Oftentimes, because I know a great deal about certain bits of television, movies and such folderal, people are surprised when they discover the gaps in my pop culture knowledge. Even one who takes great pride in pop culture ephemera, as I do, has “blind spots.” I have never seen an episode of ‘Lost,’ for instance. It’s not even like I’ve been avoiding it, either, I’ve simply never crossed paths with the show at a point where I could sit and watch. Of course, the older I get, the more this sort of thing ends up happening. For several years, I had never seen ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ (something which has finally been rectified) but I have still never seen an episode of ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Modern Family,’ or that thing with Zooey Deschanel, and I probably won’t see ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ until it hits free cable in 2015 or so.
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) reminds you that your favorite band sucks, asking:
Leaving aside things you intentionally avoid, what high-profile pop-culture is in YOUR blind spot?
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I’ve never seen a single episode of either Dr. Who or Mad Men.
I have the unfortunate condition of an infant and no money. So, I haven’t seen the latest Avengers movie, or Batman movie. Along with many other movies I just don’t have the time or money to enjoy a big screen movie.
I’ve watched maybe one episode of Dr. Who, never watched Lost, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire or pretty much any popular TV show on Cable aside from Season 1 of Game of Thrones.
I’ve never seen anything listed above and much more. Job + children = no time & no money.
I’ve only seen the first season of “Lost” and a small handful of episodes after because friends had DVDs. I have yet to see Game of Thrones (I only have basic cable), Mad Men (no real interest, although it sounds like a well made series), Walking Dead (Not a huge fan of zombies, surprisingly) and several others.
I only watch what captures my interest or what looks entertaining through previews or the occasional review (even a bad review), once in a great while stumbling across something by accident. A show can be really popular and I still won’t watch it if it doesn’t seem interesting to me in some capacity.
I was out of the country from 1997-2000. Which makes for some interesting gaps.
Some of the things that people talk about that I haven’t seen are:
South Park (got someone in my gaming group that talks about it all the time and I think I saw one episode about World of Warcraft)
Sienfeld. (I saw about half of one episode on an airplane and it put me right to sleep)
Star Wars: Clone Wars. (I’ve been meaning to, but the time has just never come up)
Lost. I watched about 20 minutes of the first episode and never got back to it.
Oh right! This is related to being out of country. In 2000 or 2001 I was in the states for the first time in a while and got a temp job at a newspaper in Grand Haven. I was chatting with someone and he made a comment about my beard and living on an island. And I made some comment back, I forget what. And the guy threw up his hands and stalked away saying “Doesn’t anyone watch Survivor?” I still don’t know what foux Pas I made. But I never did watch that.
I haven’t watched “regular network TV” (ie, ABC, NBC or CBS) in years or do I watch anything on Fox except the occasional Family Guy. Thus, I have never watched Lost, Survivor, Dancing with Whatever, The Batchelor, The Batchelorette, or anything else that ends up on the cover of People Magazine. When we were broker than the Sphinx’s nose and didn’t have cable or sattelite my kids and I usually stuck with PBS and video’s during the week and sports on the weekend. But ask me about “Game of Thrones” or anything on any of the Discovery Channels then I’m there.
And now cue the idiots that try to outdo themselves by making it a point of pride about how little T.V./movies they watch.
Hipsters are funniest when they lack self awarness, so thank you for that.
You’ll note that the question is designed to keep people from going on about what they intentionally avoid. :)
There is someone on a forum I frequent (not these forums, thankfully) that goes in to a long winded self-important rant about how little TV they watch whenever the subject even remotely comes up. It actually gets quite amusing at times when you can tell they are just grasping at something for a reason to complain, such as when a friend of mine was talking about a novel series and this person went into a rant about how “all series are crap on TV” and so on.
Let’s see. What have I missed?
– Never saw an episode of Seinfeld.
– Never saw an episode of Mad Men or Breaking Bad.
– Saw one episode of How I Met Your Mother and hated it. I DO like NPH on the Harold & Kumar movies!
– I avoid stuff like American Idol, The X Factor, America’s Got Talent, and The Voice, so that doesn’t count I guess.
NPH on How I Met Your Mother reminds me a lot of how he was in Harold and Kumar, just a little bit less extreme. Granted, I’m going by a handful of episodes (because it is usually on at the same time I’m watching something else, even in syndication), but I found his character very amusing.
This is not something I am proud of in the last, but I have only watched one episode of doctor who.. Ever. The first episode with Christopher eccleston. It almost painted me to make it through that episode and I was pot off by it. That one occurrence put doctor who completely out of my mind and I have since missed out on what I have been told is a great actor and a great role. I simply cannot find the time our the want to get into the show which causes me to miss out on so many references in all of your podcasts.
I’ve never been able to get into “Mad Men” despite a serious effort. Which drives me crazy because, as the picture reminds me, i really really like Christina Hendricks.
The same for “Big Bang Theory”, largely because I don’t have cable and haven’t been able to find anywhere to stream it online from the beginning.
And sports in general. I can appreciate the skill of athletes, but I’ve long accepted I look up into Joss Whedon and Dan Abnett the same way most people look up to Peyton Manning and Tim Tebow.
I tried to find the legit links to full Big Bang Theory episodes for you, but it seems they were taken down in prep for the new season, which is a shame.
If you do manage to catch up, CBS’s site usually has more recent episodes available to watch shortly after they air.
I’m always leery of links to full anything, as they are often illegal…
CBS and I think TBS had them up on the official sites at one point in time, which is what I was looking for.
Thanks – I’ll have to look there. Or I could just buy the DVD’s when I see them on sale . . . thanks to my deeply-ingrained love of continuity, I insist on seeing it from the beginning. Same problem with “How I Met Your Mother”
TV in general. 90% of the shows I watch are because my wife had it on and I watched it with her. Rarely do I get into any shows from day one on my own.
Most of the HBO series that I would love to watch like Deadwood, Rome, Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones. I don’t get HBO and their box sets are priced super high for some reason.
I like this new music all the kids are listening to these days, but i don’t know the difference between Jay-Z and Carly Rae Jepsen or whatever they are calling here this week.
Well, for starters, Jay-Z is a man…
I was about to ask a question that I thought would be off topic, but considering we are talking pop-culture blind spots, maybe the question isn’t off topic.
So, here goes: Whose the hot red-head?
at one point she was Gibbs boss on NCIS I think
That’s Christina Hendricks, one of the stars of Mad Men, and also the actress who played Yo-saff-bridge in several episodes of ‘Firefly.’
I used to watch Adult Swim on Cartoon Network religiously, yet somehow I missed all of the 3rd and 4th seasons of Venture Bros. I also wish I had the time to catch up on Legend of Korra.
There are shows I just don’t have time to watch that I’m sure I would like, such as Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Walking Dead, How I met your Mother, Game of Thrones, and the list goes on.
One thing that strikes me as odd is that as Lost was airing I knew nothing of its existence but within a few months after the series had finished I had watched it in its entirety via Netflix.