I recently saw an article about the stylish outfits at the Venice Film Festival. The designer clothing was nice, but that isn’t what caught my attention. It struck me that I have no idea who many of these people are, and they are probably some of the most famous people in the world right now.

a woman in a white coat and black boots — Photo by Reza Delkhosh on Unsplash

I read a post that said a man’s niece asked him who Paul Newman was. He told her “He’s was the Brad Pitt of my Mom’s generation.” She said, “Who’s Brad Pitt?”

I know that this kind of thing happens as each generation develops its own stars in their own mediums. My Dad would hear me talking about a band that I liked as a teenager, and he would just shake his head. I knew some of the people that my parents liked to listen to, like Glenn Miller or “Les Brown and his band of renown,” but probably only because we had to hear them when Mom played their records (to the younger readers out there — a record was a kind of media on a vinyl disc that could play prerecorded music).

A translucent amber vinyl record spinning on a turntable with a black tonearm — Photo by Jakob Rosen on Unsplash

The research on preferences in music and popular culture show that our adolescence and early adulthood are particularly influential in the development of our personal tastes. The reminiscence bump is the name for the phenomenon whereby adults tend to have a disproportionate attachment to the popular culture they encountered at those ages.

Morris Holbrook and Robert Schindler were the first researchers to develop this hypothesis, but later studies have shown that there are other factors at play. It turns out that repetition and peer networks are both important considerations. If your best friends all like a song, chances are you will begin to enjoy it too. When media was limited to top 40 radio stations and just a few major television networks, a generation’s most popular artists would often be held in common from person to person. Today, social media and the internet have created much more diversity, and an individual may have very different tastes than their peers.

Most of today’s 25 year olds will have little or no memory of some of the most popular stars during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Names like Walter Cronkite, Mary Tyler Moore, Lucille Ball, Phil Donahue, and Arsenio Hall will likely be unfamiliar to them, whereas they are some of the most famous celebrities of those earlier periods.

All of this may partially explain my cluelessness at some of the following names from the Venice Film Festival.

Furi Nanase and Rokka Okada - never heard of them.
Nicola Peltz Beckham - I’m assuming she is related to the soccer star?
Bhavitha Mandava - nope.
Chase Sui Wonders - I’m wondering.
Jonathan Bailey - no clue.

I’m not completely oblivious. There were some people I did recognize:

Ricky Martin
John Malkovich
Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz
Maggie Gyllenhaal

But then there was a whole group who were completely new to me.

Zazie Beetz
Zoey Deutch
Amelia Dimoldenberg
Amanda Seyfried
Emma Corrin
Kim Gordon
Marion Cotillard
Irina Shayk
Vittoria Ceretti
Domhnall Gleeson

It’s hard for me to understand how I have completely missed these folks in the media. I wonder if I am not paying attention, or if I just have no interest in whatever it is that they are doing. Among other things, it makes me acutely aware of the differences between the generations, and I wonder how often younger people hear me talk and say, “What is that old coot talking about?”

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Clueless