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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Soujirou:''' Oh, [[Street Fighter II|back then]], Bison was dressed up as Mike Tyson. Pretty cool.
'''Konata:''' Who's [[w:Mike Tyson|Mike Tyson]]?
''(later that day)''
'''Soujirou:''' Today, I felt the generation gap in a deep and very personal way.|''[[Lucky Star]]'' Manga vol. 6}}
|''[[Lucky Star]]'' Manga vol. 6}}
 
This is a subversion of [[PopculturalPop Cultural Osmosis]]. When used in-universe, it's usually as a means of showing the difference between people from two different groups (usually generations) in which a character from Group A makes a pop culture reference (or mentions a famous person or movie or work) and one of four things happens:
 
# "Who's X?"—The person from Group B doesn't get it at all because of a failure of [[PopculturalPop Cultural Osmosis]]. This seems to be the most common.
# "Oh, X! He was in Y, right!"—The person from Group B ''gets it wrong'' because of a failure of [[PopculturalPop Cultural Osmosis]] (and he's guessing).
# "Wait, Y was based on a real X?"—The person from Group B gets it wrong because of a ''clash'' of [[PopculturalPop Cultural Osmosis]], and he's [[The Weird Al Effect|referencing something that referenced the original]], [[Lost in Imitation|referenced a reference]] [[Older Than They Think|of the original, etc.]]
# "Impressive, you know X... oh, you don't"—The person from Group B gets it wrong because of a clash of [[PopculturalPop Cultural Osmosis]], when person A is referencing something more recent (the reverse of 3).
 
This can happen because the person from Group B:
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:E) is [[In the Original Klingon|amusingly]] [[Aluminum Christmas Trees|displaced]] from the time of origin;
:F) simply is not familiar with a genre or a work;
:G) the work itself is [[Fan Myopia|thought to be so popular]] that all who know it think it will be passed on through [[PopculturalPop Cultural Osmosis]]—with the result that it ''isn't'', and [[Pop Culture Isolation]] sets in.
 
Note that A-F can go both ways (for example, someone too old to know [[Britney Spears]] or The [[Backstreet Boys]] may have fond memories of ''[[I Love Lucy]]'' or [[wikipedia:Herman's Hermits|Herman's Hermits]]), and G is the natural conclusion of [[PopculturalPop Cultural Osmosis]], when even [[All There Is to Know About "The Crying Game"]] is forgotten (along with ''[[The Crying Game]]'' itself) except for the [[Trope Namers|trope name]] itself, rendered a [[Non-Indicative Name]].
 
This, by the way, is the reason character-named tropes are often renamed. For example, if you're not familiar with original [[Sherlock Holmes]] tales, you won't know who [[Inspector Lestrade]] is; if not well-read in 19th-century French literature (or [[All Musicals Are Adaptations|Broadway musicals]]), [[Inspector Javert]] may be unknown to you.
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Compare [[Seinfeld Is Unfunny]], [[Adaptation Displacement]], [[Forgotten Trope]], [[It's Been Done]], [[Fleeting Demographic Rule]], [[Recognition Failure]], [[Lampshaded the Obscure Reference]], and [[Reindeer Aren't Real]]. Applying this to sports gives you [[Gretzky Has the Ball]].
 
Contrast: [[It Was His Sled]], [[All There Is to Know About "The Crying Game"]], and ''especially'' [[PopculturalPop Cultural Osmosis]].
 
{{examples}}
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=== Comic Books ===
* In ''[[Birds of Prey (comics)|Birds of Prey]]'' #1 (2010 series), Lady Blackhawk (a time traveller from World War 2) doesn't get a reference to "[[Putting the Band Back Together]]". However, she has been in the present long enough to understand one to [[Twitter]].
* Agent 355 from ''[[Y: The Last Man|Y the Last Man]]'' never gets pop culture references; at the end, when Yorick brings up ''[[Moonlighting]]'' he explains what it is "before you ask". {{spoiler|In the [[Distant Finale]], set 60 years after the rest of the story, when Yorick asks his young clone, if he knew that [[Elvis Presley|Elvis]] [[Book Ends|had a twin brother]], he asks: "Who's Elvis?"}}
 
=== Films -- Live-ActionFilm ===
* ''[[Zombieland]]''
** Little Rock doesn't know who [[Willie Nelson]] is, much to Tallahassee's horror. Or who [[Bill Murray]] is, ALSO to Tallahassee's horror.
** Or who [[Bill Murray]] is, ALSO to Tallahassee's horror.
{{quote|'''Little Rock:''' Who’s Bill Murray?
'''Tallahassee:''' Alright, I’ve never hit a kid before. I mean that’s like asking who Gandhi is.
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* ''[[Community]]'':
{{quote|'''Shirley:''' You remind me of [[Cheers|Sam and Diane]]... I hated Sam and Diane.
'''Anne:''' Who's Jack and Diane?
'''Shirley:''' ''(furious)'' Okay, I get it! You're young! }}
** Another example is when they are suggesting Abed change his personality:
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** In the episode "Bad Guys", Cameron compares someone to John McClane. Daniel doesn't understand. Teal'c, who is not even from Earth, explains, ''[[Die Hard]]''.
** Vala also regularly complains about her teammates using Tau'ri pop culture references, which she never get.
* In one episode of ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'', Robin mentioned several canadianCanadian celebrities in a row, none of which her friends knew about.
{{quote|'''Barney:''' What's the ''opposite'' of name dropping?}}
* In the ''[[Seinfeld]]'' episode "The Stranded" Elaine quotes the line "Maybe the dingo ate your baby?" from ''A Cry in the Dark''. The woman she's saying it to doesn't get the reference.
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=== Web Original ===
* [[TV Tropes]] and [[All The Tropes]]: This is the reason that many tropes named after characters got [[Renamed Tropes|renamed]] (for example, [[Encyclopedia Brown|Bugs Meany Is Gonna Walk]] to [[Conviction by Contradiction]].)
** Also seen in any trope that doesn't explain the reference. (For example, [https://allthetropes.org/w/index.php?title=Remember_the_Alamo!&direction=prev&oldid=2005066 this version] of [[Remember the Alamo!]], which doesn't even try to explain what the Alamo is and why it should be remembered.)
 
