Clueless with pop culture

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05 Dec 2020, 8:16 pm

madbutnotmad wrote:

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.

It's why i guesss i differ to many on the spectrum, my skills are probably my ability to make a great entertainer and teach others diverse ways of finding themselves despite lacking personal insight to do these things myself, had I utilised my skills with music such as writing and performing earlier in life things probably would have turned out differently. I have always gained more joy out of giving joy to others through inspiration rather than the want of acknowledgement for myself. nothing feels better than giving.

Mountain Goat
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06 Dec 2020, 9:47 pm

I have been told that I am old fashioned. Only a few bands can I remember and I don't think I can recall any current singers or bands? I can't think. Cyndi Lauper? (I think she is still singing. She is an excellent singer).
Uhmm. Spice Girls? Let me think. S Club 7. Bewitched.
Blondie or Shaking Stevens but those are a little out of date. Proclaimers...
More modern... Let me think... Uhmm. I can't remember. Sorry!

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auntblabby
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06 Dec 2020, 9:51 pm

i grew up watching the lawrence welk show along with my parents, and still have a soft spot for the program. can't get more old-fashioned than that! :lol:

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07 Dec 2020, 12:48 am

EJoy29 wrote:

I know us autistics have “restricted interests” so does that actually include pop culture too?

I myself have lived under a rock most of my life. Trying to improve in attempt to connect more with others, but...

When I try to engage with just about anything mainstream, I just get turned off. Is this common with being on the autism spectrum?

Any tips?

I deplore pop culture for the mind numbing, soul draining vacuous waste that it is. There are objective, science backed explanations for this as it pertains to what is called pop "music."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... e-8173368/
It is a repetitive machine that the masses seemingly unwittingly can't tire themselves of already.

This compounded by the cult of celebrity, or rather the celebrity for sake of celebrity talentless fame that gets relentlessly promulgated as something to adore, aspire to, and feel insignificant in comparison to, makes pop culture to me something to be avoided and scorned.

You can stay somewhat in the loop with most people by noting the fall of the reign of Kardashian is upon is, and pretend to be interested in the conversation that ensues.

However...
Were I a baby boomer I can all but guarantee I would have been OBSESSED with the popular music and culture of the British Invasion until roughly the age of Glam Rock - 1965-1976 roughly, best years were 1967-1973

Last edited by adromedanblackhole on 07 Dec 2020, 1:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

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07 Dec 2020, 12:58 am

Dear_one wrote:

^^ I heard of someone who thought that Olivia Newton-John was a trio, Olivia, Knute, and John.
I have been trying for years without success to get a definition of Pokemon, and am also baffled by any references to hashtags, likes, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. There are several celebrities who I can't classify between sports and music, through a whole career. I don't get movie or TV references 99% of the time. However, I can tell you that Lois Flagston, of Hi and Lois, is the sister of Beetle Bailey. I can quote Monty Python extensively, and I know about Sharkey, who didn't make it into the end of the movie about Lord of the Rings.

I am always using hashtags ironically, almost poking fun at myself and the social current that decided this was a form of communication
#IsThisHowYouHashtag

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07 Dec 2020, 2:05 am

adromedanblackhole wrote:

Quote:

So what this study is saying is that your parents are right, music just isn’t what it used to be.

Hurray for my side! :mrgreen:

adromedanblackhole wrote:

However...
Were I a baby boomer I can all but guarantee I would have been OBSESSED with the popular music and culture of the British Invasion until roughly the age of Glam Rock - 1965-1976 roughly, best years were 1967-1973

I missed out on all the fun of my youth, during the 70s and 80s.
I was too busy with dealing with abject confusion, depression, suicidal thoughts, and fending off gang stalkers.
I only started to appreciate the music back then, about a decade ago.
Better late than never, eh? :wink:

Now: "I'm Bad to the bone.".

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07 Dec 2020, 3:19 am

auntblabby wrote:

i grew up watching the lawrence welk show along with my parents, and still have a soft spot for the program. can't get more old-fashioned than that! :lol:

There was a tour guide in Arizona, showing people around a pioneer village. "Just think, folks" he exclaimed "some of these buildings are over two hundred years old."
From the back of the crowd was heard "Gosh, I can't wait to get back to Damascus and tell the folks about this!"

