"Cookies if you get the reference"

[Boozy]

This has become really popular lately over on CS. And it drives me nuts!

I never get the reference. It might be from a movie or comic book or TV show, it doesn't matter, I still don't know what the heck is supposed to be so funny about it. And I can't help but feel left out of all the fun. It seems like an inside joke and I'm never going to be let in on the punchline.

I don't mind people making cultural references I don't get, but it seems unfair to purposefully withhold information that might let more than a chosen few in on the joke.

I know that no one means it to be this way. I understand its just a fun little game for some people, and there's no malice or offense intended (and there's none taken). I was just wondering if anyone else feels the way I do.

[AFPheonix]

I typically just skim. If I'm really motivated, I will use the power of Google to get me in on the joke, but that's pretty rare.

[powerboy]

Dude, not everyone is going to get it. It is rare, when I do get it. It is all in good fun, but I do know how you feel. I felt that way at first.

Its all in good fun

[Boozy]

I do understand that its all in good fun. Like I said, I am neither offended by nor upset at the members who post this kind of thing.

I just wondered if I was the only one who is so out of the loop that I never get the references. I wasn't allowed to watch TV as a child, and although it was never a big deal then, I have noticed that all the pop culture references from the 80's that are so popular with my age group go right over my head.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

Ah, Boozy, you weren't allowed to watch TV, that explains it. Many parents in the eighties worked very long hours (the yuppie revolution and all that), and kids spent a lot of time eating microwave dinners in front of the TV. More so than in previous generations. I know I did.

It was also before the web, so many kids didn't have computers to keep them occupied. It was all TV, Atari and early Nintendo. Also, the eighties was when VCR's and movie rental places became widespread, so many kids grew up watching older stuff on VHS tapes. my dad had a collection of Monty Python and Mel Brooks movies on VHS and those were our favorite things to watch. Both Python and Brooks are extremely quotable. People remember their one-liners.

I left home in the early nineties, and lived without a TV for many years, so I never get references to 90's TV shows, like Seinfeld or the Simpsons. There is also a contingent of people on CS who are really into Anime and such, and they also make a lot of references that I don't get. So don't feel bad, there's always going to be someone who doesn't get a reference, simply because entertainment is divided up into so many factions.

I, for instance, studied philosophy and Classical Greek Literature extensively in college, and I when I speak to my friends from that time we make jokes about these works that we find outrageously funny. Other people look at us like we're freaks, because most people haven't read Lucretius and don't understand why we all die laughing when somebody yells 'SWERVE!!!"

[Seshat]

I just wondered if I was the only one who is so out of the loop that I never get the references.

Nope. I have a lot of trouble with TV/Film, and don't get the references. I also lose trivial pursuit - I have everything but the sports and the film/TV wedges. If I luck out, I'll get a literature question for that wedge.

[Greenday]

I rarely get the references. Though that's because I'm only 19 and most people on the site are older than I am. So when people reference stuff from the early 80s and before that, I'm s.o.l.

[Rubystars]

I grew up in the 80s, and I like anime, but I still don't get most of the references.

[AFPheonix]

I don't get a lot of modern tv references these days, actually. I just flat out don't watch tv anymore. If a snippet shows up on youtube or something, cool, but otherwise, meh.