If someone were to ask me, “Wait…
who’s George Washington?” then sure, I’d be tempted to widen my eyes in shock,
turn my mouth into a gaping hole of “what-the-fuck”, and spout a familiar accusatory
we’ve all used… but anymore, I hope to never act on that temptation.
Haven’t you ever been at a party
and the acquaintances you’re trying to ingratiate yourself with reference the
latest hip new movie to hit cinemas, say, Sweaty
Brooding Badass III: Full-Throttle Fury and Very Expensive Pyrotechnics. For
whatever reason, you’re just out of the loop on this one and you’re not sure
what they mean. You ask perfectly honestly, “Huh? Sweaty Brooding Badass III? What’s that?” Now, you know it’s a
movie, but that wasn’t your question. Nonetheless, your fellow partiers
instantly recreate the expression I explained above, and bellow, “WHAT? You
DON’T know what Sweaty Brooding Badass
III is?” or something similar like, “WHAT? You’ve NEVER heard of SBB III?” You’ll also get this reaction
if you haven’t heard of Patrick McStudnose, the star of SBB III, or his sultry, D-cup, 18”-waist co-star, Ashley Sexington.
People gawk and are instantly the judge, jury, and executioners of your social
fate in that one moment of natural ignorance.
I understand it’s just a
conversational quirk nothing more beyond a reaction of surprise to someone
being unaware of what seems so well known. I’m more interested in the reason
people do this and I don’t find “wuh, I dunno, it’s just what people say,” a
satisfying answer. I think that, however you try to color it, this is a
mannerism rooted in arrogance.
Before you get out your “now see
here”s in defense of your own usage of the phrase, I am not saying you’re
Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, but
there is an inherently condescending tone to the phrase itself.
It is especially so when someone does this seriously, even if
they have a grain of humor to it. I have seen people react with genuine bewilderment
when someone admits to not knowing about a certain movie, book, band,
celebrity, or even commercial. It was in high school when I first experienced
it: during a group conversation in Spanish class, Adam Sandler came up, for
whatever reason. At the time, I didn’t know who that was. I made the mistake of
asking who is Adam Sandler and phrases akin to this article’s title were thrown
at me by a few people. (Today though, I know who he is and automatically
associate the name with forgettable comedic mediocrity.)
I’ve noticed this happens mostly in
a social context and on topics of pop culture. After all, “how could you NOT
have heard of Mean Girls?!?” Why are we
made to think that, with pop culture, we MUST be IN THE KNOW about certain
things or else you are an uninformed and unsavvy person? The idea is ridiculous
that my set of interests ought to be the basic cultural encyclopedia that
everyone else should be attuned to.
Look at it this way: what is the
purpose of the phrase? Why do you say it and why with that particular
inflection? At its heart, the sentence is designed to express disappointment
with a person’s subject-specific knowledge not being on par with yours. In a
way, you feel they have invalidated themselves to you by not knowing who Neil
Patrick Harris is. It can even go so far as the George Washington example;
then, you’re just wondering if that person was raised under a rock hidden
inside an isolated closet at Guantanamo Bay.
But there is really no polite or
well-meaning way to dish out this phrase, except perhaps ironically. Used in
its typical form, it comes from a place of assumed superiority, albeit only as
far as knowing about something the other person doesn’t. “Oh, you can’t keep up
with us when the topic turns to the lineups of the band Yes? I won’t take a
second to educate you, I’ll mock you for your lack of knowledge!” Beneath the
scolding lies a false superiority that shouldn’t happen in any conversation in
which the participants are thinking about their meanings and intentions.
Throwing that moment of belittlement at someone is needless and implies a desire
to impress rather than educate. Ignorance is unattractive, certainly, but scorn
is an unnecessary reaction when namedropping doesn’t ring a bell.
I’ve found that when someone does
not catch a reference I make, no matter how obvious it may seem to me, I will
enlighten them with calm brevity. There is that reflex to want to put someone
in their place for being unaware of the rules of Fight Club (and damn, I just
broke the first two…) but holding doors open in a conversation rather than
slamming them shut with laughter is more constructive overall. That way,
everybody’s happier, which is what John Lennon would have wanted, right?
Wait a second… you’ve never heard
of John–
