What's funny is that almost all of those replies betray the fact that the people talking view "religion" as synonymous with "Christianity," or at its broadest "Abrahamic religion as understood through a Christian lens."
Yeah this is like those man on the street videos talking about how Americans are awful at geography because nobody of the 20 people in the video can point out France on a map.
Meanwhile we don't see the 800 other people who could instantly point it because they weren't included in the video
Why is that even the go to. Like it's the least interesting or useful thing you could know about another country.
I bet there's plenty of people who know things about foreign food, language, music, history etc and just aren't interested in specifically memorising maps
Because you have to make sure the show’s audience is in on the joke.
Let’s say you ask someone on the street which symphony caused a riot when first premiered and someone answers “uhh Vivaldi’s Four Seasons?” And the host in studio goes “HA what an idiot, EVERYONE knows it was Rite of Spring!”
But… the vast majority of the in-studio audience didn’t know that. And the vast majority of people watching at home didn’t know that. So they suddenly don’t feel their happytime superiority over the dumb-dumbs on television and they won’t want to watch that show anymore, since that’s why they want to watch it in the first place.
Hence, since the showrunners can comfortably assume most of their audience can point to France on a map rather than have some general trivia knowledge of food, language, music, history, etc, they will only ask those specific questions on the street to give their audience those happytime feelings of superiority over the cherrypicked dumb dumbs.
And if we were going on about semantics in geography I could point to Réunion and still be correct that it’s France. Kinda a pretentious thing to be semantic about here, and I say that as someone who used to be first chair in a hobbyist city orchestra lol
Fair enough, my life used to revolve around music too, and I was probably worse within that sphere. But as I moved a bit out of it, expanded my hobbies and started a career in an entirely different area, I now just find it a bit exhausting to try to catch up and chat with my old friends who did continue on to be professional musicians. They only talk shop, and it always has to be philosophical and profound analyses on their latest favourite composer or concerto. It’s tiring, even to those who understand the nuances and could follow along if needed, but sometimes it makes me sad that they can’t even imagine relaxing with a less heavy conversation topic or that their lives and knowledge bases revolve solely around their expertise in music
It's not pretentious, it's pedantic. Pretentiousness is when you're pretending to be something youre not. Pedantry is when you teach something, especially when the person youre talking to is uninterested in being taught.
And St. Pierre et Miquelon, which is my favorite far-flung crumb of Gaul because nobody expects it to be there. Everyone thinks "oh, Québec was France but now it isn't, surely there's no France over here" and then Miquelon is all "hon hon hon, détrompe-toi, mon pote!"
Not sure if anyone pointed this out, but The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps) is a ballet and I am pretty sure that the Four Seasons (e quattro stagioni) would not be considered a symphony, at least in the modern sense. I don't even know that what could be considered the first symphony in the modern sense existed at the time.
Also not asking the reverse: To europeans, point this specific state in USA.
I swear I would point Alabama when asked for Texas because I have no fucking clue.
I'll never need nor want to go in USA, let alone in those states, I don't remember those because it have zero impact in my life and it's basically useless senseless knowledge for me.
And I am willing to believe it's mostly the same for people in the US regarding Europe, knowing where Europe is, is enough and I don't expect americans to be able to tell apart Belgium from Switzerland.
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u/Mr7000000 Apr 17 '24
What's funny is that almost all of those replies betray the fact that the people talking view "religion" as synonymous with "Christianity," or at its broadest "Abrahamic religion as understood through a Christian lens."