What piece(s) of pop media have you not consumed that people would think you weird for not having consumed yet?
Just as examples:
- I've never played a Pokemon game despite being just the right age where my peers were really into gen 1 as a kid.
- I have yet to watch any of the Alien or Predator franchise movies (except Prometheus, which I didn't realize was in the Alien franchise when I watched it long ago) but am planning on rectifying that when I can get a chance.
- Oh, and I've never seen the "hawk tuah" video.
Not having tik tok or instagram seems to count? I dunno if wildly popular social media counts though.
I've heard "I don't trust people who don't have instagram" more than once, but the last time was in 2021, so I dunno how's the current sentiment
Nowadays it's "I don't trust people who don't have PixelFed".
/s
Social media is the devil. I have Lemmy and that's enough
Agreed.
I never watched Squid Game and don’t intend to. Battle royale material just isn’t my thing.
I tried the first episode but barely got a quarter way through. Made me too sad
Aw, but it gets so much worse!
Yeah, the first and last episode aren't even like the rest of the series, and include lots of weird stuff, the story which forms the framework... I've enjoyed them more than the middle part.
"Not for me" != "bad"
"This art made me feel things that made me no longer wish to consume it".
FTFY
And then there's me who watched the entire thing in 1 day.
Hmm, it seems there's also S2 now.
Game of Thrones maybe. To coin a phrase, “spare me the drama, and the incest.”
I love fantasy, it was right up my alley at the right time, but all the grit in GoT for me just resolves to alt-history Europe.
I've tried multiple times, but it doesn't gel with me. Alt history, like you said, bit also 'lotr with abundant sex' just doesn't sit well with me.
And then the world was devastated by the badly written ending, and I felt vindicated without even having skin in the game.
I don't really think that LoTR and GoT have that much in common other than both being popular and fantasy. LoTR is high-magic, focuses mostly on a small group or two of people, is done in the context of an impending apocalypse, and follows a quest. GoT is low-magic, follows many different story threads, and is mostly people navigating their political and social environments.
They both have dragons, both have some important characters be nobles, and both are kinda faux-European, but I can't think of all that many things that really tie the two together. I'd say that most fantasy that I've read is significantly closer to LoTR than GoT is.
That being said, I'm basing this on the books.
Oh yeah Tal, my reference point for fantasy is only LOTR. So the people telling me to watch Got because I was a big Tolkien fan might have instilled the comparison in me.
But I lacked the staying power to get a proper comparison
GoT's rise to popularity is almost as crazy as its sharp fall into irrelevance.
Honestly odd to me. I mean its expected for any show to become irrelevant when it ends, thats normal. But the way it was hated on i dont get. The ending was exactly what was foreshadowed since the first season, but people were still confused and angry as if it was an illogical story progression.
I actually rewatched the whole thing starting last week and finished it today. All the characters make sense, they did what the always said they would. Maybe that was boring for people.
Fair enough, if you didn't notice a drop in quality or whiplash character/plot developments all I can say is that I'm kinda jealous.
I will disagree with you on the fact that it's normal for any show to become irrelevant when it ends. Shows that are good enough and capture audiences the way GoT did initially can go on to become much more and maintain relevance potentially for decades. It's rare, sure, but I think the opportunity was there with GoT.
It's the expedience of it. It also started moving into dumb tropes starting in season 5, only worsening as it continued.
This Pitch Meeting really sums up the issues: https://youtu.be/jAhKOV3nImQ
Main Pitch Meeting: https://youtu.be/BASjRxn5QFU
One trope that I really hate are these bypasses where characters almost meet but then miss each other. Happens way to often in this show.
Thanks for the links :)
While the ending is exactly what I expected it to be, I think the last season was rushed. But I agree, I don't get the hatred people gave it, I had stopped watching a few seasons back, but watched the last one because people around me were watching it, but from the books it was fairly clear that that was the ending all along.
I've never seen or read Game of Thrones either, despite also being a big fantasy fan. I just never got around to it when it was popular, and after hearing how it collapsed in upon itself at the end I don't feel the need to.
I've read the books, and I had no intention of going through the pain again, watching the show.
I loved the books, but just kept wincing trying to watch the TV series, never made it through.
if titanic is so good, why haven't i seen it?
It's quite meh to me, though it was kinda funny when that guy at the end fell off the stern and hit the propeller on his way down.
I remember when it came out, in my country it was sold out for weeks and people would queue for hours to get a ticket.
I only ever watched bits on TV, I'm not interested in catastrophe movies.
It's an ok movie, but I personally think it's Cameron's worst.
I've never seen a (modern) marvel movie, despite being a fan of the comics and cartoons as a kid.
I've never seen a harry potter film.
