Mini-Rant – “Before My Time”
Whilst watching a quiz show last night, I was reminded of how irritated I get when people claim not to know the answer to a question simply because the event in question happened before they were born.
It’s the most feeble of all excuses!
I find it hard to believe that so many people appear on these shows KNOWING that their entire knowledge base is devoid of anything that took place more than a few decades ago! Do they really think that will put them in a position to do well?
So, you were born in 1980. Does that mean you know NOTHING of the World Wars? The works of Shakespeare? The music of The Beatles? Have you simply never bothered to catch up on the incredible amount of history that preceeded your birth?
Well, I suppose life on this planet never really started until you dropped out of your mother’s stinking flange, right? I’m sure everything up to that point is insignificant. After all, all life does revolve around you and your blinkered view of the world, doesn’t it?
Are these poeple REALLY indicative of the majority of the general public? Are we REALLY surrounded by people that have never seen Jaws? Or Brief Encounter? Or The Godfather?
I can understand people born at the start of the 80’s missing out on Ghostbusters, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Back To The Future … and a whole load of music, television and literature … But to never make the effort to take a look at what they missed?
On every level, it’s just wrong, lazy and pathetic.
And to take this gaping hole in your general knowledge onto a televized quiz show … and humiliate yourself in front of everyone you know is staggeringly stupid.
Why don’t you save yourself the embarassment … and save me the irritation … and save yourself the effort of trying to read a book for the first time in your life, and just crawl under the nearest rock and die?
MisterShouty 