"So there's more than Voyager?"

[uniderth]

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Something to keep in mind about Trek is that there are now college-age kids who weren't around for the peak of its saturation in the '90s.

That's physically impossible. Nothing from the '90s can be older than ten years. That's just how the universe works.

That's the tragic part that I think about. Like if someone only had seen Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of The Crystal Skull, & thought "Hey, that was pretty good. No need to see anymore of this Indiana Jones stuff. Couldn't possibly get better than this"

Like a blind guy getting a chance to see through one foggy eye & thinking it's the best shit ever

To be fair The Last Crusade wasn't much better. My nostalgia made be think it was, but I rewatched it and it has some pretty cringe worthy moments too. Though, nothing is as bad as the nuclear fridge. NOTHING.

 

[Ceridwen]

The issue I have is that when I was 23, I & my peers had a FAR vaster knowledge of the 50 or more years of culture prior to then, than these people have of the last 50 years of culture, & yet, we did not have the oracle of all human knowledge resting, at all times, in our pockets

When were you 23? It's only been ten years since I was 23, and in that time, the number of movies released in theaters each year has nearly doubled, the number of cable channels has continued to rise, streaming services are a thing (we called it "pirating" when I was 23) and they're all creating their own content... There is so much media being produced that it's impossible to keep up with it all, then on top of that you're expecting people to go back and catch up with everything they missed.

If you only have four channels, and all the fourth one can afford to play are old cheap-to-license movies, then of course you're going to have a running knowledge of old pop culture cuz it's still being recycled as part of your current pop culture.

 

[Greg Cox]

It's funny. Several years ago a friend and I were lamenting that "kids these days" weren't familiar with classic old movies. Then we realized we were wrong; to quote the new Spider-Man, his generation knows about lots of "really old" movies . . . like ALIEN and THE TERMINATOR and BACK TO FUTURE, which are as old to them as, say, FORBIDDEN PLANET or THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN were to us when we were growing up.

Kinda sobering to realize.

 

[Spot261]

It's funny. Several years ago a friend and I were lamenting that "kids these days" weren't familiar with classic old movies. Then we realized we were wrong; to quote the new Spider-Man, his generation knew about lots of "really old" movies . . . like ALIEN and THE TERMINATOR and BACK TO FUTURE, which are as old to them as, say, FORBIDDEN PLANET or THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN were to us when we were growing up.

Kinda sobering to realize.

I keep having these moments and not just about movies. I remember listening to Oasis in the ninetees and Noel Gallagher referencing Paul Weller. To me The Jam were a distant memory, a thing of the dim and distant past. Now I realise that Gallagher's heyday is itself as remote as Weller's was then.

Don't even get me started on having been alive for most of the time which has elapsed since the end of WW2.....

 

[Greg Cox]

Similar story: a friend was recommending a favorite movie.

"Sounds good," I said. "I'll keep an eye out for it on TCM."

"TCM?" he replied, sounding genuinely appalled. "It's not that old!"

"It came out in the sixties. That was roughly fifty years ago."

"Oh, God, we're old, aren't we?"

"Yes."

 

[1001001]

The local oldies station changed format recently.

They started playing all my favorite music.

It was bizarre.

 

[tharpdevenport]

So it became the Really Oldies?

ahem​

 

[Greg Cox]

The assumption being most of the world's population lives in the USA.... right?

BTW I've never heard of Bob Newhart.

For what it's worth, the current issue of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY has a retrospective on his second hit sitcom, so he hasn't entirely receded into the forgotten reaches of history . . . at least here in the States.

 

[Timewalker]

Yeah, that's the bit that baffles me. I'm sure such willfully ignorant people do exist, but I have a hard time believing they're anything other than outliers.

I mean, all of us here are (obviously) getting all of these references, regardless of our individual ages and backgrounds. Even if we aren't fans of some particular show or person, we've at least heard of them. This stuff is just part of the cultural air we breathe. For instance, I remember when I watched the first episode of Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (great show, if you haven't seen it!), set around 1960, one of the comics was doing a standup routine that made me think "doesn't that sound like a Bob Newhart routine?", and it turned out to be a plot point that it was a Bob Newhart routine.

Bob Newhart was available here. But I never watched it, and wouldn't recognize a "Bob Newhart routine" unless I'd heard it but didn't know it was one of his.

And never mind age; sometimes all it takes is a language/cultural barrier within the same country. I had a conversation with someone from Quebec several months ago. We compared popular Canadian musicians, and realized the only ones we've both heard of are Celine Dion and Rene Simard (Simard was a teen idol in the '70s and the only reason I heard of him is because he had a show on CTV). I was flabbergasted to find that this person had not grown up hearing Gordon Lightfoot and Stompin' Tom Connors, as I had.

 

[1001001]

For what it's worth, the current issue of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY has a retrospective on his second hit sitcom, so he hasn't entirely receded into the forgotten reaches of history . . . at least here in the States.

Not to mention his appearances on The Big Bang Theory.

 

[Greg Cox]

Not mention his appearances on The Big Bang Theory.

Good point!

There are probably millions of younger viewers who would recognize him as "Professor Proton" these days.

