My favorite was the time that someone asked Kelly [1] about why she was using Excel and not the messaging app on that product-placement phone and she was like "I have no idea what you are talking about or why this is a meme." And then the Microsoft Excel Twitter account, the only good Twitter account, responded with grace [2].
This kind of taking pride in ignorance just infuriates me to no end. Merely being ignorant of something is fine, as we're all ignorant of most things, but being proud of it just makes you stupid. Why do we put people like this on TV? </rant>
It's infuriating to see such a stupid take bubbled up to the top replies to the top comment on this post.
Why would a singer know what Microsoft Excel is? And how exactly is her response even "pride[ful]" ignorance? She just said she doesn't know what it is and therefore doesn't care about the memes. Which part here is pride in her ignorance of software mostly used in the accounting profession?
I'm not going to say she's a genius, but it's grounded for a person to acknowledge when they don't know what something is and don't give a shit. This thing was an afterthought to a music video for a song she was in. The video is tangential to her actual work. Why should she care? If you're going to call her ignorant and stupid for it, you should be able to explain why she should care about Microsoft Excel specifically when it's presented to her in a flurry of internet memes.
Also, why is she on TV? Because she's the second most famous person who was in Destiny's Child, behind Beyonce. Is TV only supposed to show people of high intelligence? Are "stupid" people actually subhumans who should not be represented on television, the bastion of idiots? Are stupid people actually morally bad and smart people are morally good? I'm so confused about all the things your worldview could imply. It's nonsense.
I don't think that the commenter expected her to know Excel, but the tone of her response especially where she started saying "I don't care" can be reasonably interpreted as dismissive and defensive to the point of being proud, which is really odd because it's not like people are blaming her for the production crew's mistake?
Not knowing computers at this day and age (or whenever that video was shot which seems recent) is not a cool thing to celebrate, because the most basic computer skills are now as important as knowing how to drive. But I really think that more than a criticism of her intelligence, people really are criticizing her character. She could have handled this more gracefully by laughing it off, because it is laughable.
I'll argue that, in 2023, the most basic 'computer' skills are knowing how to:
* buy a smartphone (okay, not even a skill)
* connect to the internet
* visit a website
* install an app
* use basic apps, e.g. read/send email, read/send text messages, view/take photos
That's it. And none of this is necessary for survival, nor to even be what I'd call a well-rounded person. They're just modern conveniences. Things beyond this are trainable. People get bonus points for knowing how to use 2FA or spot phishing attempts or other scams, but I view this is going beyond the purview of basic computer skills into basic cybersecurity.
So I don't see not knowing what Excel is as equivalent to not 'knowing computers.' But you know what, why do you get to choose what is a 'cool thing' to celebrate? If someone chooses to be computer illiterate and celebrates it, why is that a problem? My wife doesn't know how to drive. Guess what, she'll never murder someone with a car. Kudos to her.
Excel is a ubiquitous tool with many applications for life in the information age so don’t even take this out of context and argue about life situations in the Stone Age.
If you’ve ever tried managing your own finances in a seriously methodical manner, for example, and you should, then using Excel or alternative spreadsheet software simply would be inevitable. Are you saying that managing your own finances is not an important life skill, let alone a chore? Should anyone be proud at all that they don’t? Heck, she has achieved some success as an artist so she must have money to manage and understand. Even rich people who have businesses to run must deal with Excel on a regular basis, because not doing so is gross neglect and can have serious consequences, both financially and legally.
I don’t understand why you’re so hellbent on defending ignorance, to be honest. If you’re not aware, you should know that you went a really long way to defend not knowing Excel, to think that for Kelly Rowland herself, I only criticised her tone.
How can you be so blind to the worldview of people outside your bubble and be so proud of it ?
Exactly yesterday,I was helping a friend at the end of a workshop on accounting for entrepreneurs in social sectors.
To wrap up the two days class, he asked them what they had learned.
To my surprise a good number of them said they had learned making a simple formula in excel cells. ( white , 20-something , males, just in case you were wondering ).
There is a big world out there full of normal people that don't have the faintest idea about things you consider basic skills.
I love spreadsheets, and I use them all the time, even in my personal life. Not once did I state that Excel sucks, is unimportant and shitty software, that no one should know it, or that people should have poor financial habits. I am not "defending ignorance." I have literally taken university-level accounting courses out of personal interest, despite not being an accountant by profession. (Although, I tend to use Google Sheets more because it's free and still functions well.)
What I am defending is someone saying that they don't know what Microsoft Excel is and don't care and having other people refer to that as prideful ignorance.
Excel isn't a ubiquitous tool outside of your world buddy. Any rich person isn't worried about their finances most of that stuff is delegated to a financial advisor so I don't know what you're talking about.
> because the most basic computer skills are now as important as knowing how to drive.
