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'm so busy I don't have chance to follow celebrity culture. And, frankly, it doesn't interest me much anyway.

Just not my thing. Genuine question, what is the Met Gala and why has it become a thing in recent years?

I might get to watch tv once a week and I don’t read entertainment news. So I couldn’t tell you who most celebrities are. Nothing to do with wanting to seem any kind of way - I genuinely have zero interest in celebrities.

I think this podcast episode and Greg Jenners' book are interesting to look at in connection to this thread. Particularly the discussion about how social media is changing the definition of celebrity, and how people are famous within their particular sphere but unknown elsewhere. It shouldn't be a reflection of someone being "better" than another person, but it does reflect cultural exposure and what we choose to consume. Unfortunately some people see some mediums as more highbrow or important than others, and that is never going to change. It seems the idea of "Famous for being famous", has been a bugbear throughout history.

Take a look at The Human Cost of Fame from After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal on Amazon Music.
https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/ad42a58f-9de7-4cb3-b549-eb28c934994c/episodes/793bb379-f33c-4fda-bd4f-3bc3f774cd99/AFTER-DARK-MYTHS-MISDEEDS-THE-PARANORMALTHE-HUMAN-COST-OF-FAME?ref=dm_sh_tsbjsUptvuqfLbFS7A8F1LCzN

Who is Greg Jenner?

I'd hazard a guess at being something to do with Kaitlin (sp?) Jenner, who I think was married to one of the Kardashians before transitioning. But that's what Google is for - finding this sort of stuff out.

But I'm wrong, due to assuming from the context of the rest of the thread. He's the guy who was behind Horrible Histories and the You're Dead to Me podcast.

How do you know they are pretending? I am
totally clueless about celebrities. My son thinks it’s hilarious that I thought Ed Sheeran was a footballer (it’s such a footballer name!) and timberlake was a make of shoes. I don’t watch TV apart from drama series my feeds are political news. I just about know the major royals and a couple of the older British actresses. But ask me anything about biology or the heroines of Jane Austen’s novels and I’m your girl. No idea what met gala is btw. Not to do with intelligence but more where your interests lie. Celebrities bore me to tears, biology and Jane Austen probably bore others to tears.

Although I know who Katie Price is, what she looks like and why she is famous, the only thing I know about the Kardashians is that they are famous and I think have a father who is trans.
I don't know what any of them look like and I don't know how they got famous. There are many people who are just not interested in celebrities and probably have similar or less knowledge than I do.

I have a degree of face blindness. Unless you pointed out who they were on occasion A and they were wearing the same clothes/makeup/hair style the next time I saw them, I'd be unlikely to recognise them.

DH often points out actresses/actors to me and I have no idea that they also starred in a different film I've seen.

I’ve heard of both Katie Price and Kim K but while I could identify Katie Price by sight, I couldn’t reliably identify Kim K because I haven’t watched anything she’s in and while I will have seen photos, there seems to be a lot of celebrities who look like her including some of her own sisters I think.

I imagine most people who say they don’t know who someone is really don’t know. It’s not like the 1990s when everyone watched one of 4 TV channels and most of us were exposed to the same culture. Now with algorithms and with streaming it is much easier to never be exposed to huge swathes of culture; popular or otherwise. Back in the day I knew who Samantha Fox was and what she looked like despite never reading the Sun! I can’t tell you how I knew but we all did, even if it wasn’t our thing.

@Lougle me too! I don’t know any actors or actresses. I call them “the dark haired guy from Poldark” or whatever. I get a lot of “don’t you know who so and so is?”

I'm glad I'm not alone! I also take ages to get into a series, so we don't watch anything with less than 4 seasons, and I'm sure it's because it takes my that long to know who they all are. I really need the main characters to have different coloured hair, or different lengths, etc. If they are both in their 20s and blonde, they've got no chance.

If they are posting comments on social media than probably they are not living under a rock or over 75 years old….so it’s just to be rude. Very sad.

They sound like my kind of people, though maybe I'm a bit more aware of names. I wonder what the reaction on here would be were they to post sneering comments about people not knowing who artists from Glyndebourne are?

I think, for me - it's just blatantly obvious that what's presented on SM about these people is utterly false and bears little relation to the reality of their lives. So - I don't know if it's right to say that their followers are of 'low intelligence' but they must be content to take things at face value, mustn't they? I'm not like that.

I mean - KP's private life is very depressing in many ways and cannot be healthy for her or her family. I don't know about KK - but a huge proportion of her daily existence must go towards presenting an image which is heavily manipulated, curated or whatever you want to call it.

So - 'low intelligence'? I don't know, but definitely people who either just take the publicity at face value or don't seem to care that they're being fed a load of false tosh.

This.

It's snobbery.

I think people often forget that we don’t have a shared cultural experience anymore. The world of four television channels, half a dozen radio stations and reading one of the national newspapers over breakfast every morning is long gone.

I couldn’t name a single Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran or Sabrina Caroenter song, and wouldn’t recognise one if played to me. I recognise the names from reading them in newspaper articles only. That’s because Top of the Pops and listening to the chart countdown on a Sunday afternoon doesn’t figure in my, or pretty much anyone else’s life anymore.

I would recognise Katie Price I suppose, simply because she is a name from the 90s when we did have shared cultural conversations about TV, music, etc at work.

But the cultural landscape, particularly in music, is fractured beyond measure.

Is gramaphone magazine still going? Just brought back of a memory of my dad having it delivered

Why? My stepmum is almost 80 and constantly on SM

You should ask Google to explain what a joke is.

And you should consider that it's illustrating how easy it is to have a guess and then look it up on Google to find out. Which is what the people who manage to type 'who's so-and-so?' should be doing.

DH and I don't have a clue who half the 'celebrities' on TV are these days. This is not because we are intelligent or cool (or trying to be) it is because we are old!

Certainly is!

I suspect your stepmum is an exception though. None of my relatives in their 80s use social media. Most of them struggle to use a mobile phone due to the decrease in dexterity that often comes with age.

I’m in my 50s and virtually everyone in my peer group has stopped actively using social media except if they need to as part of their job.

I understand your point, however
I’m not unintelligent and I genuinely wouldn’t know who Kim K is, because I’m genuinely not interested.

I know she’s got long dark hair, but I couldn’t pick her out amongst other similar looking celebs.