You're not missing out on much with Harry Potter. It's one of those stories that are "just there". Not really much depth.
I was not interested in Harry Potter until I visited the Universal Studios portrayal of Diagon Alley, that is really well done and sucked me right in. Watched all the movies after that. Even then the plots weren't amazing but the world building is great.
I fell asleep during all of the Harry Potter movies I tried to watch. That's not meant as a judgement on the quality of those movies. I just couldn't help it.
i was thinking i'm weird when my friends are talking about harry potter and i only know few things about it while they talk the whole story 😭
The harry potter movies were not good. Daniel Radcliff, however good of an actor he is now, back then, wasn't. he literally ruined those movies.
I've never had Instagram, tik Tok, twitter, or most other socials. I had Facebook, that's pretty much it. But no longer.
I've never seen a single James Bond movie or know anything about the scenes or characters, except for the fact there's an agent named James Bond who likes his name and always looks dressed to the nines.
I think his name is actually Bondjames Bond
Its actually Bond Jamesbond
What kind of fucked up first name is "Bond", are his parents governments or companies
Call a Bondulance
I've only seen the first two parts of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
You monster. That's somehow even worse than not seeing it at all
"I bow to no one."
...or whatever the hell Aragorn says when he kills Sauron.
I watched the 3rd only for the sake of completion. I found the whole trilogy just okay. Fine as a summer movie but that's it
Ill news is an ill guest
I haven't read or seen LOTR. Everything I know about it has been pieced together from parodies and references in other media. The magic the gathering crossover set was probably the biggest exposure I've had.
It would be interesting to get your take on LOTR and see how close you are to the actual story.
I got my nerd card revoked after a convention when I revealed that I hadn't seen any of the Marvel movies. And this was about 10 years ago. I eventually made exceptions for Deadpool and GotG.
Wot!? Dude!! I started playing DnD just to get the nerd card and this is how I find out I still don't qualify??? I've watched X-Men (2000) though, does that count?
Ain't my gate to keep lol. You're good in my book.
Nerd.
🤓
Ang Lee's Hulk at a bare minimum
Wait wait is that the one with Nick Nolte? I almost watched that one in full, I missed the first 20 minutes or so
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286716/
Yup that one
Most comedy movies from the 00s-10s, for me. Anchorman, Superbad, 40 Year Old Virgin, Step Brothers... If Judd Apatow was involved or it starred SNL celebrities, I probably never saw it.
I didn't watch the show Firefly. I had already been using this screenname for a long time when that show came out, but people began to assume I was a fan and named myself after it.
While I'm generally a scifi fan and watched tons of scifi TV in those days, the Buffy shows a lot of my friends were into bored the hell out of me and I didn't feel like checking out another show by the same guy.
I do have the DVDs on my shelf, having picked them up cheap secondhand ages ago thinking I might just get it over with someday, but the more I've learned about Joss Whedon over the years the less inclined I find myself to check it out.
fwiw, Firefly is nothing like Buffy.
Joss Whedon is problematic, but dang he made some good TV. There's a reason Firefly got a movie after not getting picked up (Serenity, it's also great), and a reason it still has a devoted following to this day.
...But oh man that opening song... lol
I never manage to finish it, I started it twice already, and there are some gems there, there's one scene in particular which I LOVE: https://youtu.be/yXuhtZ9lh9A but for some reason can never get myself to finish it.
I never watched Game of Thrones. I only watched the very last episode because the friends decided it'd be fun to watch, and even then I was disappointed lol
I also never read any books based on any RPG or other games (D&D, World of Darkness, 40k)
They only made 4 seasons of Game of Thrones. Really wished they had made more, but what can you do?
The last episide was weak. The first couple seasons were good.
I have never read the Harry Potter series.
I plowed through all sorts books as a kid in the 2000s but never picked them up.
Yeah I think I'm cool with that.
They're not bad, if you enjoy the movies the books are at least as good, and they explain lots of the plot-holes I had with the movies. But they're definitely not great, there are still several plot-holes and stuff that she clearly made up as she went. That being said, they're enjoyable, and you should get through them fairly quickly.
Do you still enjoy fantasy aimed at kids? if you do the series is good. If you don’t you’ll see all the flaws
you don't know what you don't know.
nothing in this thread so far screams weird to me yet.
Only ever seen one episode of The Sopranos (enjoyed it, but never went back for some reason).
Never seen:
Mafia stuff always aggressively puts me off, I have no taste for it at all and find no enjoyment in it. I never watched The Sopranos, and despite being a huge movie geek in general I've never managed to stay awake during any Godfather movie.
Maybe I was "bumped off" in a past life or something.
Ha, maybe :-)
I generally enjoy that sort of thing, Godfather, Goodfellas, Donnie Brasco, etc but the Sopranos is just so big, I need to set aside some time to watching it. I have the first 4 seasons on DVD, but never watched them yet!
