My wife claims she has never heard of "I shot the sheriff." I have no idea how someone could live to adulthood in USA#1 without hearing this 100 times. Can you top this?

I was once teaching a film class and half of them had never heard of The Godfather.

cody bellinger and jerry seinfeld, like last week

I did a guess the tv show style game with a few twenty-somethings... it started with vague references to losing bets and not getting soup, and ended with me literally saying 'kramer, jerry, elaine and george'.... still no dice

I worked with a young guy a few years ago who had never heard of Prince, for starters. I'd bet my life he couldn't get any basic well known history right. Like, when was WWII, uhh 1982?

Things I have learned about a lot later than most of you: Doors, Deep purple, Rolling stones, Beatles ..... Asterix and Obelix, Spider-man, Superman, Batman, Hulk..... Douglas Adams, The lord of the rings, Star-wars, Star Trek...

And a lot more. Not to know a bunch of this things is a hole in an education. But there are also few in this list that revealed themselves as a complete waste of time.

I don't think Asterix and Obelix are well known in the U.S. I only know about them because I used to collect Pez dispensers.

went to a grocery store, gave the young girl clerk, 3, 2 dollar bills, (guy lost a bet and paid me in 50 2 dollar bills ), she thought 2 dollar bill was fake.

have not heard of two items on this list

Lapka if you are saying asterix and obelix or douglas adams are a waste of time I am afraid we can't be friends.

It is pretty cool comic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix



"The humour encountered in the Asterix comics is often centering on puns, caricatures, and tongue-in-cheek stereotypes of contemporary European nations and French regions. Much of the humour in the initial Asterix books was French-specific, which delayed the translation of the books into other languages for fear of losing the jokes and the spirit of the story. Some translations have actually added local humour: In the Italian translation, the Roman legionaries are made to speak in 20th century Roman dialect and Obelix's famous "Ils sont fous ces romains" ("These Romans are crazy") is translated as "Sono pazzi questi romani", alluding to the Roman abbreviation SPQR. In another example: Hiccups are written onomatopoeically in French as "hips", but in English as "hic", allowing Roman legionaries in at least one of the English translations to decline their hiccups in Latin ("hic, haec, hoc"). The newer albums share a more universal humour, both written and visual."

Nahhhhh. Not this two.

Are you from USA? Then at least one from the two I can guess. Am super curious what is the second.

No idea what these 2 are

is it culturally illiterate if you know who Douglas Adams is but think he aggressively sucks ass?

They say it is a capital offense.

Clapton's cultural appropriation cover >>> Marley's original, that's right.

My coworker has never read Ulysses.

How old is she? Did you ask about her if she'd heard about the deputy?

My son was recently asking me about pagers and what was their point.

"Well, you'd get a number sent to your pager when a person wanted you to call them."

"Why not just call instead of page?"

Also, at the office holiday party 10,000 Maniacs came up and most of the younger staff had never heard of the band.

I grieve for the youth of today.

I remember as a 14 year old going to Epcot with my family. At the France portion of the resort, one of the guides asked the question "can any of you name a French composer?"

I could think of "Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saens, Satie" but didnt want to speak up.

After about a minute of awkward silence, somebody in the crowd of 25 or so blurted out "Mozart".

r/iamverysmart

I bet you got beat up a lot

My point was not to brag about my knowledge of classical music at 14 though I could see how that post comes off that way. My point was more that what is culturally relevant to one person might be completely foreign to another and it says almost nothing about the cultural illiteracy of the latter.

I dont think my example is any more obscure than the 10,000 Maniacs example. I have heard of 10,000 Maniacs but all I know about them is that they are Steve Young's favorite band.

Natalie Merchant sold out when she went solo!

i think 10,000 maniacs example is more generation gap than lack of foundational pop culture knowledge

not something you're likely to come across in random tv shows, movies, supermarkets etc.

I can't read runes or hieroglyphs.