How "in touch" would you say you are with modern pop culture?

[CyberCubed]

The only famous actors I know these days are the ones cast in the big superhero Marvel movies, or Star Wars movies, etc.

Besides that the only actors I know about are all the big 80's and 90's actors....all of which are over 50-60 years old now. I seriously have no idea who the new breakout movie stars of today are, again, besides the ones cast in superhero films.

The realization that all my favorite actors are the ones from the 80's/90's and I can't mention too many younger ones from the 2000's has me shocked.

[sdp]

Since I was an early teen I was into anti-culture so even back then I wasn't that into pop culture. Nowadays I definitely feel out of touch with pop culture but when I look back I was never that into pop culture. The fact that I'm a nerd and spend time in places like the drome means I'm forced to know who the latest actors are.

I don't get stuck in the past though, I love technology and the latest it brings. I love music and constantly seek out new music to enjoy, whether it's new or old, I don't tend to listen to old stuff even if I used to love it, there's just so much to listen to. With that said since I'm not a huge fan of pop music, I have no idea who the latest pop music superstars are.

I don't understand how kids can spend so much time with Instagram or Snapchat but I don't feel out of touch with that because of age, I just never liked taking pictures or viewing pictures, but yeah I usually like having the newest and latest apps.

[Spike Spiegel]

As I've gotten older, I've found real life to be more interesting and important than pop culture. I don't even have time to care as much about nostalgia for the stuff I liked when I was younger.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Sumac

In my case, I don't actively search for things.
I learn about most of the modern culture by accident, encountering stuff via some news or radio programs.

More or less the same here. Sometimes people wonder how I find some more obscure and older stuff, but truth be told 9% of the time I find them by pure luck or accident.

Originally Posted by Spike Spiegel

As I've gotten older, I've found real life to be more interesting and important than pop culture. I don't even have time to care as much about nostalgia for the stuff I liked when I was younger.

I till think cartoon and game universes look cool, but I never found the lives of real life celebrities interesting. I don't care who Scarlett Johansson is married to or whatever.

[Wesley]

I dunno. I was never really in touch a lot with pop culture at anytime, tbh. I know about it nowadays than I did years ago, though. I know the names of modern singers, actors, politicians, etc along with what are the most popular tv shows are at the moment.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The only famous actors I know these days are the ones cast in the big superhero Marvel movies, or Star Wars movies, etc.

Besides that the only actors I know about are all the big 80's and 90's actors....all of which are over 50-60 years old now. I seriously have no idea who the new breakout movie stars of today are, again, besides the ones cast in superhero films.

The realization that all my favorite actors are the ones from the 80's/90's and I can't mention too many younger ones from the 2000's has me shocked.

I wonder how many of the current famous young celebrities will remain famous when they're old.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

Only partially in touch, not out of disdain though. I prefer different time periods for entertainment. For e.g. In shows I'm usually into late 80s/early-mid 90s stuff and things coming out today while being almost completely indifferent to mid 2000s shows. With video games, Im all about late 90s-late 2000s but not interested in anything surrounding that time period.

[Prowler]

Well it's been a while. And the older you get the faster time goes by and the less time you have to keep up with the latest things. One day a game or a movie is new and the next day you realise it came out 3 years ago already.

I think it's normal to become more out of touch the older
you get. Especially if you don't have kids or don't work a job that makes you deal with kids and young people on a daily basis, like teaching for example.

I'm literally the youngest person in my family alive, and I'm 31. The second youngest is my brother, who is 39. Don't expect us to know what's cool among people who are over a decade younger than us nowadays.

I'm mostly in touch with video games and anime/manga. Those are two mediums I'm a big fan of. So I'm always going to pay attention to the latest good stuff.

Music? Popular music nowadays, from what I've heard, sounds sterile and way to homogeneous. Just go shuffle a top chart on Spotify and see it for yourself. Not interested in keeping up with that when there's tons of great music from the past.

Movies? I have zero interest in the Marvel movies that are all the rage. TV shows? Never been an avid watcher of those tbh. Plus, the premises and plots of many of them don't sound appealing to me.

[Coola Yagami]

I'm not really in touch with any celebs not in the MCU and such.

I remember a few years back there was this flaming dude on some MTV show and there was a segment where he went around asking older folks if they ever heard of Adele or knew who she was, with the joke being they never heard of her and him making faces at the camera as if they were saying they never heard of Elvis or something.

Then I realized that (at the time) I didn't know who the **** Adele was either.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

I'm not really in touch with any celebs not in the MCU and such.

I remember a few years back there was this flaming dude on some MTV show and there was a segment where he went around asking older folks if they ever heard of Adele or knew who she was, with the joke being they never heard of her and him making faces at the camera as if they were saying they never heard of Elvis or something.

Then I realized that (at the time) I didn't know who the **** Adele was either.

Well, I do know who Adele is... and I can safely say you're not missing out on not knowing who she is.

Anyway it's surprisingly easy to not know the names of many famous musicians if they belong to a genre or scene you aren't a fan of. I remember seeing Americans discussing Jay Z, Lil Wayne, Drake, Mos Def, etc. online around 2010 and I had no idea who any of those people were. I only knew metal and rock bands.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Well, I do know who Adele is... and I can safely say you're not missing out on not knowing who she is.

Anyway it's surprisingly easy to not know the names of many famous musicians if they belong to a genre or scene you aren't a fan of. I remember seeing Americans discussing Jay Z, Lil Wayne, Drake, Mos Def, etc. online around 2010 and I had no idea who any of those people were. I only knew metal and rock bands.

