Pop Cultural Osmosis Failure: Difference between revisions

* 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-Action ===

* Subverted in ''[[Taken (film)|Taken]]''.

{{quote|'''Bryan Mills:''' Who's [[Beyoncé]]? ''([[Beat]])'' Just kidding.}}

=== Literature ===

* This is both the title and the subject of Robert Cormier's ''Bunny Berigan -- Wasn't He a Musican or Something?'', much to the dismay of the Berigan fanboy who serves as the protagonist.

=== Live-Action TV ===

{{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.

=== Music ===

* Asking "[[The Who|Who]] sang [[Refrain From Assuming|Teenage Wasteland]]?" can lead to a [[Who's on First?]] scenario.

* [[Vince McMahon]] apparently doesn't watch TV very often. He didn't understand that [[Scott Hall]]'s Razor Ramon gimmick was a homage to ''[[Scarface]]'' and thought he made it up himself. He also didn't understand that Paul Birchill's pirate gimmick was a homage to ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]''.

=== Puppet Shows ===

* ''[[Mongrels]]'': In episode 3, cat Marion's [[Jail Bait]] girlfriend Lollipop fails to understand references to ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'', [[Friends|Ross and Rachel]], and ''[[Gavin and Stacey]]'' because she is just that young, making it a "Who's X?" D.

=== Video Games ===

* In ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'', Vanille doesn't know who the Primarch of Cocoon is. Sazh has to explain, after wondering aloud if she fell asleep during History or something.

=== Web Comics ===

{{quote|"Have you considered Mount Doom? I'm sure we could rustle up some sacrificial hobbits..."

"I... What?" }}

=== Western Animation ===

* ''[[Live Free or Die Hard]]'': When John McClane finally gets to "Warlord"'s place, his reluctant ally tries to pass him off as another of the culture, which fails fast. Notable is when McClane fails to recognize a cutout of Boba Fett and tries to cover it by saying he's only familiar with ''[[Star Wars]]''. (McClane's smirk seems to suggest he's just screwing with "The Warlord" with that one.)

* In ''[[Waxwork (film)|Waxwork]]'', one of the young people asks if the Phantom of the Opera figure's mask is the original from the movie, and the owner is surprised that someone made a movie about the Phantom. It's implied that the owner is not merely pop-culture clueless, but that he knows the Phantom ''actually existed'' in the movie's Verse and is amazed Hollywood would resort to filming his tale.

=== Music ===

''She says "I love Johnny Cash, the man in red"

''I turn my head and pretend not to hear what she said'' }}

=== Western Animation ===

{{quote|'''Chef:''' Have you ever heard of the Emancipation Proclamation?

'''General:''' I don't listen to hip-hop. }}

== "Wait, Y was based on a real X?" ==

=== Web Original ===

* The [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/musically-oblivious-8th-grader Musically Oblivious 8th Grader] [[Memetic Mutation|meme]] uses various types.

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