Clueless with pop culture

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Don't know him. Most people who refere about themself as being comedians aren't really funny.

Well, I am oblivious to popular culture. I was born in 1954 and grew up during the 1960s so my bride was surprised when we watched The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash and I did not get what were apparently frequent, obvious allusions to the Beatles (one of the few pop groups whose name I even recognize).

On the other hand, when we watched Red Dwarf: Back to Earth I was surprised she did not get the frequent, obvious allusions to Blade Runner.

Cultivate a sense of humor about it. And I'm not picking on you. You probably have sense of humor already. I'm just suggesting that, when relevant, you target that sense of humor at that gap in your knowledge of popular culture. It's better to have people laugh with you than at you.

Own it, and learn to poke fun at it as the previous poster suggests. The general lack of interest in 'mainstream' stuff is typical. If you're prone to eccentricity this is predictable, at least in some categories. That said, plenty of us are eccentric in one field and more mainstream in others.

Sorry, I have no tips. I must live under several layers of rocks.

When I do venture out (Come on, Blaze! This is awesome!! !) I am typically bored silly. Then it starts to annoy me and a great pressure forms in my head.

I don’t know what any of it is. I don’t know what any of it means. I prefer my subterranean cavern.

I see a lot of videos offered with people I have never heard of doing impressions of other people I would not recognize.
One piece of pop I did watch was The Big Bang Theory, which had a physicist on staff. Then, in episode 8:2, Sheldon and Howard were arguing about the meaning of the two most basic terms in Howard's field of engineering, strength and stiffness, and got them wrong.

It depends on the type of pop culture.

I feel anything recent, I'll admit I'm not very strong at. I feel a lot of tv, movies, music out now, I'm sorry, it's just no damn good. A lot of ideas are being copied, I don't like how a lot of new pop music sounds, I don't like the style of it really. I feel there are so many tv series that people are binge watching, and I watch a couple episodes, and they are so bad and boring to me. Same with movies, it's just movies that cinematically look good with camera and picture and editing and cinematography etc., but just the story and plots are so boring and ideas are rehashed etc.

Also it seems that nowadays, all you have to do is be an annoying youtube, instagram, social media personality etc, and you're considered pop culture now. It used to be you had to actually have a talent, claim to fame, namesake, something to be noteworthy. Not anymore I guess. Smh.

However, a lot of older pop culture I remarkably seem to be really keen on. Especially like 70s disco and funk music. 80s new wave, and dance music. 90s europop and R&B and grunge/alternative stuff. I love a lot of older tv series and movies. I know a lot about classic celebrities and famous people and stuff like that. I also have some knowledge of older sports trivia as well and other miscellany pop culture events from the past and stuff.

So it really depends on the type of pop culture.

I think it is. I know a bit about pop culture that I learn just being on the internet. However, I don't personally understand the appeal of apps like TikTok and the whole "YouTube/influencer" culture but it's just not my thing, you know? My special interests are almost always TV shows and I listen to a lot of different music, some of which is probably considered "mainstream" and some isn't but I don't mind. I just like what I like. I'm obsessed with The X-Files and I know a lot about the show and I like reading about it and re-watching the series over and over again for comfort.

If you want to learn about the "mainstream" stuff, I would check out news articles, like what pops up on entertainment news websites such as BuzzFeed. However, I don't see a problem if you aren't into that stuff. If you do have a different special interest, maybe you can find people who share it? I find communicating with people who share the same interests I have much easier than talking to people who just aren't into the same things.

I remember once I pretended to know these things to carry on a conversation about a movie star. I said, "he's in quite a few movies, isn't he?" I had got that right, but then my friend said, "he's in lots. What other movies have you seen with him in?" I had no idea, but I wanted to carry on the conversation so I thought hard about which movies I had seen that could be him in, and then I came up with one. It must have just been a look-alike because my friend shook her head and said, "no, that's not him, that's [name of another movie actor]". I thought to myself "how the hell do these NTs memorize the names of all these celebrities and what they star in?" I know Aspies are known to memorize other things but I can't even do that. I can't seem to memorize anything even things related to my own interests.
I had a special interest with Spanish at one time and I was eager to learn the language. But I was hopeless. I was bottom of the class in Spanish class and just struggled with memorizing full sentences in Spanish. So I gave up in the end.

In order for music to stir me, it has to be something that's relevant to me. Today's music is not relevant to me. I don't really have empathy for the youth of today. I think QuiteAnExtreme is right on the money.

i totally lack the sports genes except for monster vehicle competitions and tractor pulls [i like the engineering and ingenuity of the pilots] as well as high-diving. didn't mind watching arm-wrestling until i saw a compound fracture live on tv. i have not kept up with music since about 1990, with very few exceptions, it left me behind. what i really hate is the exaggerated and artificial "film look" that everything on TV now has. it needs to go.

Once upon a time, there was a very popular magazine called the TV guide, with schedules of the programs to be broadcast. For literary content, a critic, Cleveland Amory, would review various shows. One September, he did an overview of the new season's offerings, summing them up as "a vast wasteland." He got an avalanche of mail complaining that viewers could not find "Vast Wasteland."

ah, so that is where newton minow got his "vast wasteland" idea.

Yes very common. I am not the best with generalised things but I am great at recalling facts from pop culture or general facts most deem useless and sometimes use this in a way that i know most NT's would find humorous.
funnily enough i think it's harder to offend them when referencing these things. as for other aspies i have not had much direct experience with so i can't say much in that regard. I'm pretty autistic as hell but can be complete ghetto hood for humour sake as it also creates a different emotional response within myself. i kinda did life in reverse order.. i spend more time now learning myself than the fun me. but balance is very important as i have bullshitted my way through being normal as possible and lost everything important emotionally in the process. so give and take but dont engage for the sake of it. you'll likely end up burned out and resorting to poor choices that are not healthy for yourself in the long run. i am prime example.

Fair enough as that's your perspective but one cannot deny that comedians are often very intelligent people.

In general I have no clue about pop culture, but occasionally I'll stumble across something I like by accident.

I'm exceptionally geeky about the things I do like (cars, narrowboats, steam locomotives, beer, Pixar movies, certain comedians, certain genres of music) which is funny as they're male Aspie stereotypes. So I'm typically atypical. I'm not a gamer or a sci-fi nerd, though.

I think that a special interest can literally be anything.

I live on a rock (a small island) rather than under a rock, I am fairly aware of pop culture, haven been to art college (to study art) and performing arts college (to study sound engineering / music production).

I don't keep up with all the trends, i mean, it is impossible for anyone to keep up with everything, as so many people are creative and constantly developing / releasing works.

As for interfacing with pop culture or making a career, i would say that is a lot harder for most people with ASD,
although not impossible.

Although many ASD folks brains naturally are strong at geek / techie things, such as working with computers and tech as used in recording studios, and quiet a few ASD folk are really strong in terms of musical skills or aptitude to picking up music skills, as music is reliant or involves maths as well as repetitive patterns.


Its the softskills and the lack of morals that often causes obstacles for us on the path to stardom.
Although there have been a number of exceptions.

Not being able to small talk, flirt, lie, manipulate, slander, murder actually goes against us if we hope to make it in the entertainment industry, which, is full of bullies, criminals and other types of narcissistic sociopaths who would happily kill you in order to take credit for your work and then reap the rewards of your hard work.

Entertainment industry is known to be a cut throat industry.

I find the nature of such people extremely tiring and to the greater extent repelling!

Nothing wrong with Pop though. I guess it brings a lot of happiness to a lot of people.