I watched the very first episode of The Walking Dead and realized I didn't like zombie stuff and didn't want to get pulled into a show about it. No matter how much people were raving about it. Just not for me.
I also quit The West Wing about halfway through the first episode.
The west wing is very good.
Does the west wing get better? Similar to OP I watched the first few episodes and couldn't stand it. It came off to me like the typical big network show of that time, with unrelatable characters, cheesy dialogue, and cliched storylines.
Yet I've seen lots of praise for the show...and memes with Martin Sheen's character that I like. Would you say there's a point when the show starts to get into its groove?
Eh, I don't know. Been many years since and thus I don't remember many details, but indeed the first few episodes where not very gripping for me, and the whole show started being very good after I had familiarized myself with the cast first.
I would say that the characters and the dialog are the strong points of the show. If that doesn't click for you, then maybe skip it.
It is in a "typical" Aaron Sorkin fashion, at least from a couple of decades ago as I have not watched modern shows of him like Facebook etc. I did like it. I also liked very much, maybe more, the Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip which had similar style and dialogs, which I would heartily recommend to anyone liking the style.
Yes, all three of those.
I'm also not really into superhero stuff so I've seen like 2 Marvel movies.
Star Wars. I saw maybe 20 minutes of one film of the original trilogy, and 10 minutes of one film of the second trilogy, none of the rest. It's beyond me.
I agree. If I want to watch proper space shenanigans with Muppets targeting a more adult audience, I'll watch Farscape.
Oh Farscape <3 <3 <3
The show that taught me English because I couldn't wait for the subtitles back then! I rewatch it every couple of years, what a fantastic show! It was a long wait to get a proper conclusion when Season 5 was cancelled.
How did learning English from a show known for inventing fictional alien slang words go? Were you dropping "frell" and "yotz" into conversations?
we actually use those with my friends, as we all enjoyed the show ^^
As an adult I have watched some films, not all of them and not sure which, but I still don't really like it. It's like a zoo show for kids in space. I really don't get the appeal for an adult.
I do plan on playing the Kotor games, maybe that would change my mind a bit.
Those and The Mandalorian would probably be more up your alley as an adult. Also I’m sure folks will want to include Andor on that list, but I found it to be boring mostly.
Some of the older "must watch" series mentioned on here I feel fall into a category where, at the time they came out, they were really good, but down the line and some less-spectacular releases in the series later, they're not that big a deal.
This includes:
The Alien series. I'd say that Alien was a good movie for its time. Same for Aliens. Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection are kinda meh. They're not awful, but they aren't as good as the earlier movies.
Star Wars. I really liked the original three movies. Certainly at the time, I'd have recommended them to pretty much anyone. But The Phantom Menace really killed the series for me.
I'm not sure that it's all that surprising for someone who wasn't watching movies when they came out not to go back and watch them.
Rogue One is one of my top 3 SW films.
I've yet to watch Schindler List. I feel like it's signing up for feeling bad for 2 hours 😕
I'm also big into Sci-fi, and have yet to watch the OG Star Treks, Stargate, Babylon 5, or Dr. Who
Pulp fiction. It's been on my list for ages, for some reason I never get around to watch it.
Breaking Bad
Lost
The walking dead
There's lots more among the popular titles but I think those are my worst blindspots when it comes to popular media.
Watched the first 30mins and noped the fvck out...
Never seen any of the Lord of the Rings and have no plans to.
Correct.
You are better off
Pokemon here. I played go for like 20 mins. I was in highschool and super busy when the first came out and never got interested.
Game of thrones and a ton of shows (when I lived in the US. I've been living in Japan the last 10 years so I have no clue what's current).
Also hawk tuah and such. I don't have TikTok or basically any social media anymore so no clue what's going on.
Pretty much everything? I have very specific likes and pretty much stopped consuming things outside of those, since I can't even fit all the stuff I'm guaranteed to like.
I guess among like-minded people, Final Fantasy 7 is the most glaring omission.
For lemmy, it's probably anything Star Wars or Star Trek.
I've never seen Lost, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad or any of the rest of the mandatory drama television genre. I gave up partway through watching Battlestar Galactica and kinda just stopped watching television.
For awhile there, the only non-technical conversation I could have was "Did you see Game of Thrones last night?" "No, I don't watch that show." "Oh. Bye." Humanity's ability to talk about anything except heartburn drama television for the last decade and a half kind of weaned me off of socializing.
I technically only played my first pokemon game (official) on emulator around 2020, despite my brother having gen 1, so I wouldn't feel too bad about that personally.