This is the best comparison used because like knowing how to drive not everyone needs to know basic computer skills, so thanks for backing up OP and Kelly. o7
> the tone of her response especially where she started saying "I don't care" can be reasonably interpreted as dismissive and defensive to the point of being proud
I interpret the "I don't care" as "that's pedantic" and "I have more important things to focus on".
You know that most musicians didn't start off as professional musicians, right?
I can't imagine there's anyone who lives in a sufficiently technologically-literate world that they know how to use a mobile phone, and despite this has never heard of the second most commonly used bit of software in the workplace.
Worth noting that while most musicians don’t “start off” as professional musicians, Rowland entered the game back in the 90s and was basically just a kid when destiny’s child was formed. Leaves little time to learn anything else besides the ins and outs of the industry I’d think.
I'm not sure this taking pride in ignorance. It just seems like she has other things that occupy her time and thoughts.
Imagine if someone asked Linus Torvalds about the stitching pattern used on a shirt he wore in while giving a talk 10 years ago? If he said "I had no idea what you're talking about?" would that be taking pride in ignorance too?
What if the pattern had some significance in some culture?
Anyway, something of that caliber actually happened. Torvalds addressed wearing socks and sandals in some interviews as him being not that into fashion.
>What if the pattern had some significance in some culture?
Could you clarify this, because I can't tell if you're being woke, the questioner is asking because of the significance, torvalds is assumed to know or what.
I don't think that's entirely fair. I was once dismissive of stuff other people got deep into, things like horoscopes, or fashion, or sport. They wereen't relevant to my life. But as I've grown I realised how much this limited me, meant I was essentially choosing to dismiss those people and the things they liked as unimportant, indirectly insulting their intelligence.
I consider it to have been a character flaw of mine, and I have tried to work on it. It's not and never will be cool to take pride in not liking something other people like. They like it for a reason, and it turns out if you just shut up and listen enough you will probably start seeing the intricacies and come to like or at least appreciate it too.
Noone ever cared about the stitching paterns Linus wore. But if you asked him about his "fuck you" to nvidia, which was a "meme" too, hopefully he'd remember it.
I'm pretty sure it's her tone, together with the reaction of the other people in the studio that makes this feel like taking pride in ignorance.
But apart from that, an actor being asked about a scene they acted and reacting with "I don't know what that is. I don't know, I don't have a clue, I don't care" is a bit ridiculous. Everyone realizes that the phone and its messaging software is completely irrelevant to the movie, but we are used to great actors taking pride in details no layman would notice. Imagine a James Bond actor stating he doesn't care about the watch he wore, or Keanu Reeves mistakenly wearing the wrong type of belt for a suit and answering with "I don't know anything about belts, and I don't care"
She's not an actor, she's a pop star. The watch James Bond wears is often considered an integral part of his character, but the internal part of a pop star is dancing/singing, not some piece of software that was used for a segment for a couple of mere seconds. That'd be like accosting a Bond actor for not knowing the name brand of a pen he randomly picks up to scribble a note really quickly - eg, stupid. Give her shit for not knowing the name of a dance move, fine, but this spreadsheet thing? Chill.
Would "they told me to type on thing and I typed on thing" be any better ?
> but we are used to great actors taking pride in details no layman would notice. Imagine a James Bond actor stating he doesn't care about the watch he wore, or Keanu Reeves mistakenly wearing the wrong type of belt for a suit and answering with "I don't know anything about belts, and I don't care"
The phone type is completely irrelevant to the plot tho, could be typing on 3210 and it wouldn't make difference.
Speak for yourself. I'm not used to any actors taking great pride in details no layman would notice. I 100% expect a James Bond actor to have no clue what watch they asked him to wear and same for Keaneau Reeves and a belt.
I want to watch the Wick series only because I heard about how Keanu went all in training for the long cut fight scene choreography. I don't know if it is a carefully maintained image but he seems like someone who gains success but manages to still care about the right stuff and not care about shallow fluff.
those are different though, as one is illogic (not making sense) and the other is merely opinion (fashion).
but yeah, I get that that's just my opinion
>This kind of taking pride in ignorance just infuriates me to no end.
Yes, it's absolutely infuriating that a musician/pop star (read: a career that doesn't involve software) doesn't really know much about spreadsheet software that was used for a quarter of a second on a device, which was essentially just a prop, that has been out of date for decades.
/s
Yikes, bud. I don't really know what else to say; maybe go for a walk if this sorta thing really chaps your rump that much?
OP has a point, though. She might be a talented pop star, but surely she has encountered spreadsheets at some point in her life? For example: checking over notes from her accountant, planning tours, purchasing houses, reviewing marketing plans for album launches, etc.
Also, does not knowing about Excel also imply that she's never heard of Microsoft Word? That seems too farfetched.
