Tell me about references in older media lost on modern audiences

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about references in older media lost on modern audiences

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Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

Kids these days don�t know how Bobbit worms got their name.

Imagined posted:

Today in talking about a terrible song I said, "They could've used this song to get Noriega out of his compound." I'm pretty sure anyone under 40 would have no loving clue what that was about.

The Noriega smokeout is something I feel that everyone should learn about because petty moves in international politics are fun. There was that time Mao held a meeting with Khrushchev in the pool, LBSJ�s countless meetings on the toilet, the KGB attempting to blackmail Sukarno with sex tapes and him asking for a copy, Chrysler trying to honeytrap Nader, and, in more recent politics, Putin intimidating Merkel with a large dog.

Platystemon fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Oct 15, 2021

# ? Oct 15, 2021 14:27

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 13:51

wesleywillis: Dec 30, 2016; SUCK A MALE CAMEL'S DICK WITH MIRACLE WHIP!!

Wasn't it Twisted Sister that they used against Noriega?

E: Speaking of annoying people with music, my friends and I would blast the song "Five Piece Chicken Dinner" by the Beastie Boys repeatedly to annoy people.
For reference we also thought it was an awesome song, so it never bothered us.

This one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1SLYttJ4wg

wesleywillis fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Oct 16, 2021

# ? Oct 16, 2021 01:39

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar.

Shave and a haircut, two bits.

# ? Oct 16, 2021 02:05

Shrecknet: Jan 2, 2005

REFERENCES FROM THE PAST

UNLIKELY TO CHANGE

I'LL ALWAYS REFERENCE

BURMA-SHAVE

# ? Oct 16, 2021 05:33

GoutPatrol: Oct 17, 2009; *Stupid Babby*

Violet_Sky posted:

Oh boy, my childhood was pretty much this. My parents didnt have cable because of advertising so I grew up without knowledge of most 90s/2000s kids shows. I still have no nostalgic attachment to stuff like Rugrats. In my parents' defense, they didn't really grow up with TV shows the way most people here did. (Late boomer/Early GenX) Also my mom had a Thing were she only wanted me to listen to classical music. That plan torpedoed when I started school because of course it did.

Up until kindergarten I didn't listen to any contemporize music. My parents only played classical or the oldies station (WCBS) which then was still meant oldies in the original sense - pre Beatlemania. The only CDs and cassettes in the house were classical and a Time Life oldies set. I didn't hear modern music until Ace of Base.

VideoGameVet posted:

But college students in the 1970's generally didn't listen to Benny Goodman or Glen Miller. That music was 40 years old or so by then.

But now, college students still listen to Dark Side Of The Moon (1973) and other classic rock albums nearly 50 years old.

My dad told me very matter-o-factly once that when he was a little kid in the 50s, you listened to pop music with your little 45s. Girls would have little lunch pails that held them. Once you were older and in college, you moved on to jazz. Then as an adult, you listened to classical music. And that was that.

# ? Oct 17, 2021 20:36

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

GoutPatrol posted:

Up until kindergarten I didn't listen to any contemporize music. My parents only played classical or the oldies station (WCBS) which then was still meant oldies in the original sense - pre Beatlemania. The only CDs and cassettes in the house were classical and a Time Life oldies set. I didn't hear modern music until Ace of Base.

My dad told me very matter-o-factly once that when he was a little kid in the 50s, you listened to pop music with your little 45s. Girls would have little lunch pails that held them. Once you were older and in college, you moved on to jazz. Then as an adult, you listened to classical music. And that was that.

I was Class of '79 in college. Yes I had classical music, but that was not very common.

Wish I could get the last place I lived at (until 2008) to let me retrieve the albums I left behind by mistake.

This classical record set is amazing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/324816528559

# ? Oct 18, 2021 05:00

Original_Z: Jun 14, 2005; Z so good

I was talking to some younger people the other day and mentioned that I liked to play videogames and they asked me what games I liked. I said Minesweeper and Solitare as a joke but they didn't know what I was referring to. I suppose no one plays Windows games anymore.

# ? Oct 20, 2021 09:50

Cemetry Gator: Apr 3, 2007; Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Those games haven't been included in Windows for a long time.

Although, I did hear about a 10 year old who just set a minesweeper world record, so there's still hope.

# ? Oct 20, 2021 13:06

thepopmonster: Feb 18, 2014

Cemetry Gator posted:

Those games haven't been included in Windows for a long time.

Although, I did hear about a 10 year old who just set a minesweeper world record, so there's still hope.

