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

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

You know in old cartoons characters are getting hit by falling anvils? It turns out that that was actually a thing. From Has anyone ever been killed by a falling piano or anvil?:

quote:

Finally, anvils. It�s difficult to imagine why one would ever need to hoist an anvil high enough for it to drop on someone. However, we can�t rule falling anvils out entirely, due to a little-known pastime called anvil shooting, an exemplar of the hold-my-beer-and-watch-this school of redneck diversions.

The concept, which can be seen in practice in numerous online videos, is lethally simple: You put an anvil on the ground, fill a concave space on its upper surface with black powder, insert a fuse, set a second anvil on top, light the fuse, and run like hell. The detonation sends the top anvil flying in the air � preferably straight up and then straight down, but you can see where things could go tragically awry. We didn�t find any instances of this actually occurring, but thanks to the Road Runner we have an artist�s impression of what might happen when it does.

So it wasn't just absurd humor at the time.

Cascadia Pirate posted:

I had a video production teacher that would show us lots of films made pre 1970s. One thing I remember is all of the subtle clues films would use to indicate that characters were gay because they couldn't outright say so and he tried to explain to us what audiences then would take from those inferences.

The Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz was pretty much all the popular gay stereotypes of the time. It would've been obvious to large parts of the audience then but it is largely lost now.

duckmaster posted:

Airplane!

Large parts of the dialogue from Airplane! were lifted wholesale from an earlier, much more serious movie called Zero Hour!.

echopapa posted:

American railroads in the late 19th and early 20th centuries often allowed fruit vendors to sell their merchandise on the trains. Con artists soon perfected a scheme where one would buy a banana, eat it, leave the peel on the train�s floor, then wait for their confederate to slip on it and sue the railroad for injuries. Vaudeville comedians took the hint and started using banana peels as objects to slip on.

I don't think this is quite right. When New Yorkers Were Menaced by Banana Peels describes one person with a history of fraudulent claims of slipping on banana peels, but it was actually a pretty serious issue in NYC at the time and had been for a while.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2019 20:59

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 20:22

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

The ghosts of technology in today�s language

quote:

Yesterday, on Twitter, I asked: I wonder sometimes what would be the oldest extant word based on technology no longer in use. Taping an interview? Dialing someone?

I received many more answers than I expected, although it soon became obvious how my rules were impossible to follow, even by me: What exactly is technology, and which technology ever truly goes away?

Scrolling (who remembers scrolls?) feels different than fonts (used more than ever, in a digital form directly evolved from a physical predecessor), and somewhere in between these would be a tablet � a new tech inspired by old one, although without a direct connection.

But despite (or maybe because) the fuzzy rules, it was fun to comb through the answers, and ponder how often technology hides in everyday language long past its own limelight. So, let�s check out some examples.

A fair amount of this has been covered here already, but not all of it.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2019 03:21

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Milo and POTUS posted:

Yeah I've been of the opinion for a while that cards are probably a huge liability to impulse spenders. Some people just can't help their drat selves and while that's their prerogative, they should have the option to at least use cash if they feel it'll be at least a speed bump to draining their bank accounts.

Lottery Tickets and Credit Cards: The Dangers of an Irrational Brain:

quote:

LEHRER: In a recent paper on the neural mechanisms underlying our purchasing decisions, you speculated that the "abstract nature of credit cards" might "anaesthetize consumers against the pain of paying." How might that occur?

LOEWENSTEIN: Unlike cash, where you are turning something over (bills and coins) as you are receiving something (a good or service), with credit cards you or the store clerk simply swipes the card, which doesn't feel like giving something up. With credit cards it is also easier to miss, or deliberately ignore, how much one is spending. (A 2001 study by Dilip Soman, a professor of marketing at the University of Toronto, suggests that that people are less likely to recall, and more likely to underestimate, how much they spent on a recent transaction when they paid by credit card than with cash.) Worse, with credit cards it is unclear whether or when you are going into debt because there is uncertainty about whether you will be able to pay for your cumulated expenditures at the end of the month. Credit cards allow people to go into debt passively, without explicitly deciding to take on the debt or feeling like they are going into debt. How many credit card users who end up with $10,000 of debt at the end of the year would have been willing, at the beginning of the year, to take out a $10,000 loan to finance those same purchases? Many people who end up massively in debt with credit cards would not have done so if they had had to make an explicit decision to go into debt.

LEHRER: Have these experiments changed the way you make purchasing decisions? Are you more reticent about using credit cards?

