Do you ever feel deficient in some way because you just can't understand the fuss other people make over certain ephemera?

It's like the Harry Potter books. I've never read any and I probably never will. I haven't read a book in years as I haven't got the time and I fail to see how other people find the time to indulge in their kids-book fetish.

Then there's the things which I have experienced and have just left me cold... On TV, that would be Lost, Desperate Housewives, 24, Pop Idol and many other shows... Even old stuff like Monty Python. Monty fucking Python. How is it funny? I have an above-average IQ but when you tell people that you don't find it funny, they all reply with the pat answer, "Oh, you just don't get it". Yes, I get it but it's not fucking funny.

Then there's music... Pink Floyd with their ten-minute guitar solos; Jimi Hendrix with his squealing tones; Gangsta Rap - what's all that about???

And stupid crazes. What was last year's stupid craze in the U.K.? Sudoku. I'm unsure how you even pronounce it... Pseudo-cue?... Why would anybody waste their time trying to add-up numbers in boxes? Pay me at least double the minimum wage and I may have a go, but until then, I have more important things to do.

it's all relative. there are probably things you absolutely revere that would leave other people scratching their heads.

I think it all has to do with taste and how unusual it is or how mainstream it is. I think it's also where you are in life. DOes everything seem like it's hyped to the max and you get no pleasure in anything any more because of it...even though it probably is good it's just you may not be looking at it at the right angle.

I do get what you're saying...there are many things that I think I ought to be "a part of" but just don't like.

and for what it's worth, i'm not getting the whole harry potter thing either. i'm sure they're all lovely books - i just have zero interest in reading them or seeing the movies.

Anx said:

Yeah but it seems like a direct correlation.

I mean... The more something is hyped, the less inclined I am to enjoy it. And it isn't a conscious response. It honestly isn't. I really, really tried with Desperate Housewives - I really did.

Justin1972UK said:

yeah, i have that issue too, and i'm sure it has as much to do with me as it has to do with the value of the thing being hyped. i just have a feeling that the more something is hyped, the less of it there is to discover. and that leads to me thinking it'll just be boring and predictable.

Anx said:

I have to say with Lost which is hyped out of the water...is worth it, I think. But I am a geek about that show.

Justin1972UK said:

I completely understand. I've avoided seeing "Napoleon Dynamite" all this time 4 that very reason.

npgmaverick said:

Have you seen it now? I didn't watch Brokeback Mountain for months because of the hype and I was right - it was awful!

Monty Python "not funny"? I'm shocked! devastaded now seriously... OK, obviously you don't get it

by the way, I'd be interested to learn the story behind your avatar.. Blake? Dynasty? hype? ehmmm....

Dancelot said:

Yeah, I guess Dynasty was massively popular in it's day. I guess I'm not a freak, after all.

Yes, you're absolutelyfucking right, what's all the fuss about? Like the number "7" for example. I never use it, so what's the whole point? Or take fly fishing for example. Just boooooring. And what about travelling? Why why, what's the point of going abroad, if your just going to be treated like a sheep? Cartered around in buses surrounded by sweaty mindless oaves from Vetchy and Boventry. They've blothed backs and their bardigans and their chances to radios, complaining about the tea or they don't make it properly, do they? And stopping at endless Majorcan bodegas selling fish and chips and Rodney's Red Barrel and calamares and toothache. And sitting in their cotton sunfrost, squirting Timothy White Suncream all over their puffy, raw, swollen, parollen flesh, 'cos they overdid it on the first day. Being herded into countless Hotel Miramars and Bellevues, Bontinentals with their international luxury modern roomettes... and swimming pools full of draft Red Barrel and fat German businessmen pretending to be acrobats and forming pyramids and frightening the children and barging into the cues. And if you're not at your table... spot on seven you miss your bowl of Campbell's Cream and Mushroom Soup, the first item in the menu of International Cuisine. Every Thursday night there's a bloody cabaret in the bar featuring some tiny ---- dego with nine-inch hips and some fat bloated tart with her hair really creamed down and big arse presenting her to foreigners. legs and diarrhea trying to pick up hairy, bandy legs ,whop degos called Manuel. And once a week there's an excursion to local Roman remains, where you can buy Cherry Aid and melted ice cream. And one night they take you to a typical restaurant with local atmosphere and color and you sit next to a party from Relu who keep singing "I love the Costa Brava!" And you get cornered by some drunken green grocer from Luton with an Instamatic camera and last Tuesday's daily express and he's on and on and on about how it is running the country and how many languages Margaret Powell can speak and she throws up all over the cuba libre. And spending four days on the tarmac at Luton Airport on a five-day package store with nothing to eat but dry sandwhiches. And you can't even get a glass of Rodney's Red Barrel because you're still in England with the bloody bar closes every time you're thirsty. And the kids are crying and vomiting and breaking the plastic ashtrays. They keep telling you won't be another hour, but you know damn well your plane is still in Iceland, because it had to turn back, trying to take a party of Swedes to Yugoslavia. Of course it loads you up there at 3 a.m. in the morning. And then you sit on the tarmac for four hours because of unforeseen difficulties, i.e. the permanent strike of airtraffic control over Paris. When you finally get to Malaga airport, everybody's cueing for the bloody toilet, and cueing for the bloody half-customs officers, and cueing for the bloody bus that isn't there, waiting to take you to the hotel that hasn't yet been built. When you finally get to the half-built----ruin called the Hotel Limassol, while paying half the holiday money to a license Spaniard in a taxi, there's no water in the pool, there's no water in the bath, there's no water in the tap, there's only a bleeding lizard in the bid‚, and half the rooms are doublebooked, and you can't sleep anyhow, 'cause the permanent are in the jungles in the hotel next door. Meanwhile, the Spanish National Tourist Board promises that the raging cholera epidemic is merely a mild outbreak of the Spanish Conleigh, while the like of the previous outbreak in 1616 even the bloody rats are dying from it!



