Oh, it's worse than that.

https://www.howtogeek.com/225128/you-dont-have-to-pay-20-a-year-for-solitaire-and-minesweeper-on-windows-10/

quote:

Windows 10 comes with the Microsoft Solitaire Collection, a solitaire game that requires you to watch 30-second-long full-screen video advertisements to keep playing. Ad-free solitaire costs $1.49 per month or $9.99 per year. That�s $20 per year if you want both ad-free solitaire and ad-free minesweeper.

quote:

It�s possible to get the old Windows desktop games from Windows 7 back, although Microsoft has made this a hassle. You can�t just drag-and-drop the old .exe files onto your new Windows 10 system because those games check to ensure they�re only running on Windows 7.

Although TBF that *might* be a windows version comparison bug rather than MS being assholes.

# ? Oct 20, 2021 14:58

Parahexavoctal: Oct 10, 2004; I AM NOT BEING PAID TO CORRECT OTHER PEOPLE'S POSTS! DONKEY!!

In "What's My Age Again", by Blink-182 (1999), the verse about a prank call failing because of caller-ID

Blink-182 posted:

Later on, on the drive home / I called her mom, from a pay phone. / I said I was the cops, / and your husband's in jail / the state looks down on sodomy / and that's about the time that bitch hung up on me

is obsolete.

Not because pay phones are rare now. Not because caller-ID is now so widespread that even idiots like the song's narrator should know about it.

Because Lawrence v. Texas was in 2003.

# ? Oct 27, 2021 04:00

Violet_Sky: Dec 5, 2011; Fun Shoe

Parahexavoctal posted:

In "What's My Age Again", by Blink-182 (1999), the verse about a prank call failing because of caller-ID

is obsolete.

Not because pay phones are rare now. Not because caller-ID is now so widespread that even idiots like the song's narrator should know about it.

Because Lawrence v. Texas was in 2003.

Why does that song sound like early 2000s Internet

# ? Oct 27, 2021 05:29

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

Parahexavoctal posted:

In "What's My Age Again", by Blink-182 (1999), the verse about a prank call failing because of caller-ID

is obsolete.

Not because pay phones are rare now. Not because caller-ID is now so widespread that even idiots like the song's narrator should know about it.

Because Lawrence v. Texas was in 2003.

Can you tell the car warranty spam callers about that?

# ? Oct 28, 2021 00:47

OnlyBans: Sep 21, 2021; by sebmojo

VideoGameVet posted:

Can you tell the car warranty spam callers about that?

Are you having sex with car warranty spam callers? Because if you are, hats off. That's a good counter scam.

# ? Oct 30, 2021 05:47

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

OnlyBans posted:

Are you having sex with car warranty spam callers? Because if you are, hats off. That's a good counter scam.

The gently caress up my day. Turnabout seems fair me.

# ? Oct 30, 2021 08:07

Gaius Marius: Oct 9, 2012

Get a Google voice number, only use that for giving out
Keep you own number just for close friends and Family, boom no more spam

# ? Oct 30, 2021 12:44

Krispy Wafer: Jul 26, 2002; I shouted out "Free the exposed 67"
But they stood on my hair and told me I was fat; Grimey Drawer

I just caught what I think was a reference nearly lost on modern audiences while reading Ray Bradbury�s �The Watchful Poker Chip of Henry Matisse�. Kind of a weird short story, only read it because I�m trying to read my copy of �October Country� in October.

Anyway, the main character gets his afternoon soap operas tape recorded and I was super confused since this story is based in the 1940�s. I was literally looking up the earliest VCR�s when I realized they probably meant reel-to-reel recordings and the soap operas were probably broadcast on radio.

# ? Oct 31, 2021 01:57

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

This "beware of predatory homosexuals" PSA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmE71zNpHjY

Look at all those people hitchhiking within a town. I don't see hitchhikers very much these days, but when I do it's along a significant road, headed a long way away.

# ? Oct 31, 2021 19:27

GoutPatrol: Oct 17, 2009; *Stupid Babby*

I have never seen a hitchhiker in my life. Or if I did, I never realized that they were, because they didn't exaggeratedly hold their thumb out.

Is it a bigger thing on the West Coast?

GoutPatrol fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Nov 2, 2021

# ? Nov 2, 2021 07:39

Son of a Vondruke!: Aug 3, 2012; More than Star Citizen will ever be.

GoutPatrol posted:

I have never seen a hitchhiker in my life. Or if I did, I never realized that they were, because they didn't exaggeratedly hold their thumb out.

Most of the ones I've seen hold a cardboard sign.

# ? Nov 2, 2021 07:42

AKA Pseudonym: May 16, 2004; A dashing and sophisticated young man; Doctor Rope

GoutPatrol posted:

I have never seen a hitchhiker in my life. Or if I did, I never realized that they were, because they didn't exaggeratedly hold their thumb out.

Is it a bigger thing on the West Coast?

