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Being uninterested in celebrities has saved me a lot of time. I've sat at a dinner table where my friends chatted about some celebrity getting married or someth

Being uninterested in celebrities has saved me a lot of time. I've sat at a dinner table where my friends chatted about some celebrity getting married or something and at then end of it, there was really no value except that they all connected around some loosely connected gossip about a celebrity. It's some times the juicy stuff that gets people interested at first and then they go down to the point of knowing so much more than is necessary. Another one I find kind of off-putting is how so many of my friends are very well versed in "famous" serial killers and their histories. Why don't people spend as much time learning about things that brought good to the world and not misery/suffering?

skookumchuck 7y ago
Ann Landers once wrote: 1. smart people talk about ideas 2. average people talk about events 3. dumb people talk about other people I sometimes think about that when I engage in gossip, and am annoyed with myself.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  That's awesome. I'm also reminded of something that Scott Adams wrote in a forward to one of his books. To paraphrase: we're all idiots, even the smartest of us. Not all the time, but given the right situation...
- ChainOfFools 7y ago
  I wonder where biographers fit into this model?
  - nate_meurer 7y ago
    A good biography talks about all three.
- fjsolwmv 7y ago
  https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/18/great-minds/amp/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/18/great-minds/amp/ Not really an Ann Landers thing
ryandrake 7y ago
You could extend this criticism to all small talk. It’s the same with the dinner table (or card game or water cooler) conversations about the latest Sportsball game and which team sportsed really good last night and which athlete’s stats are getting better and so on. Or how great the latest Game Of Thrones was or how awesome the Avengers movie was. Zero value besides the shared interest/connection.
- technofiend 7y ago
  Yes of course we all need a bit of cultural literacy. Honestly humans want to celebrate the lucky among us and being a famous actor or actress is a huge accomplishment. Those people put in a great deal of time and effort to their craft and they managed to succeed where thousands others just like them didn't. But the same can be said of SV rock stars, Fortune 500 CxOs, etc. Even if I recognized Donald Knuth or Sundar Pichai on the street I wouldn't approach and say "I love your work, may I have a photo?". I draw the line at assuming I have a personal relationship with anyone just because I happen to know of them or about them. And frankly since we're not friends I'm not invested in learning anything personal about those people. That's where I think society is broken: making the lives of famous people a miserable hell because they can't have a shred of privacy, and mining every detail of their lives to sell banner ads / click bait click-throughs, TV shows, etc is just a bit too far for me.
XorNot 7y ago
This is a false economy though - part of being able to participate in society is having a range of acceptable small-talk topics to engage with people on, and celebrity culture is a very easy one to stay sufficiently versed (literally just scroll a newspaper frontpage once a week or something) which provides a very safe in if someone wants to talk about that. It's the same reason you should (though it is harder) have some passing knowledge of local sports teams, because its a big shared cultural touchstone. It's the reason I'm really happy I started experimenting with vegetarian food, because it gave me something interesting to talk with and a possible point of shared interest as well.
- technofiend 7y ago
  >This is a false economy though - part of being able to participate in society is having a range of acceptable small-talk topics... Which is fine, I just choose to opt out of that particular topic. Have you heard the joke about the vegetarian marathon runner? He never knows which one to brag about first. Seriously I agree being prepared to discuss a variety of topics is a good idea but it's something within the confines of politeness I can be honest about. If someone asks "Oh did you hear Shania Twain got a new puppy?" I can honestly say no I don't keep up with her and leave it at that. I'm happy to talk dogs, just not Shania. We can always find something else to talk about.

skookumchuck 7y ago

Ann Landers once wrote: 1. smart people talk about ideas 2. average people talk about events 3. dumb people talk about other people I sometimes think about that when I engage in gossip, and am annoyed with myself.

JohnFen 7y ago
That's awesome. I'm also reminded of something that Scott Adams wrote in a forward to one of his books. To paraphrase: we're all idiots, even the smartest of us. Not all the time, but given the right situation...
ChainOfFools 7y ago
I wonder where biographers fit into this model?
- nate_meurer 7y ago
  A good biography talks about all three.
fjsolwmv 7y ago
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/18/great-minds/amp/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/18/great-minds/amp/ Not really an Ann Landers thing

ryandrake 7y ago

You could extend this criticism to all small talk. It’s the same with the dinner table (or card game or water cooler) conversations about the latest Sportsball game and which team sportsed really good last night and which athlete’s stats are getting better and so on. Or how great the latest Game Of Thrones was or how awesome the Avengers movie was. Zero value besides the shared interest/connection.

technofiend 7y ago
Yes of course we all need a bit of cultural literacy. Honestly humans want to celebrate the lucky among us and being a famous actor or actress is a huge accomplishment. Those people put in a great deal of time and effort to their craft and they managed to succeed where thousands others just like them didn't. But the same can be said of SV rock stars, Fortune 500 CxOs, etc. Even if I recognized Donald Knuth or Sundar Pichai on the street I wouldn't approach and say "I love your work, may I have a photo?". I draw the line at assuming I have a personal relationship with anyone just because I happen to know of them or about them. And frankly since we're not friends I'm not invested in learning anything personal about those people. That's where I think society is broken: making the lives of famous people a miserable hell because they can't have a shred of privacy, and mining every detail of their lives to sell banner ads / click bait click-throughs, TV shows, etc is just a bit too far for me.

XorNot 7y ago

This is a false economy though - part of being able to participate in society is having a range of acceptable small-talk topics to engage with people on, and celebrity culture is a very easy one to stay sufficiently versed (literally just scroll a newspaper frontpage once a week or something) which provides a very safe in if someone wants to talk about that. It's the same reason you should (though it is harder) have some passing knowledge of local sports teams, because its a big shared cultural touchstone. It's the reason I'm really happy I started experimenting with vegetarian food, because it gave me something interesting to talk with and a possible point of shared interest as well.

technofiend 7y ago
>This is a false economy though - part of being able to participate in society is having a range of acceptable small-talk topics... Which is fine, I just choose to opt out of that particular topic. Have you heard the joke about the vegetarian marathon runner? He never knows which one to brag about first. Seriously I agree being prepared to discuss a variety of topics is a good idea but it's something within the confines of politeness I can be honest about. If someone asks "Oh did you hear Shania Twain got a new puppy?" I can honestly say no I don't keep up with her and leave it at that. I'm happy to talk dogs, just not Shania. We can always find something else to talk about.