=== Western Animation ===
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'''Bart:''' Who are Beavis and Butthead? }}
* In [[Bob's Burgers]] episode "Nightmare on Ocean Adventure" Linda asked Louise what she was for halloween. Louise answered "dragon with a girl tattoo." Linda: "Ooh you [[The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo|flipped the script]]!" Louise: "What do you mean?"
** In another Halloween Episode, Linda thinks Louise's costume is [[Wolverine]]; actually, she is [[Edward Scissorhands]].
 
=== Real Life ===
* [[Truth in Television]]: A teacher didn't think a kids choir needed to have the lyrics or music to the song "One Tin Soldier" since those kids should have [[Seen It a Million Times|heard it a million times]] and learned it through [[PopculturalPop Cultural Osmosis]]. They hadn't, resulting in a very awkward moment on performance day.
* As described on our very own page for ''[[Gargoyles]]'', in the entry for [[Belligerent Sexual Tension]]: "When describing Brooklyn and Katana's relationship in "Timedancer", [creator] [[Greg Weisman]] mentioned [[Cheers|Sam and Diane]]. No-one got it. Then he mentioned [[Much Ado About Nothing|Beatrice and Benedick]]. ''That one'' people got, which should tell you a lot about the kind of fans this show has."
* On [[This Very Wiki]], the page for [[Washington DC]] is illustrated with a montage of photos of... a bunch of statues and buildings. As of August 2019, no names for any of that stuff are given for those of us who don't live in the USA.
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== "X was in Y, right?" ==
(previously called "Type 2")
=== Films -- Live-ActionFilm ===
* From ''[[Armageddon]]'':
{{quote|'''A.J.:''' Have you ever heard of Evel Knievel?
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** [[What's Opera, Doc?|"Kill the Wabbit! Kill the Wabbit!"]];
** the piece played during the air cavalry attack in the movie ''[[Apocalypse Now]]''; and
** [[Bryan Danielson|Daniel Bryan's]] [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] theme music.
*** Of course, like many examples from "X was in Y, right?", [[The Miz]] thought it was from ''[[Star Wars]]''.
* Basically the reason [[Covered Up]] and [[Sampled Up]] exist (just see the opening quote for the former entry).
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(previously called "Type 4")
=== Comic Books ===
* An example from [[Older Than They Think]] fits here, as a clash of [[PopculturalPop Cultural Osmosis]]: An in-universe example has [[Superboy]] saying to [[Superman]] "Second star to the right and straight on till morning." When Superman says "''[[Peter Pan]]''. How appropriate." Superboy replies "What are you talking about? [[Star Trek|Captain Kirk]] said that," in reference to Kirk's closing line at the end of ''[[Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country|the 6th movie]]'' where he was clearly quoting ''Peter Pan.
* In a ''[[Robin]]'' annual, Huntress tells Robin it was a clever idea of his to wear mirrors under their ponchos (to blind their enemies in a gunfight). He says he got the idea from an old movie. She says "''[[A Fistful of Dollars]]'', huh?" and he replies "No. ''[[Back to the Future (film)|Back to The Future]] III''.
* In ''[[Fanhunter]]'', it goes something like this:
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=== Web Comics ===
* An ''[[Arthur, King of Time and Space]]'' strip starts with Arthur's [[Show Within a Show|journal/Life Embellished webcomic]], with several of the characters playing cards. Gawaine says "He who steals these cards steals trash", Pellinore replied "[[Author Catchphrase|You can't beat the classics]]", and Gawaine asks if he's a ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|MashM*A*S*H]]'' fan too. Cut to the real-world Gawaine saying "I don't get it", because Arthur's portrayal of him as not knowing the line is a paraphrase of ''[[Othello]]'' is completely accurate.
 
== Various ==
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=== Real Life ===
* Pop Cultural Osmosis Failure marches on: the question "[[Paul McCartney]] was in [[The Beatles (band)|a band]] before [[Wings (band)|Wings]]?" has been replaced almost everywhere with "Paul McCartney was in a band?" ... except where it's been re-replaced with "Who's Paul McCartney?" Any of these are often heard as jokes, and occasionally heard as serious questions.
 
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[[Category:PagesPop needingCulture more categoriesTropes]]
[[Category:Meta Concepts]]
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