>She might be a talented pop star, but surely she has encountered spreadsheets at some point in her life? For example: checking over notes from her accountant, planning tours, purchasing houses, reviewing marketing plans for album launches, etc.
Put together by other people who work for her. All she likely has to do is glance at it for a second and move on. She might have seen those spreadsheets, but she doesn't have to know that it's 'Microsoft Excel' nor how they function. And when you're at the level she is (or was) at, I'd even argue that you have less exposure than a glance when it comes to that stuff - your team will brief you and not necessarily bother showing it to you.
>Also, does not knowing about Excel also imply that she's never heard of Microsoft Word? That seems too farfetched.
This is where HN often falters - assuming average Joes/Janes or people not in tech know more about tech than they actually do. I'd wager that you'd be surprised at the number of people who don't know what Microsoft Word/Excel are.
You're missing the point; it's not that she doesn't know about Excel, or this phone, or anything else, it's that the usage of Excel in that video has been a "meme" for years, that she's been asked about it a bunch of times over the years, and that she STILL says she has no idea what "Excel" even is, and seems to be proud of that.
If she had said "Yeah, don't know much about computers, it was just a prop someone gave me" then that would be completely different.
You see this on e.g. HN too, some time ago "FizzBuzz" was discussed and some people seemed to be proud to be ignorant of the % operator. This really has nothing to do with "tech vs. non-tech" – it's just an attitude. It could have been about her holding a guitar wrong too: "whoops I held that wrong" is different from "I don't know what a guitar is, why should I care about guitars?"
Even if she's been asked about it numerous times, context is key here - how was the production of the music video shoot handled? How much input into that scene or clip did she actually have, or provide, when it was shot? How long did she hold the phone for when shooting? If the answer to many of those is little to none, then I don't expect her to remember shooting that scene. To then be asked about it numerous times years later would be surprising to her, especially if you don't necessarily know that it's been going around as a meme (not every celebrity enjoys paying attention to what's said about themselves online - we don't know whether or not she does, but I won't assume she's up to speed on everything written about her).
It doesn't impact her life at all, it's just noise on the internet to her, so why should she care?
I mean, that's actually a great question for you - why do you think she has to care about what Excel is, and why do you find her not caring about it so egregious that you would call her an idiot? And further, is it not OK to be OK with being ignorant to some things you just don't give a damn about?
Edit: Can people also not be flippant when an otherwise throwaway moment in their life is suddenly seized upon by hordes of people, some who call them an idiot for it? I don't think I'd fault someone for that reaction, myself.
> and that she STILL says she has no idea what "Excel" even is, and seems to be proud of that.
Good for her, she’s not a computer nerd like you, basing a large part of their worth in Internet forum comments. Has some other things going on in her life.
>Presumably, anyone who has never had any kind of job in any field ever...
You do know that there are tons of jobs that don't ever require interacting with spreadsheets, let alone a computer, right? This is exactly what I was talking about regarding how many HN users view the rest of the world.
>... or been to any kind of school.
"When am I going to need to use this?" is a common refrain for more than just attitudes towards math. I have met many people in professional environments who have no experience with it and don't even know what it is until you explicitly remind them what it is/does.
Even though schools are rapidly moving to using Google Sheets?
I met someone younger than me (~23 or so) who's a very bright intern, whom never used Microsoft Excel (after seeing this thread, I had to ask). They know what Google Sheets is, but know nothing of Excel.
Is she really claiming she has no idea what a spreadsheet is?
I can believe she has no clue why nerds think the scene is wrong. This was a music video. She was handed a phone and told to type something. She did. Why would she care what phone model or app was used?
Somebody else said up in another comment... do you expect Daniel Craig to know what brand of suit he wore in a Bond movie he shot 15 years ago? At best, I'd expect him to know what watch brand/model Bond wears.
Corporations are "training" their people in MS products by showing them how to save and open documents. A half day of being shown that gives you some useless certificate or other that is often even required you hold (by corp rules). This is for people who actually work with these programs, and I assure you there are employees who need this information.
Of course billions of people who never have to use spreadsheets professionally will not realize what you can or cannot do with them. Or even recognize them if shown a few cells. Just because literally every one memeing on the internet cannot imagine a life without computers and beginners' knowledge about the common tools doesn't mean such knowledge is actually a common baseline in humans.
And honestly, what kind of fucked up wish is it for people to suffer Excel if they don't need to?
I kinda doubt it, for two reasons: that’s more work than just opening a preinstalled program and typing, and if it was cgi, I would expect something whipped together in photoshop and after effects or whatever, and not a real program.
My third reason is a little weaker: doesn’t look like it to me.
Why would they go to all the effort of making a fake phone and then CGIing in the details, when a device that looked and worked exactly as shown in the video existed in real life?
She probably did not pay too much attention to the names of the spreadsheet functions on the phone that she briefly touched to film a commercial. It's obviously not "being proud of ignorance" or anything like that.