 

[lawman]

...It's only been ten years since I was 23, and in that time, the number of movies released in theaters each year has nearly doubled, the number of cable channels has continued to rise, streaming services are a thing... There is so much media being produced that it's impossible to keep up with it all, then on top of that you're expecting people to go back and catch up with everything they missed.

Yes, we're living through "peak TV" and all that. Our environment is saturated with entertainment media of every kind. But that's why I think it should logically be easier for people today, of whatever age, to be familiar with significant works, of whatever age. You're basically saying that people can't be bothered to learn about older works because they can't even keep up with the new ones — but to say that presumes that they're privileging and prioritizing newer works over older ones.

And why should anyone actually do that? After all, on a personal level anything you haven't seen/heard is "new," regardless of when it was made. In attempting to sort through the wealth of material out there, any reasonable person is going to be trying to filter good from bad, not new from old.

If you only have four channels, and all the fourth one can afford to play are old cheap-to-license movies, then of course you're going to have a running knowledge of old pop culture cuz it's still being recycled as part of your current pop culture.

You might think that, but it's not what things were actually like. Sure, some predictable material was always in heavy rotation in TV syndication packages (or radio playlists, etc.). But beyond that, in the pre-internet age and especially the pre-video-store age, lots of older material simply wasn't available, in any way, shape, or form.

 

[Mojochi]

When were you 23? It's only been ten years since I was 23, and in that time, the number of movies released in theaters each year has nearly doubled, the number of cable channels has continued to rise, streaming services are a thing (we called it "pirating" when I was 23) and they're all creating their own content... There is so much media being produced that it's impossible to keep up with it all, then on top of that you're expecting people to go back and catch up with everything they missed.

If you only have four channels, and all the fourth one can afford to play are old cheap-to-license movies, then of course you're going to have a running knowledge of old pop culture cuz it's still being recycled as part of your current pop culture.

& the public library is in our pockets, plus much much more. I had a 5 mile trip to mine. I'm also not just talking about tv. I was 23 only 25 years ago. We had cable tv with tons of media too. There's more now, yes, & there's WAY more opportunity to see it, more easily available. I wore out my library card, & none of the stuff I listened to there was being recycled in our current pop culture. We invested more in our history, as a life choice. I'm fine with most of the crap we had getting forgotten. A lot of it was disposable... (Just like today's stuff) but some things probably ought to be on the to do list, not necessarily completely consumed, but at least in the lexicon. People should have at least recognized or heard of Bob Newhart. He was as influential to tv comedy as Jack Benny or Milton Berle (Who were not being recycled on tv when I was 23)

 

[Paul Weaver]

Bob Newhart. He was as influential to tv comedy as Jack Benny or Milton Berle

Someone upthread said he was Captain Proton, so I guess I've heard of Bob Newhart.

Never heard of the others, although someone sounding like Milton Berle may have been mentioned on a family guy episode....

Ahh yes, he had 'legendary genitals'.

Kids today watch far less TV than we used to in the 80s and 90s.

 

[1001001]

Someone upthread said he was Captain Proton, so I guess I've heard of Bob Newhart.

Never heard of the others, although someone sounding like Milton Berle may have been mentioned on a family guy episode....

Ahh yes, he had 'legendary genitals'.

Kids today watch far less TV than we used to in the 80s and 90s.

Professor Proton, on The Big Bang Theory.

Captain Proton was Tom Paris on Voyager.

 

[Ceridwen]

You're basically saying that people can't be bothered to learn about older works because they can't even keep up with the new ones — but to say that presumes that they're privileging and prioritizing newer works over older ones.

And why should anyone actually do that?

Cuz it's what's literally being made for them. Let's say I'm a Gen-Z teenager. I get home from school and go to Netflix. The very first thing I see is not "His Girl Friday", that's buried under menu after menu, I have to look for it specifically. But there's the new Netflix show, right there, click, already watching, I get all the allusions, the cultural touchstones, cuz it's made for me.

And that's IF I even spend my leisure time with a more "formal" television experience like Netflix. Why would I do that when I can spend hours watching kids my age talk about video games on YouTube? Or I can play Minecraft for three hours before bed?

And if it just plain "wasn't available" then how did you watch it? You had an interest and went out of your way to find it. You probably made friends with people who share your interests, that's usually the friends we make.

Like, I am also that person. But we can't just go through the world being incredulous when other people spend their time differently than we do.

 

[Nyotarules]

The local oldies station changed format recently.

They started playing all my favorite music.

It was bizarre.

You know you're old when you stop caring or have no clue who is in the music top 20( does that still exist?)

 

[Nyotarules]

People should have at least recognized or heard of Bob Newhart. He was as influential to tv comedy as Jack Benny or Milton Berle (Who were not being recycled on tv when I was 23)

If I wrote on here people should recognise or at least heard of Tommy Cooper and Norman Wisdom, your response would be?
I'm on the wrong side of 40 and never heard of Bob Newhart or Milton Berle

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's very weird thinking that Nirvana is as old now as The Beatles were when I started listening to music.

I don't follow top 20 but I do follow all the new indie music that comes out.

 

[Nyotarules]

It's very weird thinking that Nirvana is as old now as The Beatles were when I started listening to music.

I don't follow top 20 but I do follow all the new indie music that comes out.

I wonder how long its takes for popular music to be considered 'classical'. Jazz is over 100 years old. Pop music and all its genres will be in another 30 years.