Anyways, some people would probably look at me weird for never having played games like any Resident Evil games or any of the Mass Effect games or really many games like them (BioShock series not included, love those games). Same thing for anything Final Fantasy (excluding 10 on PS2, which I never finished and lost the memory card with my save file). Name just about any game over the past decade that won awards at a big game show and there's a real good chance I've never played them once. Never played on a Wii U (a blessing), Xbox past 360, or anything past PS3.
I have also never seen most of the marvel Rickey Rats owned films. Same with a lot of live action films. Name a real popular one to come out over the past decade, maybe decade and a half, and I probably have not seen it (Sonic not included because I actually enjoyed the first couple and cannot wait to eventually see the third despite the VA of Shadow). Hell, even growing up I didn't watch many live action films because I just didn't care compared to the amazing world of animated cartoons, so my knowledge of live action films is a lot lower than my cartoon knowledge.
Speaking of cartoons/animation, I have never watched a single episode of Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, Kono Suba, or JoJo, among an absolutely massive list of anime that currently have relevance and such that are currently popular and in people's minds. Also never seen influential older stuff like YuYu Hakusho or Fist of the North Star either.
No Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. I tried a little and gave up.
Never used any music or video streaming service. Yo ho
Someday, I am going to watch "The Notebook", and "Forest Gump", not on the same day.
These things could work as a meetup thing. I also haven't. I think I'd be more enticed if I gathered with a bunch of randoms who also haven't seen it, and watched it together
Star wars and Lord of the Rings
I've seen enough clips and overviews and "facts about" clips to understand that I am not interested enough to invest the time it would take to watch either series. The story of the production of Star Wars is very interesting, the actual story the movies tell, not so much.
I can’t make it more than an hour though the first Lord Of The Rings without falling asleep. It just doesn’t fancy me.
I've never seen 2001: Space Odyssey, I already tried watching it multiple times, but always end up falling asleep.
Similarly, I've never managed to finish Firefly, usually watch a couple of episodes and forget about it.
Also up until very recently (less than 2 years ago) I had never played any Call of Duty games.
I have bookshelves full of Superman comics, graphic novels, books, basically anything in print I can get my hands on. And I've read every last one of them. I grew up on Christopher Reeve Superman films and will still watch all 4 of them. I've watched the old Fleischer cartoons, Super Friends, the 90s animated series, and all Justice League shows. I own the entire Smallville series on DVD. I was one of the dozen or so people who subscribed to DC streaming service before Max. And I've watched every Superman movie and TV show that came out in the last 25 years.
I've never gone back and watched Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. There is no reason I've never watched it other than I just haven't gotten around to it.
Never watched Game of Thrones or Stranger Things. (Or countless other shows)
I watch like one or two movies a year and very few TV series. I've been watching Dexter - Original Sin now, the previous one I watched was Dexter - New Blood and few years back I watched the first season of The Last of Us but I didn't like it so I never continued with the season two. Before that I watched the Chernobyl mini series and before that Game of Thrones. Suffice to say that you can pretty much name any modern TV serie and I haven't seen it. I've never had Netflix or any other streaming service subscription.
I also don't listen to radio or have Spotify so I have no clue what the popular songs currently are and ChatGPT is the only app on my phone that's somewhat new. No games, no social media - nothing. I do occasionally play DayZ on my PC but that's a 10 year old game as well. I might very well be the most ignorant person when it comes to popular culture that you'll meet all year.
I have two of yours. honestly I just don't care what I might have or not seen. there is just to much that flies by to fast in modern times and everything is fractured. Everything that is a thing now likely was never watched by a majority of people. its not like when the broadcasters were the only game in town. even with cable their stuff was seen by more eyeballs because it was available. I remember folks who felt it was a badge of honor to not see stuff everyone has seen. like its a wonderful life.
Every single answer on this thread so far, except for titanic.
Not quite what you are asking, but the first time I saw the video from 9-11 of a plane crashing into a building was around 2014-2015 when I moved to NYC. The people I was working with there couldn't seem to believe that I had never seen it.
Everything other than squid game, among us and minecraft
I have only seen the first four episodes of Breaking Bad, I just could not get into it.
Seasons 4 & 5 are fucking nuts
I forced myself to watch it because everyone said it was so good - it wasn't. It just never got any better. There was good scenes in it but as a whole it was boring as hell.
I've watched all of Breaking Bad, except the last episode.
Breaking Bad was okay, but not great. I did like Better Call Saul a whole lot better. The cinematography in that show (BCS) is amazing!
I wasn't a fan, but my shitty and abusive ex loved it.
I know it's been out forever and a day, but Prometheus being in the Alien canon is kind of a spoiler.
I haven't watched a lot of movies in general, be it mainstream or indie. Completely my own fault, since I'm built different when it comes to setting up a roadblock for myself, in that regard.