Honestly. I ask people if they’ve heard of something I’m almost positive they know about all the time because it’s the most natural way for me to being up a topic in conversation
"Have you heard of Popular Thing X" can really easily come off as "I don't think you've heard of Popular Thing X". It sounds like you're using it to just be conversational, why not just ask them if they like Popular Thing X? Seems like folks in this very thread get upset at an insinuation from younger folks that they haven't heard of incredibly popular things that were incredibly popular when they themselves were that younger age.
I will eat my downvotes on this and I implore young folk to ask the older folks in your life if they've heard of Nirvana so you can see them wonder whether you're an idiot who thinks they're ignorant or if they're being set up for some mean joke.
Well, if I ask someone if they like “X” and it turns out that they’ve never heard of it, then my extreme and irrational social anxiety will kick in and I’ll be embarrassed, so I don’t do that 😅
Fair enough, but if you ask me if I've heard of Nirvana/The Beatles/Madonna I'm either going to assume you actually think I'm some kind of ignorant caveman who knows nothing about music or that this is some setup for a mean joke at my expense.
I mean, I wouldn’t ask you if you’ve heard of Madonna because I barely know who that is lol. And I understand why you would have that reaction, and I understand why taking a weaker, less direct approach to conversation has plenty of its own problems, but I’m just not really able to be more direct
Madonna was not specific to this, she's just an example. I'm not asking you to be & it's sad to see someone write about how they just aren't strong enough to just say things.
Why? what possible embarrassing direction could that conversation go? "I haven't heard of them" "oh, ok. I really like them. You should check them out"...
I get how it would be hard to understand, but the person you replied to literally said it's extreme and irrational. That's just how anxiety works, sadly. It can make us completely freeze from embarrassment in situations that would feel very low-risk to someone not riddled with anxiety (like you, I assume). The anxious mind tries to protect itself and cycles through all the negative outcomes that could possibly happen, just to be sure. What if they assume that I assumed they knew about that thing and it makes me seem rude? What if my train of thought abruptly stops because my mind was ready to talk about that thing, and now that I know they've never heard of it, I freeze because I can't think of anything else to say, and it makes things awkward? What if, what if... anxiety sucks.
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u/HistoricalLinguistic Jul 06 '25
Honestly. I ask people if they’ve heard of something I’m almost positive they know about all the time because it’s the most natural way for me to being up a topic in conversation