disappointment when something seemingly spontaneous/creative/absurd/unique turns out to be just another pop culture reference

was thinking about this after a post on Family Guy - C or D?

re: "That's enough, John Mayer" - seeing that episode really made me sad because someone had spray-painted the exact same thing on a nearby abandoned property that I pass everyday. It always made me smile until I realized the artist was just a Family Guy fan.

― feed them to the (Linden Ave) lions (will), Tuesday, September 15, 2009 12:35 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Kind of on the same tip but not quite the same thing -- I remember in some They Might Be Giants liner notes they once explained that the song "Nightgown Of The Sullen Moon" was written after seeing a child's drawing with that title, and thought it was just some strange thing the kid made up and were inspired to use it as a song title, and only realized later it was the name of a book.

Gosh, I encounter this all the time. The blood handsign, for instance. I think there was a time when I thought that a friend of mine who through this had invented it and then I found out it went back decades. Not exactly the same as a pop culture reference, but just the only thing similar I can think of right now, despite this happening lots.

i had thought the "hot dog down yr hallway" thing was invented by the hipster grifter ...

haha that's great -- would a commonplace phrase or joke being introduced to people via a news story or TV show or something be the opposite of this or just a variation though?

This is a whole other pet peeve -- you ever say something humorous, like an improvised or comment appropriate to that particular situation, and someone automatically assumes it's a reference or movie quote and go "what's that from?" That shit used to drive me up the wall, I feel like every other person I knew in college did that constantly.

Because of this I feel a need to attribute everything I say, unless I thought of it. "I didn't think that up, my youngest brother did." "I stole that line from a book I liked as a kid." "Colbert said it first."

Typing this I am no worried I sound pretentious! Can one win in this wild world of sports?

yeah i definitely feel guilty if i inadvertantly pass a quote off as spontaneous wit (xpost)

I thought my former roommate was a very, very funny & original man until I watched his movie collection.

It wasn't too disappointing bcz I did get to see a lot of good movies.

I think that people do this more (making pop culture references vs. original statements) post-college.

That statement, if accurate, is discouraging.

They do what more? The former or the latter? (xpost)

I dunno - maybe I just spent college around people who were very into making things up as a way to prove cleverness to the point of potentially obnoxious oneupsmanship, and the average college experience is more a neverending stream of quoting Anchorman and Princess Bride, or whatever.

I wish I went to a college full of people trying to prove their cleverness.

I kind of doubt there's any real universal correlation between how people try to be funny in college and how those same people do so after college.

A history of your sense of humor, birth to present

My sense of humor is reflexive and depends almost entirely on how long I hang around who. And it is reflexive, I'll repeat, not reflective or imitative.

I'm not saying there's a correlation between particular people - I'm just saying that as one gets older, one often gets lazier, and is more prone to existing in calcified social groups and live more mediated lives, thus is more prone to relying on pop culture references for things to say

Yeah I dunno...I'm probably not far removed enough from college to say either way, but that seems like a really hard thing to measure outside of personal experience and I kinda can't see it. Plus, like Abbott said, the idea is kind of depressing if there's any truth to it.

do teabaggers count? I am opposite of disappointed on that one.

I feel like that needs more explanation, but I don't want to ask for it.

Aren't you indirectly asking?

but that seems like a really hard thing to measure outside of personal experience

Oh, it's completely dependent on personal experience ... it could very well be the norm, but plenty of people have the opposite experience.

Did Patton Oswalt invent "wackity smackity doooo"? Or did he steal it from Rilke?

it's a little sad when a funny phrase i thought ilx made up comes from 4chan or some shit.

Apparently this might not be a hilariously alarming indication of someone's stupidity but a reference to a Friends episode. :(

In high school I thought my friend made up a song called "Pass The Dutchie"

a bunch of people I know (20 somethings) are going "HEYOOOOO!" all the time now, without knowledge that it is from the Gong Show (feel free to correct me and one-up me in turn)

I can't tell if you're being serious, 'cause wasn't it Ed McMahon that did that?

Apparently this might not be a hilariously alarming indication of someone's stupidity but a reference to a Friends episode. :(

I first read the "don't know if you're an aunt or an uncle" joke in an old (handwritten! pre-Internet!) circular called "An Irish Mother's Letter To Her Son In New York" - some time around 1980. Contained loads of other shit jokes like "it's been so windy that your Uncle Pat's hen laid the same egg six times!"

http://www.btinternet.com/~knutty.knights/dearson.html

Dan I. - I was being serious! so I guess I'm guilty as the rest of em

it's a little sad when a funny phrase i thought ilx made up comes from 4chan or some shit.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

4chan invented this^^^

I ain't no 4chanate son

On Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine album there is the line: 'rain, rain, go away, come again some other day'. Not being American, I only knew that phrase from a Peanuts daily, and thought Reznor was referring to Linus. Cool. Disappointed when I learned the truth, many years later.