Just up the road from here, there is a pow-wow every summer, where they play very authentic stone-age music. The dances are the same, too, but the costumes use day-glo now.

For me, Cyndi Lauper is one of the "new" voices I have not learned to distinguish. I was astonished to somehow recognize a picture of her. It felt like a very inspired guess.

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07 Dec 2020, 5:07 am

adromedanblackhole wrote:

Dear_one wrote:

I am always using hashtags ironically, almost poking fun at myself and the social current that decided this was a form of communication
#IsThisHowYouHashtag

It took me years of asking what a hashtag is before someone told me. I still don't know what it means or what it does. Is it supposed to do anything in particular?

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07 Dec 2020, 5:17 am

Mountain Goat wrote:

It took me years of asking what a hashtag is before someone told me. I still don't know what it means or what it does. Is it supposed to do anything in particular?

A hashtag definitely engages the software at Twitter somehow, but nobody has ever explained to me how Twitter is any better than email. Indeed, the enforced brevity would make it both annoying and frustrating.
The only person to ask me to join Facebook did so because he needed more "friends" to gain privileges there. He had nothing to say about any possible benefit to me. As far as I'm concerned, they just ruined the listservs, destroyed privacy, and made people into addicts for the benefit of the corporations and governments.

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07 Dec 2020, 11:09 am

Mountain Goat wrote:

adromedanblackhole wrote:

Dear_one wrote:

I am always using hashtags ironically, almost poking fun at myself and the social current that decided this was a form of communication
#IsThisHowYouHashtag

It took me years of asking what a hashtag is before someone told me. I still don't know what it means or what it does. Is it supposed to do anything in particular?

The hashtag followed by a string of content circulates said hashtag and string of content on twitter as a #Trend
When a hashtag is #Trending it means a certain threshold of people using such #Hashtag has been met

Why this is a form of communication is the better question with a short and biased answer: Twitter was designed as an Orwellian experiment to prove that people en mass are more or less robots without them realizing it. I am tongue and cheek (expression) kidding, not really kidding.

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07 Dec 2020, 11:19 am

adromedanblackhole wrote:

I still don't understand. How "circulated" are things I might post? Is the hashtag an address? a content classification? Something else?

I was once on a committee set up by a giant corporation, which supplied a fancy on-line platform for us. We gave up and just used our "reply all" email functions.

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07 Dec 2020, 11:29 am

Dear_one wrote:

I still don't understand. How "circulated" are things I might post? Is the hashtag an address? a content classification? Something else?

The #Hashtag is a way of condensing an already condensed message into it's most simplest expression so that it can #Trend in what is called the Twittersphere. It is a way for anyone at any given time to look at the platform to see what hyper condensed string of content is circulating a la the #Trending function.

So in short a hashtag is in essence a way of communicating to the algorithm. When a threshold for an amount of times said hashtag has been reused will indicate to the algorithm that said hashtag is Trending. What does any of this mean? Not really much aside from how users of Twitter and the broader global culture have become accustomed to this brave new world of communication.

To answer your question in terms of how circulated is a persons tweets, depends. Depends on tweet history and how many people follow and retweet your content.

The broader question for why again, people en mass are unwitting robots who just follow and do without much depth of thought because this is what the people around them are doing.

I never got on the Instagram bandwagon either given it just seemed like a redundancy of Facebook - which was already growing into an invasive all consuming force - except an even more pointless version of Facebook. The Facebook for people who want to show you curated images of their food. Mmmmmmk? Great?

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07 Dec 2020, 12:22 pm

Thanks. I still feel like a fish with a book about bicycling, though.

SC5017
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07 Dec 2020, 12:33 pm

I never watch television or films, limited in modern fiction, and don't know any popular music after 1980, and not that much before. It is only noticeable to me on Christmas day when I cannot answer any of the questions in the quiz which often occurs in the afternoon. It has never occurred to me I might share this with other aspies. I don't want to fill my head with a load of very uninteresting stuff. I wouldn't be able to stand the noise of pop music or modern films. I am glad I am not the only one - thanks for the question