Any celebrity should familiarise themselves with the companies and products they endorse. If all they can manage is to do so at a superficial level, they should seriously consider declining. It is just amazing that society rewards such a lack of integrity.
> Any celebrity should familiarise themselves with the companies and products they endorse.
There is a difference between endorsing a product and acting in an ad for a product. The latter is an acted out sketch.
To be ultra-pedantic, one can same the same (just in a different way) for paid endorsements. But I hope the factual difference between the two is obvious enough to not need further explanation.
It is neither an endorsement nor an ad. It is a music video.
Now, Nokia could have been paying her to use their phone during the music video - product placement is a thing, and you can see the brand logo in the shot. But I suspect if they were, Nokia's brand reps probably wouldn't have wanted a shot of a popular R&B singer trying to text from a spreadsheet and would have made sure the shot looked better to protect their brand.
If it's not Nokia she's "endorsing", then presumably it's Excel. That fails on the basis that she probably wouldn't have been using Excel on the phone. As noted in jgc's blog post, it's likely the built-in spreadsheet software in Symbian. Either way, it isn't distinctly Excel - it's a generic spreadsheet app with no particular visual distinctiveness that would pick it out as Excel. People only say it's Excel because that's the spreadsheet they're most familiar with.
(Incidentally, I'm all for ensuring celebrities who do paid endorsements are doing so responsibly. There ought to be some consequences for the public figures who used their fame to push cryptoscams including Tom Brady, Matt Damon, Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian etc. if only so it prompts their agents to think twice and do some due diligence in the future.)
> It is neither an endorsement nor an ad. It is a music video.
Now, Nokia could have been paying her to use their phone during the music video - product placement is a thing, and you can see the brand logo in the shot.
I believe it is a fairly clear example of product placement, which is a form of advertisement. Like, when I see Andrew Garfield playing the role of Spiderman and having shots of him using Bing in those movies, there is no way I could consider it anything but product placement/ad.
Sure, there are less clear-cut edge cases in music, such as rappers namedropping luxury brands like LV, Ferrari, Rolex, etc., but at this point it is a part of the identity of the genre.
But overall, I think it is pretty obvious that when a brand/logo gets prominently featured in media such as movies, music videos, etc., it is for product placement purposes. And in cases when it isn't, taking it as a personal endorsement is kind of silly. For me, personal endorsement is cleanly defined as using and/or recommending products explicitly, outside of "fictional" media you produce (e.g., MKBHD reviewing tech products is not "fictional" media, so for him the endorsement would often come from within the media he produces).
I do not believe the line is so clear cut for a recognisable face. Brands seek out these celebrities and pay a premium for the aura. The endorsement is implicit.
Consider that the relationship works both ways, the celebrity's own brand is tarnished by involvement with a product hit by scandal. See the celebrities that promoted FTX as an example. It is in their own interest to do some due diligence.
Conversely, the ads would be dropped if the celebrity actor became toxic. If Kelly Rowland made Kanye-style comments about Nazis or Jews, the ad would be buried. Are Kevin Spacey ads still airing?
The entire celebrity/influencer marketing system intentionally exploits a failure mode of human cognitive bias for profit. Transactional endorsements are morally bankrupt. A family member or friend that blindly recommended a product or service for pay would lose respect for that breach of trust. Celebrities that people respect should be held to the same or higher standards.
Consider this, if John Carmack regularly did ads playing a generic software engineer at BigCo and it turned out he didn't even know what the products were, would this community hold him in the same high regard?
Ads uncovered as exploitation scheme, news at 11 !!
Or as the old capitalist saying goes: We know they are telling us bullshit, they know they are telling us bullshit, they know we know they are telling us bullshit, we know they know we know they are telling us bullshit, but we are still buying their product ;)
That doesn't connect with that video or my commentary about it in the slightest.
If I did something wrong with a flofof in public, and people comment and ask my about my wrong usage of a flofof for years, and I respond with "bitch, I don't know what a flofof is, and I don't want to know, looollll, keepin' it real bro!" then I'd be a right idiot – not for doing something wrong with a flofof, or not immediately knowing what a flofof is, but for not WANTING to know and making a show out of not knowing.
>"bitch, I don't know what a flofof is, and I don't want to know, looollll, keepin' it real bro!"
It seems like you're getting some kind of racial McGurk effect here? Kelly Rowland does not talk anything like this in the linked video. Here is what she actually says:
"Here's the sitch. I don't know what that is. I don't know what Microsoft Excel is. I don't know. I don't have a clue. So when I saw all these memes, I was like 'I don't care'."
Apart from 'sitch' and 'like' (which are both very common usages in informal conversation) this is all fully standard American English. You're getting worked up about someone saying that (i) they don't know what Microsoft Excel is and (ii) that they don't care about some memes. The "performative idiocy" exists only in your imagination.