This is a whole other pet peeve -- you ever say something humorous, like an improvised or comment appropriate to that particular situation, and someone automatically assumes it's a reference or movie quote and go "what's that from?" That shit used to drive me up the wall, I feel like every other person I knew in college did that constantly.

― Alex, Lord Autogoon (some dude)

this happens to me all the time as a Person Living Without a Television

this happens to me a lot because I think that 90% of comedies aren't funny, and generally don't watch them.

hand-wringing over whether a joke came from ilx or 4chan is splitting the finest of hairs imo

you ever say something humorous, like an improvised or comment appropriate to that particular situation, and someone automatically assumes it's a reference or movie quote and go "what's that from?" That shit used to drive me up the wall, I feel like every other person I knew in college did that constantly.

i take this as a compliment

yeah taking it that way kinda makes sense, but it's still super annoying, because there's no graceful or humble way to take credit for it -- plus sometimes it's just kind of a classic joke or joke format so you can't really take credit

I certainly engage in a fair amount of referential humor, but the line that I draw for myself as an adult is that I refuse to reference anything from a commercial as a stand-alone joke unrelated to a discussion about the commercial itself.

Okay except for the occasional WHAZZZZZZZUUUUUUP but I only do that ironically.

it's been 10 years surely we can revive it

Oh, I just remembered: When I was a freshman in college, I went to a party, and this girl and I started randomly approaching people and asking them "What's your story?" Most people were like, "What do you mean?" but this one guy, who was known for being kind of a weirdo, just rolled with it and said, "Well, I was born a poor black child in Mississippi" -- which I thought was so great and spontaneous and hilarious until a couple years later, when I saw The Jerk.

I think I spot many of these very easily w/out knowledge of the specific reference, cuz they are never funny, just the kind of shit stoners laugh at (ie, Family Guy)

ethan once told a story about some kid who though Conan O'Brien made a joke about rapper Thirstin Howl III, and sometimes I think back on that as one of the saddest stories tbh.

I think I spot many of these very easily w/out knowledge of the specific reference, cuz they are never funny

http://www.uem.br/cinuem/images/stories/Bruno-Kirby-Good-Morning-Vietnam.5.jpg

I hope no one ever thinks I'm either funny or clever with the endless reams of recycled Simpsons jokes I always spout :|

that's trayce our little walking liberry of simpsons quotes

you ever say something humorous, like an improvised or comment appropriate to that particular situation, and someone automatically assumes it's a reference or movie quote and go "what's that from?" That shit used to drive me up the wall, I feel like every other person I knew in college did that constantly.

I think this speaks volumes about our generation and how we communicate with the world.

that's from ace ventura 2, right?

I'm still waiting for people to get tired of shakespeare and biblical references. and latin.

Erroll Morris says:

SS: What are your impressions of "echo boomers," the generation born in the '80s?

EM: I call them the Simpsons Generation. The example that I give is that in the 19th century, in The Red and the Black, Julian Sorel knew the Bible in Hebrew and Greek by heart. Nowadays, it's encyclopedic knowledge of "The Simpsons." Which is not such a bad thing, don't get me wrong. There are much worse things to have an encyclopedic knowledge of. "The Simpsons" is, in a way, a compendium of everything, but a compendium of everything with an absurdist, ironic detachment from it all.

OTM.

Some other CHILXors and I go to a pub quiz every now and then where there is always a Simpsons Question of the Week. I've definitely seen my fair share of Simpsons episodes, but I haven't really watched the show in a few years, and it kind of makes me groan that this is thought of as universal knowledge.

Slug of Atmosphere:

"I'm embracing the fact that I'm not a fan of irony," he says. "I think irony is the lazy man's way. It sucks that people implement the irony. It's the lazy way. If they don't get your point, you can always kinda chuckle at them. It's as if irony makes fun of them for not getting your point instead of finding fault in your delivery of the point, or finding fault in your ability to execute and give somebody some information. If you go the ironic way, if they don't get it, it's their fault. Or if they don't get it, it's because it was over their heads."<p>

The whole interview goes like this. Frankly, there were times when I could barely get another question in. Before I have a chance to interrupt, the dude launches a bare-fisted attack on one of the only television programs I consider myself married to.<p>

"Honestly, I blame The Simpsons," he explains. "I think The Simpsons fucked up modern art. I'm sure I'm premature in saying that, and in all respect to Matt Gray-ning, or Groening, or however the fuck you pronounce that dude's name. They didn't invent irony, obviously, but they took it to a level of popular that a) it's fucked over television, and slowly film, and then music, and for Christ's sake, now, photography and painting. Art isn't cool anymore to the 'in' people, unless it can somehow make fun of the viewer, or the creator, or the people who never see it. I see it in all art now. It's kind of a last hope. What's going to be the next step? Straight up 'blatantism,' if that's even a word, is all that's going to be left. I could be totally stupid, maybe somebody's gonna come up with an idea and it's going to sweep the world. Irony, to me, is bullshit. But it's had a major influence on my life."