They were still something you'd see occaisionally in the 80s. Pretty exclusively people with cardboard signs looking to go some substantial distance, nobody just decided to hitch a ride across town. I don't think I've seen it for a very long time though. Not in the states anyway. Lots of developing countries have a whole cultural thing surrounding ride sharing.

AKA Pseudonym fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Nov 2, 2021

# ? Nov 2, 2021 12:01

SimonSays: Aug 4, 2006; Simon is the monkey's name

I grew up in a rural bit with awful bus service and I'd regularly hitch a ride home after school or work from the furthest point the city bus would go. This would have been in the mid-oughts.

# ? Nov 2, 2021 12:36

The Moon Monster: Dec 30, 2005

I'd see hitchhikers looking to get a ride to ski hills in the rockies as late as the early 00s. I haven't been skiing much since then, but maybe they're still doing that idk.

# ? Nov 2, 2021 13:20

ProperGanderPusher: Jan 13, 2012

I think I�ve seen one once in my life. I have vague memories of my dad declining to offer a guy a ride like twenty years ago and then talking to me later about how much bigger it was when he was in college but you just can�t trust people these days.

# ? Nov 2, 2021 13:54

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

GoutPatrol posted:

Is it a bigger thing on the West Coast?

I've seen them occasionally in Northern California. And I just remembered, it is media-relevant! Claudette Colbert hikes up her skirt to flag a car down in It Happened One Night.

# ? Nov 2, 2021 16:10

Bucnasti: Aug 14, 2012; I'll Fetch My Sarcasm Robes

Son of a Vondruke! posted:

Most of the ones I've seen hold a cardboard sign.

Yeah I almost always see hitchhikers with cardboard signs on the onramp in Barstow between LA and Las Vegas. They always look like dirty hippies and never like hot aspiring Vegas showgirls though so I never stop.

# ? Nov 2, 2021 16:11

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

Son of a Vondruke! posted:

Most of the ones I've seen hold a cardboard sign.

# ? Nov 2, 2021 17:52

Slimy Hog: Apr 22, 2008

I've hitchhiked exactly once, but it was in a hippie college town

# ? Nov 2, 2021 17:55

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

At 16 I hitchhiked across Canada and then down to San Francisco and then back to NYC. That was after an aborted attempt to bike the Trans-Canadian highway (got hit by a car in Ottawa, wasn't hurt but the bike was trashed).

A long time ago.

# ? Nov 2, 2021 18:09

FreudianSlippers: Apr 12, 2010; Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

How did it feel living in a hippie coming of age novel?

# ? Nov 2, 2021 18:11

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

FreudianSlippers posted:

How did it feel living in a hippie coming of age novel?

Pretty loving awesome. This was 1973. Yeah I'm that old.

One of the fine people I encountered would send rather bold postcards afterwards and my parents were amused.

Oh and I got a ride from Albany CA to Detroit in the propped up trunk (yes, I sat in the trunk) of a Duster 340.

# ? Nov 2, 2021 18:20

My Lovely Horse: Aug 21, 2010

I'm reading The Salmon Of Doubt, which collects a lot of Douglas Adams' magazine writings on tech stuff, and it's a real look into the state of tech in the mid-90s as well as the source of some amazing whiplash moments as good old Douglas goes from amazingly ahead-of-his-time insights to heartbreaking naivety. I recommend it.

There's one bit where he goes on about different power supply standards and speculates about what if we just had little standardized DC power sockets everywhere and you could plug your gizmos directly into armrests and such, and you read it and think it's really neat how he never even mentioned USB but it's basically worked out to that, and directly afterwards it's an article like "how terrible are those attention-grabbing magazine ads and inserts, with online advertising they could tailor the ads to your precise interests and this would remove the incentive to make them obtrusive and annoying plus they would direct you towards really useful information" and you read that in 2021 and go oh Douglas, Douglas, my sweet innocent Douglas.

# ? Nov 2, 2021 20:02

Imagined: Feb 2, 2007

Meanwhile David Bowie was far more prescient about the potential negative impact of the internet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tCC9yxUIdw

# ? Nov 2, 2021 20:23

Rochallor: Apr 23, 2010; ふっっっっっっっっっっっっｃｋ

One of my favorite "ahead of its time" ideas is Frank Zappa's proposal for what is basically iTunes or Spotify in the mid-80s. The mechanism he suggests even seems like it could've worked: people order the songs or albums they want and then it's played to them over the phone or on cable channels so they can record it at home.

quote:

A PROPOSAL FOR A SYSTEM TO REPLACE PHONOGRAPH RECORD MERCHANDISING

Ordinary phonograph record merchandising as it exists today is a stupid process which concerns itself essentially with moving pieces of plastic, wrapped in pieces of cardboard, from one location to another.