The irony is that you're doing your own version of performative idiocy in your attempt to (I guess?) imitate Black American English.
Well this is HN, where every white dude with green hair behind a keyboard who has a shiny tech job thinks that the entire world should know all the things they know, regardless of profession, background, or interest.
It implies that directly. I work in cloud consulting. I have my specialties and I know a little about the other areas.
Heck, I just did a CI/CD proof of concept where the company was using Java Docker containers. I don’t know Java at all and haven’t done anything in Java in two decades (I’m a .Net, Python, JavaScript guy)
I used ChatGPT to help me create a simple Java Spring Boot app in a Docker container with JUnit tests. I freely admitted I don’t know Java and that I used ChatGPT to do Java parts. That’s not what I was brought in for just like she wasn’t brought in to do Excel.
ChatGPT propped me up just like her producers propped her up and brought her in to do a role.
If I found out that my little dummy POC HelloWorld Java/Springboot Docker container “did something wrong”, do you think I would give two fucks? Do you think I would care enough to learn Java? My job to be done was not to write a Java app, it was to teach them how to implement a CI/CD process to deliver their apps to production.
Your comment is still totally irrelevant what others are talking about. It’s fine to admit that you don’t know about something no matter its relevance. It’s not fine to be proud of it no matter its relevance to anybody.
I am proud to admit that I don’t know astrophysics, how to do brain surgery, fly a plain, do a slam dunk from the three point line, and many other things.
If the pilot on Delta had a heart attack and the flight attendant ask me to fly the plane, I would say “here’s the ‘sitch, I don’t know anything about flying a plane”
I have no idea why geeks are getting their panties all twisted because a famous singer doesn’t know Excel.
Nobody cares here that she doesn’t know, or what you doesn’t know, or even what you know.
We care about that you and Kelly preach ignorance, which is proven to be damaging to you or for the society at large.
Btw, for your Delta example: you don’t need to be proud of your lack of knowledge to admit that you don’t know anything. In your example, there is no sign of proudness.
Is there absolutely nothing in the cornucopia of human knowledge that you don’t know or have no desire to learn? What was she suppose to do go out and take an extension course on Microsoft Office?
If she asked you to be one of her backup dancers would you expect people to tsk tsk on their high horse if you laughed and said “I can’t dance. I have no desire to learn how to dance and I have two left feet”?
What’s the difference?
and while you say that’s a crazy example and dismiss it like you do the others, I actually was a part time fitness instructor about a decade ago and I did learn some about choreography, staying on beat to music, creating choreography that changed with the 32 count phrase of music, how to mix my own 32 count music with what is now Adobe Audition, etc and I had plenty of geeks come to my classes bragging about their ignorance when it came to having rythym.
Is that the same in your eyes - being proud of their ignorance?
> Is there absolutely nothing in the cornucopia of human knowledge that you don’t know or have no desire to learn?
Totally irrelevant to the topic what I desire.
> What was she suppose to do go out and take an extension course on Microsoft Office?
No. She could just simply admit that she didn’t and doesn’t know what is Excel. She didn’t just do that. She was cocky about it.
> If she asked you to be one of her backup dancers would you expect people to tsk tsk on their high horse if you laughed and said “I can’t dance. I have no desire to learn how to dance and I have two left feet”?
Yeah, because this is cocky. You can say the same thing without being asshole.
> Is that the same in your eyes - being proud of their ignorance?
Yes, if they really bragged about it. You can convey the same information without bragging and being cocky.
The difference is that Microsoft Excel is more important than dancing, and we won’t stop until all of humanity is subjugated to the wonders of Excel 24/7! /s
i'm a c programmer, lowercase is beautiful and saves some pinky effort
the celebration and glorification of ignorance and simultaneously the persecution of intellect is a common facet of nearly all fascist, authoritarian, and communist regimes.
my counter-culture capitalization is harmless, but i'm amused that it got your goat.
Comma splices are also occasionally used in fiction, poetry, and other forms of literature to convey a particular mood
or informal style. Some authors use commas to separate short clauses only.
Firstly, how do you not know what Microsoft Excel is? Secondly, she's the one who is using it and is the focus of the memes she is talking about.. and she still doesn't just look it up.
Taking a generous perspective - her job is a musical artist.
Unless you are in her industry, there are probably tons of things she knows about you and I don't - like good brands of music sheets, mixing desks or microphones.
Excel is known, by a certain selection of office workers.
Thanks to e.g. Google Sheets, excel itself doesn't dominate the market like it used to. Beyond that, I've had a litany of jobs where I had zero reason to ever use a spreadsheet, one of which was one where I actually sold Microsoft Office licenses.
For a great many folks, the only time they may have encountered spreadsheet software at all was in a school computer literacy class, and even then...