j/k

MrSmoketoomuch said:

At least you didn't reference dead parrots or lumberjacks.

Anx said:

What's worse with them is that I've been called ignorant for merely being dis-interested in them. I don't CARE about Harry Potter. It's a fancy schmancy version of The Worst Witch books that I read when I was 8 years old - when I was in the age demographic they were aimed at.

Yes, Harry Potter may be easy to follow and enjoyable for adults, but so are Roald Dahl's classic children's books... interesting for adults to read with and to their own children, not by themselves!

Justin1972UK said:

he's not dead, just asleep

You don´t like LOST and gangsta rap ????? !!!!!


( I mean I understand why you don´t like all the other stuff you mentioned, but LOST ? )













....OK, I also don´t like gangsta rap anymore, but it was cool between 1987 and 1991.

i think your first problem is that you haven't read a book in years. that's a long time to go without reading any kind of book.

I have to say that i don't get the hype about most everything you mentioned except for monty python. harry potter, lost, and desparate housewives are overhyped as are most things in are put in the spotlight. the critics don't want us to make up our own minds and would rather us just take what they're force feeding us.

On that note, I fucking HATE rent. HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT!!! i think it's stupid. being drug addicted, broke, and HIV positive is not a fun and feel good experience. that's just not life.

American Idol (and all its derivatives)...I don't get the fascination.

I feel exactly the same way - if I see something hyped up like that I just avoid it, knowing I'll be disappointed

There's a lot of "cool" things I don't get the appeal of at all:

Harry Potter
The L Word
Lost
American Idol or Canadian Idol
The Amazing Race
Those trendy new names for babies ending in "aden". (Kaden/Braden/Jaden/etc.)
The Rachel haircut
The Matrix movies
Blackberries
Will & Grace

and loads others I can't think of right now.

meow85 said:

there's a Baydon in my son's year at school. Actually there are so many silly made up names, my kid is the only one with a proper name

JasmineFire said:

oh my GOD!!! I fucking LOVE you!!! That's what I've BEEN saying! And people(ESPECIALLY gay people) eat that shit UP and I have NO idea why. I could see if it was at LEAST a positive story, but they're all broke, dying, uninspired, pity party bitches, and the shit is NOT cute. Why the hell would I want to go see something like that? And I tell people I can't stand it and they're like "OMFG what's wrong with you??!?!" The youth group I volunteer at went to the movie theatre to see it, and instead I chose to see Aeon Flux by myself. Which sucked but still i'd take a suck ass Aeon Flux over a dumbass RENT ANY day.

Oh, and I REALLY can't stand Madonna. What's really the big fucking deal with her. Seriously. WHY is she so popular with gay men? WHY WHY WHY? I don't fucking get it. She's not attractive, has middle school talent, and her music's fucking stupid. All she makes is that disco trashy bullshit and the gays eat it up. And I'm the odd man out because I don't incorporate her latest song title into my daily word usage. Madonna sucks. For real yo.

meow85 said:

Oh yeah! I hate the way that people attach an importance to the movies as if they're a deeply enlightening quasi-mystical life-lesson. I'd also apply this to The Shawshank Redemption and Donnie Darko.

Justin1972UK said:

just cause donnie darko did not make sense does not mean it has some deep meaning (though I am crazy about Lost Highway, which makes no sense whatsoever)

Justin1972UK said:

I know right! The Matrix is just a movie and should be viewed as such. Nothing more or less. The concept is neat and all, but let's use some fucking brain power people. People actually started to believe that we're not who we are and we're in *GASP* THE MATRIX!!! Sounds more like a horror movie to me. I only saw it because I LOVE special effects in movies and not to make a religion out of it.

charlottegelin said:

Actually, Donnie Darko made perfect sense... ...very easy to follow. I'm always confused when people scratch their heads like they just watch an all-Latin film played in reverse or something...

Byron said:

What's that movie about anyway?

DynamicSavior said:

Two versions, one literal and one more figurative:

Literal version: Back in 1988, a 16 year old schizophrenic teenage boy literally prevents the world from ending...and nobody except him realizes that he has.

Figurative version: 16 year old schizophrenic teenage boy lives a fantasy/dream in his head right before he meets his death...it feels like a month long experience to him, but in reality it's only about 30 seconds in length.