Yeah, I at least heard those names, especially Jay Z, Lil Wayne and Drake, but at that particular moment, I have never heard of Adele before.

Naturally I googled her or checked for her videos on Youtube afterwards to see what the fuss was about, but at the moment of viewing that show, I had no idea who the dude was talking about and why it was such a big deal that these people he was buggin never heard of her.

[Prowler]

I've never been a fan of celebrity culture. A lot of people heavily discuss the scandals involving celebrities, but I don't see the appeal. I'd much rather talk a lot about fictional characters.

[MrPliggins]

As far as "out of touch" with music, I think playing Heardle says it all for me. I guess '70s, '80s and '90s songs in one or two tries, but I often have no idea when it comes to a 2010s-2020s song.

[Prowler]

Since listening to radio isn't as big of a thing as it was some years ago, you mostly end up listening the music you want to listen to. Plus, after a certain age people stop clubbing and going to places where music that's popular among people aged 18-22 plays. So it's no wonder many of us no longer know what the current musical landscape is like.

Plus, we're living in a time where music movements seem to no longer be a thing. Everything is algorithm based nowadays. And a song needs to be either pop, hip-hop, rnb or a combination of all of these in order to become a hit. Rock music is no longer the dominant genre. Perhaps several decades from now on, musical bands will be a very niche thing.

The world changing is normal and expected. But can't say I like the current music landscape.

[Aaronardo]

I think movements across media in general may be starting to fall out of favor. I see people who were adults in the 20th century bond over shared experiences fairly easily because the popular media of the time was a shared experience. But with new technologies allowing for everything ever made to be accessible, everyone is now allowed to find their own niche. We've already seen this happen in music, and even though they're not "popular," genres like pirate metal are certainly more popular with this development than they might be without it.

I'm in my 20s, and I was never into pop culture. I feel the difference between fifteen years ago and now is that back then I understood clearly what was and wasn't "pop culture," and I'm not entirely sure what that looks like today.

Maybe I'm just that out of touch, but pop music that's considered popular now never seems to hit this inescapable level of genuine popularity we would've seen fifteen years ago. Same thing with most movies, barring Marvel. Streaming allows TV series to become more niche, etc. I've only known specific video games to define pop culture within the last several years, and I don't necessarily pay special attention there. I ask all my friends around my age, and every single one of them is into completely different media/artists with little overlap.

I think the idea of pop culture as a shared experience might be disappearing, at least for a little while. The tier of "popular" used to seem astronomical, but today it seems to be "slightly more popular than the other stuff."

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Aaronardo

I think movements across media in general may be starting to fall out of favor. I see people who were adults in the 20th century bond over shared experiences fairly easily because the popular media of the time was a shared experience. But with new technologies allowing for everything ever made to be accessible, everyone is now allowed to find their own niche. We've already seen this happen in music, and even though they're not "popular," genres like pirate metal are certainly more popular with this development than they might be without it.

I'm in my 20s, and I was never into pop culture. I feel the difference between fifteen years ago and now is that back then I understood clearly what was and wasn't "pop culture," and I'm not entirely sure what that looks like today.

Maybe I'm just that out of touch, but pop music that's considered popular now never seems to hit this inescapable level of genuine popularity we would've seen fifteen years ago. Same thing with most movies, barring Marvel. Streaming allows TV series to become more niche, etc. I've only known specific video games to define pop culture within the last several years, and I don't necessarily pay special attention there. I ask all my friends around my age, and every single one of them is into completely different media/artists with little overlap.

I think the idea of pop culture as a shared experience might be disappearing, at least for a little while. The tier of "popular" used to seem astronomical, but today it seems to be "slightly more popular than the other stuff."

You know, that's a pretty good point.

Until not that long ago, all you had to do was turn on the TV or the radio to get exposed to all the current popular stuff. There was no way to avoid it.

Nowadays, in a world where everyone has Internet access and can easily access all entertainment mediums due to platforms like YouTube, Spotify, Netflix, etc. more and more people end up living in their own bubbles. Not to mention nowadays people are more open and more likely to consume older and retro stuff due to the accessibility of it.

I know Game of Thrones was a very popular show. Nowadays I don't know what the currently hot TV shows are. Anime I know, but then again that's a more niche medium. Most people outside of the anime fandom can't name more than 5 different ones.

I think big movies that still resonate with a whole generation are going to be around for a while though.

Video games? Well, I suppose AAA titles such as The Last of Us, The Witcher, Zelda, Mario, Pokémon, etc. And ofc a ton of people play FIFA as well. That being said there are more and more indie games and more and more people getting into retro games these days.

So yeah, I think music might be the only medium to bricne fragmented like that since it's a lot easier and cheaper to produce music than other mediums. There's way too many different musicians in the world. And so many "amateur" ones as well.

[Cowabung-Gal]

Originally Posted by Voltron

I don't know if I've *ever* been up to date with pop culture. I always feel like I'm just catching up with some trend that came out years ago.

You guy's hear of this thing called One Peace? It's apparently about a Loofa Monkey who's irate. Or something. I don't know.

Get off my lawn.

“Okay, let’s go see this latest piece of Marvel s*** you kids are jizzing over.”

[CyberCubed]

Modern culture left me about a decade ago. I made it to the youtube era but that's it.

Streaming, twitch, tik tok, and all that other stuff goes over my head. I wind up knowing what all the popular TV shows, movies, etc. are just by being online all the time and hearing about them even if I don't watch everything. I'm more or less half and half on modern singers, I wind up knowing of them just through the internet even though I don't care much.

[Sumac]

Only through secondhand mention in memes.