Maybe I have grown out of being in Windows world for awhile and am biased, but it does seem like 2023 Excel is less ubiquitous in cultural mindshare than 2007 Excel. There’s probably a lot of factors contributing to that.
I suspect this "how do you not know Excel" sentiment is psychologically similar to people in the US (where I live) telling others to "speak English" instead of their native language.
I think she might be more annoyed that people bother her with this specific meme. It sounds like the director or ADs might have told her to do this in the music video, and now the internet chooses to believe that somehow she was the one who decided to do this. It's like how Tom Hardy has been reduced to 3-4 odd lines in The Dark Knight Rises. Some celebrities embrace it with grace but I can understand those who don't.
It’s pretty sad that the parent got upvoted and commented so much, without anyone catching on to this.
The HN crowd really needs to take a course on modern culture or something. People in this community are not as smart as they think they are, and this problem seems to have gotten a lot worse after the recent Reddit migration.
> People in this community are not as smart as they think they are, and this problem seems to have gotten a lot worse after the recent Reddit migration.
Isnt it the same anywhere a bunch of nerds and geeks gather?
Sometimes people get shamed for knowing too much about something, being labelled too obsessive, too nerdy, too meticulous, too "privileged" to be able to care about useless things, etc. Consequentially then, the shamer will become proud of not knowing those things, and then extend it to not knowing other things even if it's crucial.
Anecdotally, I strive to not know all states of USA and its locations because if I do, it means I have truly consumed American media too much. And I slowly fail at it.
> the shamer will become proud of not knowing those things, and then extend it to not knowing other things even if it's crucial.
I guess I take great pride in not knowing the latest celebrity shenanigans, or whoever the captain of $sportsteam is. Intellectually I don't consider it a quality, but I suspect many would not consider it to be "wilful ignorance".
Even when I do know some sports fact (I think Manchester City won the league last year for example) I will pretend I don't when I'm in company.
About a decade ago I was on a multi-day training course in some rural area. In the evening I was in the hotel bar with a bunch of sports journalists who clearly knew a lot about football. I was sat in the middle of the sofa and all was good as we talked about something like IEDs or missing limbs. It then moved on to football. I was completely lost, until they mentioned an early 1990s football player who I knew from when I was young and played Championship Manager 93. I could finally interject with an on topic point. That small anecdote did not go well as it then pivoted to conversations about other 1990s football players and I was once again stuck.
There's a scene in "Friends" where Joey reads an encyclopedia about words beginning with "V". He then has a (unusually) decent knowledge of things from Volcanos to Vivisection. Then he made the mistake of mentioning the Vietnam war. Immediately the conversation pivoted to Korean war and he was lost. Felt just like that.
As such I just live my life pretending football etc doesn't exist. It's easier that way. I won't get dragged into a conversation about the offside rule or whatever.
I imagine the same applies to non-computer people who talk about computers. They might interject with some basic thing like "webpages are made of html", but then get lost as people start talking about nodejs frameworks or something. Better to just not have that conversation in the first place.
Not even going to touch the bait in your statement but calling Kelly Rowland a hip-hop artist is an exceedingly bizarre statement. It would be like calling Blink 182 hair metal, or calling Coldplay classic rock.
Here's a hot take: I think this kind of pride in ignorance of social happenings is just as bad as pride in ignorance of math/science. They both seem like attempts to paper over feelings of exclusion from one group by using feelings of inclusion in another group. Why not just let people like what they like without judgement?
> I can understand why someone decides to completely ignore something like this
The fact that you can't see the other side of this shows how one-sided type view point is.
99% of people will never need or use calculus in their life. Most jobs have zero to do with Excel.
There are probably 100s of millions of people who care about what celebrity X is up to, and a factoid about a defunct app, on a dead phone, by a dissolved company is almost the definition of useless trivia. It's the person who knows how many pieces of dryer lint were in Dan Quayle's pocket the day he got married. You just happen to care about it.
Knowing celebrity news allows for instant connection with millions of people who also know about this news. In practical terms you can with higher probability form a bond with someone by talking with them about celebrity news then tour can by opening a conversion on obscure math (or computer) topic. If your job is able building relationships, or you simply care about connecting with people it's a much more efficient way of doing so.
Guess what? You likely don't have this knowledge. And you probably are glad you don't, and are maybe even proud that your don't. And you likely excuse yourself for feeling this way, while blaming others for feeling the same about a topic your care about.
> 99% of people will never need or use calculus in their life. Most jobs have zero to do with Excel.
doesn't imply that ignoring the Kardashians is as bad as pride in ignorance of math/science. (direct quote from you)
> There are probably 100s of millions of people who care about what celebrity X is up to
But if those celebrities died together at the same time, very few of those 100 millions people would actually suffer any consequence.
So they are basically useless to society, math and science are provably not.
> Knowing celebrity news allows for instant connection with millions of people who also know about this news
I'll pass om that, thank you.
