Undertaker > Hogan

[Loss]

I don't know how much a lot of this means. What percentage of the population is aware that we had a President Taft?

[Childs]

Miniscule. Some of the most horrifying experiences of my life as a reporter have involved interviewing voters on election day. These are people who have taken the time to participate, so they're probably not the lowest common denominator. Yet the expanses of what they do not know are astonishing (and I'm no political nerd who thinks everyone should be able to name the secretary of the interior).

[Matt D]

Miniscule. Some of the most horrifying experiences of my life as a reporter have involved interviewing voters on election day. These are people who have taken the time to participate, so they're probably not the lowest common denominator. Yet the expanses of what they do not know are astonishing (and I'm no political nerd who thinks everyone should be able to name the secretary of the interior).

I bet they all know who Hulk Hogan is though.

[Loss]

Miniscule. Some of the most horrifying experiences of my life as a reporter have involved interviewing voters on election day. These are people who have taken the time to participate, so they're probably not the lowest common denominator. Yet the expanses of what they do not know are astonishing (and I'm no political nerd who thinks everyone should be able to name the secretary of the interior).

I bet they all know who Hulk Hogan is though.

 

Sure. People are idiots.

[tim]

Miniscule. Some of the most horrifying experiences of my life as a reporter have involved interviewing voters on election day. These are people who have taken the time to participate, so they're probably not the lowest common denominator. Yet the expanses of what they do not know are astonishing (and I'm no political nerd who thinks everyone should be able to name the secretary of the interior).

Really, you think miniscule? I imagine at least 40% knows about the bathtub story no? To be fair I have about 0 idea what the "general population" knows in terms of general knowledge like that.

[Matt D]

As for Taft, i would be amazed if 10% knew the bathtub story. Was it mentioned on Friends maybe?

 

Miniscule. Some of the most horrifying experiences of my life as a reporter have involved interviewing voters on election day. These are people who have taken the time to participate, so they're probably not the lowest common denominator. Yet the expanses of what they do not know are astonishing (and I'm no political nerd who thinks everyone should be able to name the secretary of the interior).

I bet they all know who Hulk Hogan is though.

 

Sure. People are idiots.

 

I think that's the note we should tie this thing off with. All 16 pages of it.

[Childs]

No way in hell it's 40 percent on Taft.

 

And yes Matt, I imagine I would've had much more success interviewing people about Hogan than about John Kerry. Hey, we've taken a thread that began with a fairly ridiculous question and spun a unified (well, not quite) theory of celebrity encompassing Hulk Hogan, Molly Ringwald and President Taft. Hurray board.

[WingedEagle]

Miniscule. Some of the most horrifying experiences of my life as a reporter have involved interviewing voters on election day. These are people who have taken the time to participate, so they're probably not the lowest common denominator. Yet the expanses of what they do not know are astonishing (and I'm no political nerd who thinks everyone should be able to name the secretary of the interior).

I bet they all know who Hulk Hogan is though.

 

Sure. People are idiots.

 

Some moreso than others. Which helps explain why WWE is only able to command certain advertising dollars despite having higher ratings than most cable programming.

[JerryvonKramer]

Just spent a while reading about the "Echo Boomer" generation. I kinda object to being lumped in with the 18 year olds!

I'm out of the loop- this was a new term for me when I read the Harris poll. Curious to read links.

 

Don't really want to derail the other thread, but the wiki is not a bad starting place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials

 

This actually sheds some light on the long debate we had here. Some of this stuff speaks to my theories about the internet affecting the way the youth of today engages with media and thinks about films and so on. Check out this line:

 

Generation Y came of age in a time where the entertainment industry was affected by the Internet.[86][87][88][89][90] They allegedly show a preference for current movies.[91]

There's a link to a related article:

 

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/14/en...ovelty-20120715

 

A key passage:

 

But the new "Spider-Man" betrays something else — something important about the young audience's relationship to film. Young people, so-called millennials, don't seem to think of movies as art the way so many boomers did. They think of them as fashion, and like fashion, movies have to be new and cool to warrant attention. Living in a world of the here-and-now, obsessed with whatever is current, kids seem no more interested in seeing their parents' movies than they are in wearing their parents' clothes. Indeed, novelty may be the new narcissism. It obliterates the past in the fascination with the present.

There it is right there.

 

I will make no secret of the fact that I genuinely despise that attitude. Genuinely and deeply.

[tim]

Didn't the majority of people always only care about what is "cool and new?" Weren't the type of people who had an interest in looking through the past to find the best of whatever media relatively small? If anything the internet increases the numbers of such people with access to critical consensus and ability to download. Essentially everyone I know is interested in watching good movies, reading good books, etc from whatever era. The majority of people probably aren't. I don't think any of this is anything new.

