring.

Have never watched TOWIE or Love Island as they just don't appeal to me.

The absolute worst of this behaviour is posters who plop on an RIP thread to declare they don’t know who the person is. People are obviously upset just fucking Google it!

YANBU OP @coulditbeme2323it’s an attempt at superiority

It’s inverted snobbery. It’s like the people who don’t follow these Markles but always seem to know what they have been up to

Do people not realise that we all live different lives and consume different things based on our interests?
Most people wouldn’t have a clue who the ‘famous’ people in my area of interests are, but I can guarantee that they are extremely famous worldwide if you look at the right things.

And I honestly wouldn’t be able to pick KK out of a lineup. I know she is famous for having a large backside and I think she has long dark hair, but her face? I have no idea.

I have no idea of what Kim Kardashian looks like, but I bet I could pick her out from a line up of black men.

The “Who?” comments are tedious. Especially when it’s somebody with a lot of name / face recognition.

Actually, everytime I try to picture KK, I keep seeing that Pussycat doll who went out with Lewis Hamilton. That’s how interchangeable these people are in my brain 😂

I have to say I probably wouldn’t be able to recognise Kim Khardashian, but i have heard of her and know she’s a celebrity of sorts. I have also heard of the TV show about her family, although I’ve never seen it.

I do think some people pretend not to have heard of celebrities. I thought it was more of a joke rather than trying to look intelligent.

Errr....ok

I know the names and know roughly why they're famous.

But I can't recognise faces so I wouldn't be able to tell you who they were.

I don't recognise my actual friends' faces in photos so no chance with famous people.

Face blindness?

YABU

I know who they are simply because I waste my time looking at daily mail online. I also know a lot about the royal family (and kings/queens going back hundreds of years) simply because I am interested.

DH who watches/reads a lot of news and has an excellent grasp of world politics and current affairs etc (way better than me)…no idea who KK and KP are. Just sent him a text with their photos and asked him if he knows who they are without looking it up…I got ‘no, why?’ back. His knowledge of the current royal family/history is shockingly bad too. He just isn’t interested 🤷‍♀️.

Stuart Hall is a convicted sex offender.

But would you know who Amy Lee is and what she looks like? Corey Taylor? Andy Biersack? Lzzy Hale? Will Gould? Cristine Rotenberg? etc. Except for the last one they're the lead singers of some of my favourite bands. (Evanescence, Slipknot, Black Veil Brides, Halestorm and Creeper, respectively.) All fairly well known in the heavy music community but less well known outside of it.

Cristine Rotenberg is fairly obscure unless you're a nail polish obsessive like me. She's known as Simply Nailogical and is the founder and CEO of Holo Taco. (A nail polish brand.) She makes some gorgeous nail polishes!

I know about the Met Gala because I like fashion and fashion history and some of the YouTubers I watch cover it (and they covered Kim K's crimes against fashion and history when she got hold of one of Marilyn Munroe's dresses.🤬)

Well my work colleague doesn’t know who the Prime Minister of this country is. I’d say that was more of an indication of intelligence, or otherwise!

@2dogsandabudgie I think it’s a different Stuart Hall

I’m not totally confident I could pick KK out of a line up. She certainly doesn’t feature in the programmes I watch, and I wouldn’t be interested in clicking on an article if I saw her name in the header. Because I’ve never shown any interest in her, none of the algorithms are pushing stories about her into my social media - she may as well not exist for me on Instagram.

She is part of the background hum of media noise, a lot of which gets filtered out in favour of stuff I am interested in.

I know the name, I’ve heard of a tv show called the Kardashians, I have a rough mental model that puts her into a category in my brain - but that’s about it!

Kim was an acquaintance of Paris hilton she then started to be seen out and about at parties etc she then put out a sex tape with a famous boyfriend her mum saw an opportunity,they had a infamous lawyer dad , approached E television with the idea. Apparently not that i know who kim kardashian is 😂

David Beckham has had a decades long career and was a global superstar, so yes, I know who David Beckham is.

The Kardashians? Yes, I'm aware of them, I know they have names starting with K, I know some are Kardashians and some are Jenners. I'm not sure how many of them there are, but they all seem to be fairly wealthy and successful, so good luck to them. I couldn't recognise them by sight because mostly I get my news from the radio.

I love looking at the Met Gala ridiculous outfits, but I don't need to know who's wearing them.

If you're more into podcasts and puzzles and stuff, it's very easy not to know who 'celebrities' are by sight.

Not recognising Kim Kardashian is hardly up there with not recognising David Attenborough or someone.

"...are not exposed to massive stories like when Kim Kardashian was robbed ... You don’t necessarily read the article but you see the headline."

I'm sorry, but that really was not a "massive story" - I've just had to google it to find out about it. Do you mean a story about her home in Paris being burgled?

"But some people are extremely insular and don’t engage with any news I suppose."

It depends what you call news. Some random person who has their house burgled is not going to get my notice.

Would I engage more closely with other news, yes I would.

.

All this talk of the Met, prompted me to have a look at an article about it. There was a photo of various celebrities at the top of the article. The only person in the photo I could name without being told was Anna Wintour.

For years I thought Jordan and Katie Price were two different people.
😳