Millions of people watch soccer in my country, never cared for a second.
Guess what?
I have tons of connections with people I share common interests with.
Who would have thought that was possible?
> Guess what? You likely don't have this knowledge. And you probably are glad you don't, and are maybe even proud that your don't.
Have you ever considered that people simply don't care and their life is just as good as anybody else?
I honestly don't understand what drives your thought process, but if you are thinking that I need to excuse myself for not caring about most famous people, sorry to break the news for you, you don't know how wrong you are.
> while blaming others for feeling the same about a topic your care about.
That's just you assuming bad faith.
I don't care what other people care about or not, it doesn't affect me at all, I simply replied to pride in ignorance of social happenings is just as bad as pride in ignorance of math/science. It is simply not.
> OTOH "social happenings" (which really is a synonym for "people branding", marketing in short) makes no sense at all.
But is that because socialization isn't bound by rules, or is it because the rules are too sophisticated to be fully understood by our current state of the art in social sciences? We (probably) live in a deterministic universe, so doesn't that mean "the rules always apply" for socialization, which is a natural physical occurrence, just as much as they apply for math?
To me, dismissing socialization as "making no sense" is just a way of giving up on trying to understand it, but without admitting that.
> To me, dismissing socialization as "making no sense"
Who did dismiss socializing?
We are talking about (quote) social happenings (unquote) among famous people who happen to be famous just because they exploited marketing strategies to become famous for the sake of being famous, with no other talent than being born rich.
In that contest the content doesn't make any sense, there is no reason why this year you should wear green and the next one yellow (but it applies only to Hollywood for some reason...[1] do we know what's trendy now in Myanmar? I don't think so), it's a completely random thing, that also has no impact on anybody's life, nothing bad happens if you do not do it and since most of us will never end up on the cover of fashion magazines and tabloids, why should we care about it?
Nobody said that you shouldn't have a BBQ with your friends and family and participate in a proper social gathering.
[1] the most simple explanation is that these people live basically in a confined space and only associate with other people who happen to live like they do, so if one of them wears a fedora at a party in one of their villas, probably someone else will wear it too, photographers find 3 of them and invent the narrative around "this is the year of the fedora"
It's Black Mirror's Mazey Day basically, but if one thinks about it, apart from greed, exploitation and lack of better things to publish, there's not much to gain by studying it, except maybe become one of them or more probably look like a poorer less glamorous cosplayer of one of them.
I think this is a good way to demonize a person for displaying proud ignorance of a topic but is probably inaccurate. Just as I simply do not care about celebrity news (rather than actively despise its existence), I’m sure many people simply do not care about many of the things I enjoy. I don’t begrudge them that. We all have a limited time on earth, and we spend that time on things we enjoy. Most of us probably can’t even explain _why_ we like the things we do, but part of enjoying what we do means not over analyzing it, and rather just giving ourselves to it. I think this applies universally to interests.
> Pride is defined by Merriam-Webster as "reasonable self-esteem" or "confidence and satisfaction in oneself".[1] Oxford defines it as "the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one's own importance."[2] This may be related to one's own abilities or achievements, positive characteristics of friends or family, or one's country. Richard Taylor defined pride as "the justified love of oneself",[3] as opposed to false pride or narcissism. Similarly, St. Augustine defined it as "the love of one's own excellence",[4] and Meher Baba called it "the specific feeling through which egoism manifests."[5]
Seems to capture "both" aspects for the word to me.
Just like you are ignorant about Kasdashians it is totally understandable that Nelly or Kelly or whatever has no ffing clue about MS Excel. It is OK they do not have to know what it is.
She's not proud of anything, she literally just doesn't care because to her this program has absolutely no relevance to her life beyond a brief cameo in a music video a few decades ago. It's like saying you don't know what a fuel pump is and you really don't care.
A lot of people are attacking you on the assertion that she’s proudly ignorant.
I didn’t take her response as proudly ignorant as much as indignantly annoyed. Rowland has been passed up time and again in her career. She’s a wonderfully talented singer and by all rights should have been as famous and successful as Beyoncé, but for whatever reasons, she wasn’t “chosen” to move up the ranks.
I think in that situation, it would be slightly annoying for someone to criticize (even in jest) some throwaway moment on a music video you made years ago, rather than take your music career seriously. I’m guessing she was more frustrated that her interviewers were basically using her for a joke than helping her gain some steam with her music career.
In a world that incentives attention so much, that demands a weird kind of self-discipline of constant global awareness, of perpetual mobilization, an attitude like this can show extreme intelligence, resilience, and independence. Like, people are literally bombarded by scams and fake news every day. Every other app you download is either ripping you off or vying to. Every other commercial you watch is either trying to get you to gamble your money, buy antidepressants, or sue those who sold you antidepressants. We cannot even, at large, decide on fundamental questions of human rights and basic dignity! How can we even pretend to have this conviction? That a line is crossed in the blissful joy of being ignorant of Excel? That being on television should be something more lofty, more honored, than such an attitude?