These objects, in quantity, are heavy and expensive to ship. The manufacturing process is complicated and crude. Quality control for the stamping of the discs is an exercise in futility. Dissatisfied customers routinely return records because they are warped and will not play.

New digital technology may eventually solve the warpage problem and provide the consumer with better quality sound in the form of compact discs [CDs]. They are smaller, contain more music and would, presumably, cost less to ship. . . but they are much more expensive to buy and manufacture. To reproduce them, the consumer needs to purchase a digital device to replace his old hi-fi equipment (in the seven-hundred-dollar price range).

The bulk of the promotional effort at every record company today is expended on 'NEW MATERIAL' . . . the latest and the greatest of whatever the cocaine-tweezed rug-munchers decide to inflict on everybody this week.

More often than not, these 'aesthetic decisions' result in mountains of useless vinyl/cardboard artifacts which cannot be sold at any price, and are therefore returned for disposal and recylcing. These mistakes are expensive.

Put aside momentarily the current method of operation and think what is being wasted in terms of GREAT CATALOG ITEMS, squeezed out of the marketplace because of limited rack space in retail outlets, and the insatiable desire of quota-conscious company reps to fill every available slot with this week's new releases.

Every major record company has vaults full of (and perpetual rights to) great recordings by major artists in many categories which might still provide enjoyment to music consumers if they were made available in a convenient form.

MUSIC CONSUMERS LIKE TO CONSUME MUSIC. . . NOT SPECIFICALLY THE VINYL ARTIFACT WRAPPED IN CARDBOARD.

It is our proposal to take advantage of the positive aspects of a negative trend afflicting the record industry today: home taping of material released on vinyl.

First of all, we must realize that the taping of albums is not necessarily motivated by consumer 'stinginess.' If a consumer makes a home tape from a disc, that copy will probably sound better than a commercially manufactured high-speed duplication cassette legitimately released by the company.

We propose to acquire the rights to digitally duplicate THE BEST of every record company's difficult-to-move Quality Catalog Items [Q.C.I.], store them in a central processing location, and have them accessible by phone or cable TV, directly patchable into the user's home taping appliances, with the option of direct digital-to-digital transfer to the F-l (SONY consumer-level digital tape encoder), Beta Hi-Fi, or ordinary analog cassette (requiring the installation of a rentable D-A converter in the phone itself. . . the main chip is about twelve dollars).

All accounting for royalty payments, billing to the consumer, etc., would be automatic, built into the software for the system.

The consumer has the option of subscribing to one or more 'special interest category,' charged at a monthly rate, WITHOUT REGARD FOR THE QUANTITY OF MUSIC THE CUSTOMER WISHES TO TAPE.

Providing material in such quantity at a reduced cost could actually diminish the desire to duplicate and store it, since it would be available any time day or night.

Monthly listings could be provided by catalog, reducing the on-line storage requirements of the computer. The entire service would be accessed by phone, even if the local reception is via TV cable.

One advantage of the TV cable is: on those channels where nothing ever seems to happen (there's about seventy of them in L.A.), a visualization of the original cover art, including song lyrics, technical data, etc., could be displayed while the transmission is in progress, giving the project an electronic whiff of the original point-of-purchase merchandising built into the album when it was 'an album,' since there are many consumers who like to fondle & fetish the packaging while the music is being played.

In this situation, Fondlement & Fetishism Potential [F.F.P.] is supplied, without the cost of shipping tons of cardboard around.

Most of the hardware devices are, even as you read this, available as off-the-shelf items, just waiting to be plugged into each other in order to put an end to the record business as we now know it.

# ? Nov 2, 2021 23:10

My Lovely Horse: Aug 21, 2010

That reminds me of the Telharmonium, one of the earliest (19th century!) electronic instruments if not the very first, whose main output device was the telephone network. Not as in it played sound into the phone network, the network was part of the instrument's sound generation, its wired speakers in a way. You'd call in and listen to a performance.

# ? Nov 3, 2021 15:25

AKA Pseudonym: May 16, 2004; A dashing and sophisticated young man; Doctor Rope

Rochallor posted:

One of my favorite "ahead of its time" ideas is Frank Zappa's proposal for what is basically iTunes or Spotify in the mid-80s. The mechanism he suggests even seems like it could've worked: people order the songs or albums they want and then it's played to them over the phone or on cable channels so they can record it at home.

It's really fascinating to see somebody who had a really brilliant forward-thinking idea that was just a bit ahead of the available or even conceivable technology. I guess it could technically work but it sounds really unwieldy. It's a bit like, and I mean this in the best possible way, reading a patent for "method of cleaning the floor by means of a tiny woolly mammoth who says 'it's a living.'"

# ? Nov 3, 2021 20:34

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.