You know, props to Erroll Morris and all, but is it really fair to compare what someone spent their time knowing in a time when there was no recorded music, radio, television, or movies, to the same decisions made by someone born in the 1980s? To just say "this 19th-century character knew the Bible in two languages and modern people know 'The Simpsons'" is ignoring away an awful lot of important parameters to the argument.

Reading quotes like that from the Atmosphere member make me terrified to talk, lest I come off like that even a little.

ditto

> Art isn't cool anymore to the 'in' people, unless it can somehow make fun of the viewer, or the creator, or the people who never see it.

but this is hardly new. Duchamps for instance. you can't blame the simpsons for not knowing about anything from before the simpsons.

First they came for Family Guy -- and I did not speak out...

anyone remember the awful addendum on irony added to dave eggers' memoir?

i wish someone had come up with a better term in the 90s for this thing we call 'irony' which is really a very specific subset of what is covered by the word irony

related and also to the thread title, can anyone tell me the source of the following, which i have seen on the internet a lot?

"are you being ironic?"
"i don't even know anymore"

is it a simpsons episode? it would be perfect if it was a simpsons episode.

it was the Simpsons, ironically enough!

you guys should really watch that simpsons episode.

slug of atmosphere seems like a dipshit imo

I'm bummed this never caught on as a catchphrase (from same episode I think)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP9fuk4KQ2A

that is my gut reaction whenever someone starts broad brushing all of tv, movies, art, etc.

^^^^^^

me too

I understand where he's coming from but his argument seems to miss that imperious, self-serving ironic poses are a lot of fun; IMO it's when you combine that with actually taking yourself seriously that you run into trouble.

Haha, I use "Let's haul ass to Lollapalooza" a lot!

I hate to burst yr bubbles but it's "Dude, are you being sarcastic?" "I don't even know anymore".

'I use "Let's haul ass to Lollapalooza" a lot!'

Cheers, mate!

I think I've felt the reverse of this, too, where I was sort of impressed after I found out where some reference came from.

Trayce I came here to post the exact same thing </Simpsons pedant>

Haha, I use "Let's haul ass to Lollapalooza" a lot!

― Pancakes Batman (Pancakes Hackman), Thursday, September 17, 2009 5:44 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

same here.

I would also like to add that "let's haul ass to Lollapalooza" and the sarcasm line are not from the same episode.

P.S. I know the Bible in five languages.

yeah, i know it in 3 but hope to be up to speed by mid-2010

I liked "3. ??? 4. Profit" more when I thought it was a thing which had sprouted on the internet one morning than when I discovered it was a Southparkism.

I was childishly delighted every time I saw ilxor polyphonic's "your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet" display name, briefly disappointed to discover where it was from, and have gone back to being delighted by it.

Having memorised the Bible in two languages was I'm guessing not exactly commonplace even a century ago (though sure, more so than now, but for plenty of reasons besides our generation being TV-addled philistines or whatever - why memorise entire books when Google, wikipedia, and searchable PDFs exist, for one?)
(the Bible may be a poor example of this since the c19th was full of people compiling biblical concordances and such, but still, learning by rote is a concept which has very much lost out over the past (half?)century to knowing where to find stuff)

I once had a plan to memorise a chunk of HHGTTG in two languages, one of which I didn't know but hoped to learn by this process, but then I stopped being 14 (okok maybe I was 18) (still don't know the language in question either)

alanis morissette has so much to answer for

don't you think?

ilxor polyphonic's "your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet" display name

where does this come from? -- i actually misread it for ages as being the same sort of hyperbole as 'your tongue like the sun in my mouth' or smth -- like i never actually processed anything after 'your heartbeat sounds like ...'

It's a Biggie lyric.

!

that's awesome

Roxy's cultural references always made me like her more.

P.S. I know the Bible in five languages.

Klingon doesn't count jftr

haw: LOL this f***ing EXCELSIOR for christs sake

the average college experience is more a neverending stream of quoting Anchorman and Princess Bride

nuke college from space

BTW that quote from Slug of Atmosphere is basically lifted from David Foster Wallace's essay "E Pluribus Unam" except with the Simpsons in place of D Letterman

and with cranky pointless ranting in place of reasoned and articulate writing

http://twitpic.com/u4lcf