LOEWENSTEIN: Fortunately, my income is well above the poverty line and I'm a tightwad to begin with�my problem is not spending money when I shouldn�t, but not spending money when I should. Credit cards are wonderful for affluent tightwads. They are deadly for poor spendthrifts.

The link to the paper in the article is broken but it's here.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2019 01:36

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Quaint Quail Quilt posted:

It's against the merchants card holder agreements to accept a minimum payment and if reported they can lose their privilege to use cards.

I think that changed recently but can't find a source because looking for "minimum credit card payment" turns up too many sites explaining that yes, you do have to make a payment every month.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2020 21:04

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Midjack posted:

The movie Transylvania 6-5000 is itself a reference to that song.

Any reference to that movie is itself lost on modern audiences.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2020 06:06

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

The Christmas bonus in the first place, you mean.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2020 06:20

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Nattensorway.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2020 20:04

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

My gym has analogue clocks on the wall for some reason.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2020 01:45

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Shut up Meg posted:

Can you see this? (It's a sailboat, if that helps)

No ring.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2020 20:45

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

BonHair posted:

How are loose and lose pronounced differently? Asking as a foreign linguist and also genuinely curious person.

loose, lose

# ¿ Jul 6, 2020 18:27

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Quaint Quail Quilt posted:

They say this all the time on babylon 5 and I'm rewatching it now so thanks!

There's a thread if you're interested.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2020 21:04

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

That's not what the song is referencing.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2021 23:47

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

On the basic models, the pager displays the number of anyone who's called. So you don't get an indication of what the message is about, but you know who's trying to reach you.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 19:02

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Not really. Keywords were more like user friendly web addresses. If you wanted to play games, you'd type in "games" instead of a web address. AOL got to determine which keyword went where, and they sold them for a lot of money.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2021 03:46

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

If you know what "eternal September" means, you're old.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2021 15:18

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

High school mattered a lot more when fewer people went to college. I'm honestly surprised class rings have lasted this long, but I guess they're really marketed to parents.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2021 18:47

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Cheesus posted:

That sounds really impressive to me. Is it as big of an accomplishment as it sounds or is there a weird catch?

The bar for authorship in the lab sciences is pretty low compared to other fields. You do have to make a contribution of some sort, but you don't have to make a substantive contribution. Having that authorship is a very good thing for the students involved, but it's mostly a matter of them having the opportunity to work on projects in whatever lab they're attached to. That's mostly a matter of who their parents/schools know.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 13:59

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Elevator operators.

# ¿ May 1, 2021 22:55

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

If you're class president you can list that on college applications.

# ¿ May 13, 2021 16:06

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Lemniscate Blue posted:

Ngl I want that MY ANCESTOR shirt.

Here.

# ¿ May 18, 2021 15:19

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Fish of hemp posted:

America, are...are you......all right?

You know we're not.

# ¿ May 28, 2021 18:04

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

The Man and the Ticker reads a bit differently more than a century later.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2021 17:38

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

It blows my baby mind that there were people genuinely against wearing your seatbelt.

Turns out that oppositional defiant disorder is a significant part America's national character.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2021 21:47

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Bucnasti posted:

"Mother's little helper"

Mother's little helper was valium.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2021 18:40

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

dustin.h posted:

Mother's Little Helper predates Valium, certainly. It must be a barbiturate of some sort. Red Devil, maybe (Seconal)?

It's valium.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2021 18:51

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

In a Friends episode from 1998, Joey and Chandler stumble across a television channel broadcasting porn and they're afraid to turn the TV off or change the channel because they might not be able to find it again. A lot has changed since then.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2022 01:44

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Was digital cable even a thing back then?

That plot started when someone fumbled a remote and hit a button without knowing which one, so they were worried if they turned the TV off or changed the channel they wouldn't be able to get back to it. I don't even know if that made sense back then, but the idea of free porn being a rare thing that you need to work for is very 90s.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2022 22:15

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Xiahou Dun posted:

I thought the logic was you use cursive to right out the sum in letters so it's (nominally) harder to forge. Did my dad lie to me?

That's definitely the reason why you write the numbers out in words in addition to their numeric values. It's a holdover from when the Arabic numeral system was first introduced in Europe. I don't know whether cursive was a thing back then.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2022 18:48

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

https://twitter.com/rebeccamakkai/status/1515467051959304193

# ¿ Apr 17, 2022 19:29

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 20:22

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

https://twitter.com/shes_the_maNN1/status/1567268943659765768

# ¿ Sep 7, 2022 19:28

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