Tribal Totems

[poliphilo]

There was this chap on a panel show who couldn't (or pretended he couldn't) recognise the finalists in this year's Great British Bake Off. Diane Abbott (who gets to be on every panel show going these days) was indignant. "But you ought to know that!" she said.

Question: Is "ought" the right word. Are there certain developments in popular culture that one is morally bound to be aware of?

Well, obviously not.  Ignorance is no crime. On the other hand full participation in any community does rather require one to keep abreast of certain things that are going on in its culture. Corrie, Eastenders, Dr Who, Strictly, Dad's Army- knowing about these shows- even if you deplore them- is part of the freemasonry of being British. They're the esoterica we've been initiated into and foreigners mostly haven't.  They bind us together.  And the people who appear in them rank among our tribal totems.  If I were to post a picture of Sir Bruce Forsyth here- which- perish the thought- I have no intention of doing- I'd expect every Brit on my friend's list to recognise him and every non-Brit (apart from one or two extreme Anglophiles) to go, "Who on earth is that weasel?"

Personally, I can't  see the point of Bake Off,  but I know who Nadiya Hussain is. I sort of feel it's my duty. "England expects..." and all that. 

Comments

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I know a lot about Allo Allo even though I've never watched it. And, thanks to certain friends, way more than I want or need to know about the new series of My Little Pony.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Kids are good. They keep you in touch with what's going down- Peppa Pig for instance and Mr Tumble....

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, the dads of my acquaintance are united in their hatred of Daddy Pig. And a mum friend tipped me off about Paw Patrol because she thought, correctly, that I would enjoy it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I guess Peppa is this generation's Magic Roundabout.

[matrixmann]

That's the way it is with me if people tell me what's going on on the radio. Names I maybe know a few because you don't completely get around popular culture in any kind of way, but thanks I often don't know which horrible music is going around.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There was a time when it was important to know about pop music, but these days there's no single pop culture. When I was a kid even the grannies knew who the Beatles were, but these days the musical culture has fragmented- and it would be a 24/7 job to keep abreast of all the trends- all the sects and splinter groups.

[matrixmann]

With me it's just I listen to the culture that was popular 15 and 20 years ago, so that's why I have no connection with this anymore. There's no radio program that represents or addresses my preference.
And the Electro stuff being released these days, that has very much dripped down into popular culture, I just find to be horrible. Very acute sounds that make your head hurt easily and there's literally no song where you don't hear someone singing a text over the beat.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I mainly listen to folk music- which is all but timeless.

[matrixmann]

To me it's not like I get the time which it was realeased in what I listen to. I know by reading it's not made in the present, but that's it.
The only thing I also realize is this kind of style of material that I look for is not made in the present and even if that it's often not made the way in sound engineering and ideas the way it suits me. So I have to look into the past to find what I want to find.
Sometimes I may have even a hit among the songs I like, but I might not know it because - well, it's not popular these days anymore and the 90s get reduced to Eurotrash sounds anyway these days, so that stuff never gets aired anymore so that I could get to know.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

Nor can i see the reason for a Bake Off show, hence i am with you here. Also, i am not interested in every aspect of our British culture and there are shows i know nothing about nor do i want to know about them, for example, Downton Abbey

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've never watched Downton but I know it features that nice Hugh Bonneville and gives Maggie Smith the role of a lifetime- and that there's some character called Bates who may or may not have murdered someone.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

Now i a confused, I know a Bates of Bates Motel, a TV spin off from Psycho.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This one is a butler, I believe.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I would recognise the winner of Bake Off, because I saw the announcements about her winning, but I wouldn't know any of the other competitors. Now if you were to ask me about current British detective series, on the other hand, or about what is going on in the Archers, I would know. :)

I think it's not just popular music that's all got much more fragmented, there is just so much popular culture these days and so much choice that, as you say, keeping up with it all would be a full time job so one tends to have one's own little niche.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't recognise the other contestants either, but Nadiya has transcended the show and become a national figure- a process that began long before she was announced as the winner.

My parents used to listen to the Archers when I was a kid and I'm afraid I learned to hate it; it was just people with funny West Country accents wittering on about boring grown-up stuff. Whatever spark it had died with Walter Gabriel.