A lot of folks are mocking these twitter users who didn’t realize that the movie Titanic was based on true events. But I think it’s actually quite natural. There’s a lot of things that parents don’t teach their children, not because they aren’t important but because it doesn’t even occur to them to teach them.
I had a friend in high school in the 80s who had never heard of Richard Nixon. My friend was brilliant and his parents were very intelligent and well-educated, but it was just a piece of context that fell through the cracks. How can that be? Nixon’s fall had (and still has) profound impact on American politics: Xgate and Ygate and Zgate are mentioned every day, but Nixon himself hasn’t been in the news much since the 70s, except around the time of his death in 1994 and the release of the Frost/Nixon movie in 2008.
It’s the same effect as the disappearance of the “Renaissance Man” — it’s no longer possible to know everything (was it ever possible?) so the gaps in our individual knowledge will become more glaring and embarrassing with each generation that passes.
Originally shared by Mike Elgan
Twitter users shocked to learn that the Titanic disaster actually happened.
You can feel the dumb.
http://laughingsquid.com/twitter-learns-the-titanic-was-not-just-a-movie/
No, sorry Chris, but the only way we can feel better about ourselves is to mock other people. I do it all the time, and I think my students really appreciate it.
Christopher De Vries – I never said we shouldn’t mock them, I just meant that we shouldn’t be surprised or outraged. 🙂
I just remembered: didn’t the same thing happen when the Apollo 13 movie came out?
Hmm… I am not sure.
It’s actually a fascinating thing, to see where these holes crop up. In some ways, our information technology is on the cusp of compensating for this awkwardness. Think augmented reality crossed with popup video crossed with Siri and wikipedia, where the code is smart enough to anticipate where facts might be of interest / use.