[JerryvonKramer]

I don't really want to go over the debate again because I have nothing new to add. I think people have changed, others think people have always been the same. At times in history that is patently untrue. For example, the early moderns were self-consciously neo-classicist looking back to the Greeks as being purveyors of a golden age. The question is whether you can have real shifts in outlook in the space of one or two generations.

 

Whatever you think, it seems like these sorts of "generational studies" might be the gateway into proper research on the topic. It is quite an interesting area I think.

[Jesse Ewiak]

I think the difference between today and even ten years ago is sure, yes, most teenagers and young adults want something new and edgy, but until very recently, sometimes all that was on TV or the radio was something from a few years back. So, if you wanted to watch TV, you were stuck watching a movie from 10 or 15 years ago.

 

Now, instead, there are literally hundreds of Youtube 'stars' that none of us have heard of, but have millions of subscribers who are mostly kids under 25. So, you don't need to watch anything "old" because there's always new content on the Internet.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

Had to buy. Scans to follow.

[JerryvonKramer]

You are not going to believe who is mentioned in this book. Considering this thread, I couldn't fucking believe it. Study some of these tables carefully.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jdw]

Don't really want to derail the other thread, but the wiki is not a bad starting place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials

 

This actually sheds some light on the long debate we had here. Some of this stuff speaks to my theories about the internet affecting the way the youth of today engages with media and thinks about films and so on. Check out this line:

 

Generation Y came of age in a time where the entertainment industry was affected by the Internet.[86][87][88][89][90] They allegedly show a preference for current movies.[91]

There's a link to a related article:

 

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/14/en...ovelty-20120715

 

A key passage:

 

But the new "Spider-Man" betrays something else — something important about the young audience's relationship to film. Young people, so-called millennials, don't seem to think of movies as art the way so many boomers did. They think of them as fashion, and like fashion, movies have to be new and cool to warrant attention. Living in a world of the here-and-now, obsessed with whatever is current, kids seem no more interested in seeing their parents' movies than they are in wearing their parents' clothes. Indeed, novelty may be the new narcissism. It obliterates the past in the fascination with the present.

There it is right there.

 

I will make no secret of the fact that I genuinely despise that attitude. Genuinely and deeply.

 

So the generation of kids who grew up listening to the Beatles in the mid-60s all wanted to listen to their parent's music of the 40s?

 

No... they didn't give a shit about it.

 

Neal Gabler isn't a total dumbfuck. But if someone actually sat down and asked him about *his* generation when they were kids, and the various entertainment that they watched/listened to/bought, and how much they really cared about the stuff their parents did a decade before, in about 5 minutes he would cop to being full of shit.

 

Or if they asked him about the *last* generation, he's cop to the same thing.

 

It's probably a waste to point this out, but:

 

Jaws (1975)

Jaws 2 (1978)

Jaws 3-D (1983)

Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

 

Neal was a movie reviewer when Jaws 3-D came out. It was a total reboot of the prior two.

 

Hmmm...

 

"A lot of folks have wondered whether it is too soon,

just [8] years after the release of the original film and five

years after the [second] installment, to relaunch [Jaws].

When questioned, a producer of the new picture snapped

that anyone who asked that is "too old." He may have been

dismissively arrogant, especially to geriatrics over 30, but he

may also have been right."

-What Neal Gabler *wasn't* saying in 1983 about Jaws 3-D

and the Post Boomers before they were called Generation X

 

Yep. Neal's intro works just as well in 1983 as it did 29 years later in 2013.

 

John

[goodhelmet]

I am going to say that in America, from 1980-1988 or so, you probably have a generation of kids (including me) who were invested in music and television shows from the past because shows that were around before my time (Brady Bunch, The Monkees, Andy Griffin, Original Batman Series, tons of Nick at Nite Stuff) were as much a part of my generation thanks to cable television and all that time to fill on the new networks.

[Strummer]

The Monkees

MTV started airing reruns in the mid/late 80s. I wanna say 87/88 and I absolutely loved this show. Even though it was on the air nearly 15 years before I was born. I can remember watching the show every day after school and in fact begged my mother to see them in concert during their reunion tour along the same time.( I was only about 7 or 8 at the time)

[Loss]

I believe I've also read that The Brady Bunch was also more popular in the late 80s than it was during its first airing.

[Strummer]

A quick check notes MTV started airing Monkees reruns in February 1986. I wasn't yet seven years old. Also didn't know that ABC ran reruns as Saturday Morning programs in late 60s/early 70s

[jdw]

I am going to say that in America, from 1980-1988 or so, you probably have a generation of kids (including me) who were invested in music and television shows from the past because shows that were around before my time (Brady Bunch, The Monkees, Andy Griffin, Original Batman Series, tons of Nick at Nite Stuff) were as much a part of my generation thanks to cable television and all that time to fill on the new networks.

