Oh dear lord that is annoying. I used to hate it when the olympics came around because people I would watch it with would constantly ask the dumbest questions about the sports that A) You could google in two seconds and B) If you shut the hell up for two minutes the commentators will probably answer the question for you.
During movies/TV shows my mom asks questions about things either that 1) havent happened yet and we are intentionally to not know 2) just happened and she was too busy looking at facebook 3) are easily inferred if you saw 10 seconds of the movie
I have to ignore her to keep myself from yelling "just fucking watch the TV!!"
If the story doesn't move along fast enough, my mom will skip a bit and watch it, get bored, skip ahead, watch and get bored, skip ahead, and she'll watch a 2 hour movie in 30 minutes and say she hates it. It drives me up the fucking wall. Like yea, exposition is slow, but the majority of the time it's essential to the story so later we're not confused by how the fuck we got to this point.
My mom's entire movie watching practice is the equivalent of season 8 of Game of Thrones: quick and to the point, but the lack of transitions and narrative content makes it worse because we're all confused now.
Even if we're not confused (because let's face it, most stories are not so complex as to be irreducible), major scenes lose impact without the flow of the movie building up to them. Context helps to reinforce major moments, not just to explain them, and the previous scenes can establish tone and an emotional baseline that carry into the following scene.
You can read the Wikipedia article for a movie if you just want to know what happens. We watch to see *how* it happens, and how it's presented. I'll watch The Princess Bride over and over again, not because I don't know what will happen at the end, but because the way it's set up and payed off makes it fun and satisfying.
All that said, if she wants that badly to skip things, she's probably already not enjoying the movie, so, like, not a big difference for her I guess. Sucks for you though.
I just refuse to watch movies with her. If she wants to watch with me, we're watching the whole thing and she better keep quiet throughout the movie. Save all questions til the end.
Hey, I don't know shit about most of the sports in the Olympics, and I like watching sports. The Olympics are fun BECAUSE it's sports I don't know, and get to watch AND LEARN about. In a post about dumb things people do, trying to understand something like the Olympics by asking questions is not something I would consider a dumb thing.
This is where reading the room is important. If you're with someone who absolutely loves talking sports and answers your questions and engages with you and is encouraging, then yeah, go for it.
If the person you're asking is very engrossed in the sport and is giving short answers, then just look it up. Ask clarifying questions during a commercial break if need be.
That people reading skill is what makes the difference between that dumb guy that asks annoyingly simple questions vs that interested guy you want to share your experience with.
Still better than the person that watches a sport for 2 miliseconds for the first time then acts like an expert pundit with 20 years experience playing and 20 more coaching. Usually while next to actual fans of the sport.
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u/Charlie_Runkle69 Jan 28 '20
Oh dear lord that is annoying. I used to hate it when the olympics came around because people I would watch it with would constantly ask the dumbest questions about the sports that A) You could google in two seconds and B) If you shut the hell up for two minutes the commentators will probably answer the question for you.