"Stupidity" can be a much more properly virtuous mode of life than others that value knowledge only for knowledge's sake.
Cognitive dissonance. Knowing stuff is (generally) smart. Not knowing stuff is dumb. If someone's superior knowledge in a field makes you feel dumb, you assage your self image by saying you're not dumb, you're just not a try-hard nerd.
Not being able to appreciate that people are better than you in some fields (or maybe even most fields) might be dumb, but that could be part of a self-reinforcing cycle of not learning or trying because you might not be successful.
Probably more about not caring than being proud - can't really call someone stupid for not caring about office productivity software when their profession couldn't be more distant from it.
Not to mention - using tech and computing concepts in absurd ways is a decades old running joke in media.
Imagine Anna Belknap in that seat being asked about writing a GUI interface in visual basic to track an IP address and the response would probably be the same.
Do you remember every phone you touched in 2002? I don’t even remember what phone I had except that I think it was a Samsung and it had a color screen and I replaced it with a Sidekick the next year and I have a photographic memory for this sort of stupidity.
I think it’s totally normal to not remember a 20-year old prop from a music video.
Yes, but that's a completely different scenario than being proud of not knowing what Excel is. I need to keep repeating myself here because you've clearly not actually watched the video I'm responding to.
I mean, I literally posted the video you’re responding to, but go off.
I think it’s completely fine for someone to not know anything about Microsoft Excel, even tho it is my personal favorite app ever and it was a freaking Mac app first. First good GUI spreadsheet. Excel forever. But Kelly Rowland is allowed to not know it or remember its role in a prop she used in a music video 20 years ago.
Why do I habe to care about amines in chemistry or galaxies in Astronomy? We pick our interests and it's fine saying "I don't care nor want to know about that". Specially when it doesn't affect you. She doesn't need it.
How can saying that you're terrible at something and nervously giggling about it be prideful? The thought processes that began this thread astonish me.
Pride in ignorance is when people say there's nothing to some journalistic exposé, you ask them what was wrong with it, and they insist that they would never lower themselves to reading that kind of trash.
Not when someone who has difficulty reading says that they hate reading.
> That sort of taking pride in ignorance is worse.
Being averse against reading is not the same as being ignorant. It reminds me of that famous Bill Gates quote, "I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." That person will master ways to learn things without reading a whole lot.
> This kind of taking pride in ignorance just infuriates me to no end
I'm pretty sure that if you ask Daniel Radcliffe he would say he doesn't know jack sh*t about magic and he really did not know what he was doing, except that he was doing his job: acting (i.e. pretending to be something you are not, in this specific case someone sending a message through a phone using Excel)
I'm also pretty sure that many CSI actors did not know anything about "zoom & enhance" and Hugh Jackman has no clue about hacking a system especially while receiving oral sex with a gun pointed at his head
Ignorance (especially pride about it) is so infuriating because it suggests to people that their knowledge about something is not in any way essential to humans. And this is true about Excel. If someone told me they hadn't heard of WWII or the moon landing then I would be right to be angry as it is information that is really essential to all of us. For anything else, we really shouldn't waste our energy on this infinite source of anger.
This is the first time I have heard of that woman, I bet nobody cares about it here. Perhaps other people would be mad about it in the same way you are about her not knowing Excel. I won't disagree with you though that it is very tempting to get annoyed by it :)
Being insulted because people think your interests are stupid or boring is weakness. She (and literally everyone else on the planet) has got more to concentrate on than your feelings about Excel.
Imagine a well known figure in tech, doing a commercial where they’re asked to “play guitar” or keyboards (but obviously the music and their instrument playing don’t line up and their person is like, I don’t know what a Stratocaster is, or I don’t know what a Yamaha is! It’s just like that.
Perhaps she is just media savvy and will take the hit from comment trolls rather than be direct about it. It also sends a message to potential sponsors of her willingness to entertain offers.
Well, I think an active effort to understand and empathize with people needs to happen first, instead of treating everyone you don’t exactly agree with as an enemy. A democracy only works if everyone acknowledges everyone’s legitimacy, otherwise it just becomes bickering over small issues.
In this specific case, because they are extremely successful in their field (which is also why they can justifiably be happily ignorant of things well outside of it.).
You're replying to someone who thinks a marketing account for fucking Microsoft Excel is "the only good twitter account" so the bar for good taste in this thread is already subterranean.
She probably meant to say "I don't know what that is, I don't know why this is a meme, after all everyone knows that the spreadsheet app on the Nokia Communicator wasn't Microsoft Excel"...
[1]: https://twitter.com/MichaelBaggs/status/1099957857901002752 [2]: https://twitter.com/msexcel/status/1100162136888827904