When you were 12, did you care more about the new movies coming out, or movies that came out in the 60s?

 

More about music that was current, or stuff from the 60s?

 

Did you watch more Old TV, or did you watch more New TV such as pro wrestling or Cosby or Family Ties?

 

Did you spend more time watching current sports, or did you not care about that and instead focused your time on sports in the 60s?

 

The question isn't about total obliviousness. I doubt that Neal would even claim that: after all, Spidey-Re-Boot did $250M+ in the US and $750M world wide because it was another in the Spider-Man series, even if it was a re-boot.

 

John

[jdw]

I believe I've also read that The Brady Bunch was also more popular in the late 80s than it was during its first airing.

Unlikely. The TV movie did well, but the re-launched series died a death even quicker than the one in the early 80s. There was nostalgia for one-offs. Not true popularity to sustain a show.

[Jesse Ewiak]

I am going to say that in America, from 1980-1988 or so, you probably have a generation of kids (including me) who were invested in music and television shows from the past because shows that were around before my time (Brady Bunch, The Monkees, Andy Griffin, Original Batman Series, tons of Nick at Nite Stuff) were as much a part of my generation thanks to cable television and all that time to fill on the new networks.

When you were 12, did you care more about the new movies coming out, or movies that came out in the 60s?

 

More about music that was current, or stuff from the 60s?

 

Did you watch more Old TV, or did you watch more New TV such as pro wrestling or Cosby or Family Ties?

 

Did you spend more time watching current sports, or did you not care about that and instead focused your time on sports in the 60s?

 

The question isn't about total obliviousness. I doubt that Neal would even claim that: after all, Spidey-Re-Boot did $250M+ in the US and $750M world wide because it was another in the Spider-Man series, even if it was a re-boot.

 

John

 

I don't think anybody is claiming that teenagers and young adults don't prefer the fresh and new. The argument is, in the past, if you wanted to be entertained, there were times you had to watch something old because it was the only option on the TV that was viable at all. Sure, The Brady Bunch was old, but it was better than watching something even older or doing your homework. As a result, you may get into or even like something older because that was your only option.

 

Now though, there's always something new and fresh. There's eighteen zillion Youtube channels, Tumblr blogs, and Instagrams to look at. There's no reason to go back to the past because there's a metric ton of new entertainment coming out daily.

[jdw]

The Monkees

MTV started airing reruns in the mid/late 80s. I wanna say 87/88 and I absolutely loved this show. Even though it was on the air nearly 15 years before I was born. I can remember watching the show every day after school and in fact begged my mother to see them in concert during their reunion tour along the same time.( I was only about 7 or 8 at the time)

 

I dug the Beatles in Jr. High and High School in 1979-84. Had a couple of Beatles t-shirts, in addition to other current rock groups. So it's not a "never" that a kid liked something that was hot 20 years before he turned 18.

 

Of course I was the only one who, during my time in HS, wore a Beatles shirt. Zep... sure. But they also we performing as recently as 1980, so they weren't "ancient" like the Beatles. An *no one* ever wore an Elvis shirt... or a Sinatra shirt... or a Bing Crosby shirt.

 

That's not to say that some 13-18 year old in 1979-84 somewhere in the US didn't love him some Elvis (sure a decent number did), some Sinatra (okay... that's stretching) and some Bing (umm...). Just that as a % of the population at that point... small. Even the Beatles would have been small. I know... I went to Beatlesfests back in those days, and it wasn't exactly Comic Con.

[goodhelmet]

I am the wrong person to ask John because I actually cared more about old music. I was listening to my sister's classic heavy metal albums at age 8. I had most of the Beatles and Stones classic albums by the end of middle school and I wrote a book for a high school project on my favorite songs from the 50s and 60s.

 

For TV, it depends. I didn't record every episode of the Cosbys or Cheers. I did record every episode of the old Batman series when it was on that Christian network. Brady Bunch was just as much a part of my childhood as GI Joe or Transformers.

 

As for old sports or wrestling., I wasn't old enough to be hip to the trading scene or the Observer. I would have been happy to watch old wrestling but I didn't have access to it. Same thing with sports. I could only read about the old shit because they weren't replaying a lot of old games.

 

For movies, we had tons of old movies on VHS. At this point, it would be about individual movies, not whether they were old or new.

 

It isn't always a question of what is old or new but what you are exposed to.

 

Take Exposer.... the guy might be the youngest poster on the board. Because of his brother, he was exposed to a shitload of old wrestling and he comments on old wrestling as much if not more than current product.

[Strummer]

I did record every episode of the old Batman series when it was on that Christian network.

My brother did the same thing! IIRC the show was on the channel that eventually became the Family Channel and aired weekday mornings when we were at school