DEBRO Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 I just saw this in the rec.games.video.classic newsgroup. Can you believe it? http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNew...quiz020616.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 ok I'm going to nitpick here but what's sort of funny is the picture which shows an arcade Space Invader and yet the caption mentions "Atari". Naturally of course we all know that Space Invaders was TAITO (and of course licensed by Midway) right? Ok ok I know that since Atari had the popular home version, lots of people associate it with the name 'Atari' (it's the same story with Pacman as we've seen here on the boards a couple of times). But you know... since he's writing an article about how younger kids don't know their pop-history, the least he could have used a 2600 Space Invader graphic to match his caption couldn't he? i.e. Maybe he should've included HIMSELF in that article Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindfield Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 I'm not too surprised. Historical pop culture isn't exactly a topic of study in most history classes. Sure, I still think it's rather shameful, but again, I'm not surprised. To most of these kids, life began with the Nintendo 64, Backstreet Boys, and DVDs. We old schoolers are members of a society that's pretty well ignored by the high school grads who don't seem to realize that their Nintendo 64s were the result of a progression of technology that started primarily with Atari. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pitfall Harry Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 Of course I believe it. You give a reporter a fluff story and a big enough budget, and it's just a matter of asking enough people the same moronic questions until he eventually finds the answers he's looking for. Then it's take it to print and collect the ol' paycheck! Neither the subject topic nor the fact that the story involves high school students is relavent. Within any sufficiently large group of people, it's not too hard to find a handful of members who know nothing about certain subjects deemed common knowledge by a pollster's target audience. You could capture similarly "shocking" results by polling any demographic about any subject at any time. The story is pure formula and a typical example of the junk journalism which dominates the American news media. Superficially, it reflects poorly on high school studends. In a much deeper sense, it reflects poorly on the media who sponser such stories, as well as on the reading audience whose dollars perpetuate them. Publicly ridiculing a targeted group of people for the amusement of an enlightened and presumed superior reading audience is not what makes this country great. Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tiggerthehun Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 Ben - couldn't have said it better myself! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwh Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 Here is something from News of the Weird- High school students in Palm Beach County,FL, needed only a score of 23 percent to pass a standardized state history test (55 percent is considered an A)<?!> --Also-- I saw on the news the other night, a latino man speaking to a group of latinos explaining that their children need to pass high school and go to college to get a better advantage--great idea, but he said this in Stockton,CA,in the state that is rated 50th in education(50 being dead last) --No wonder the high school graduates don't know anything....remember this when you are old and in a rest home, these are the ones that will be 'caring' for you--The nurse says,"Where did that blood come from?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicJoke Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 Well, I definately think this article misses the point of "pop" culture. "Pop", being short for Popular is very of the moment, it is all about NOW. So, why would someone, born in 1984, have any idea about what was part of "pop" culture before they were born? Keeping the "history" of "pop" culture should be left to those experiencing the tug of nostalgia. I am sure when these highschoolers are in their 30's( like most of us) they will have a similar article published wondering why these new kids don't remember Pokemon, MP3 players, or 'N Sync. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 Publicly ridiculing a targeted group of people for the amusement of an enlightened and presumed superior reading audience is not what makes this country great. So what, if anything, does make this country great? The older I get, the less convinced I am that it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicJoke Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 If you want to bash the US, do it in the Off-Topic section. This topic is about the ABC News article and why kids don't remember Atari. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 If you want to bash the US, do it in the Off-Topic section. This topic is about the ABC News article and why kids don't remember Atari. Technically none of this thread should be in the Atari 2600 forum because the 2600 is not specifically mentioned at all in the article. It would probably fit better in Classic Gaming General. Besides, there's a difference between "bash(ing) the US" and lamenting the state it is in at present. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjybjy Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 Just thought I'd mention that I'm only 19 and definately know what atari is. I used this site it learn as much as possible, and I've memorized the value for basically every game, too! Gotta love Atari. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 Good to hear, bjybjy. I have to say, this ABC News article reminds me a lot of the "Jaywalking" bits on The Tonight Show. Sure, I found it hard to believe when someone they interviewed thought Las Vegas was the capital of the US, but it is obvious that they interview a ton of people each time they do this, and just pick the most clueless ones they can find. Thank goodness for the Internet. Otherwise it would be easy to assume that everyone else really is as one-dimensional as Big Media wants us to believe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze_ro Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 Congratulations America. Your education system is insuring that 30 years from now, we'll have complete idiots running the show. Now that I think about it, that's pretty much what's going on now. I wonder how long it'll be before there's a class called "History of Electronics 101"... People should know about such things as the Commodore 64, Atari, and Pong. --Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Asmo Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 I don't think it's all that shocking.. or should be all that worrying. I mean, by the time these kids were of the age to get into videogaming, the Atari 2600 had been dead for 10 years. Why should they know about it? I was born in the mid 1970's, and I'm a fan of 1960s TV shows.. tho most of the people I know aren't.. so I'll make a reference to the Six Million Dollar Man or The Prisoner, and it will go right over their heads.. so it works for all age groups. KA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAZ Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 I agree with what has been said about how journalism finds whatever story it wants, and then tries to demonstrate a certain point by interviewing only who they want... For all we know, they could've interviewed 100 high school graduates...93 of them said they knew what Atari was, and 7 said they didn't. What they SHOULD have done was first asked the question: Do you own a home video game system? Yes or no And THEN ask them, have you ever heard of Atari? I WOULD be horribly shocked if, out of the people who do own any home video game system, some said they had never heard of Atari. As general knowledge, it doesn't surprise me that 20% of people of any demographic wouldn't have heard of Atari Of those that play video games actively, I'd hope that % would fall to like 1% of those people who have never heard of Atari. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella'sGhost Posted June 18, 2002 Share Posted June 18, 2002 Ben couldn't have said it better. If you are into video games and don't know about Atari, it's like being a pilot and not knowing who the Wright brothers were..... Don't knock the younger gen too much, they are caught up in the information age but most are open to the past and are willing to check out the history of thier passion, whether it be video games, music, or whatever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLIX Posted June 18, 2002 Share Posted June 18, 2002 Yeah have a 12 year old cousin who was wearing an orange tanktop with an Atari logo on it, I asked her what the hell was she doing wearing that and she was all like OMG is a satanic logo or sumthing. Man kids nowadays wearing stuff and dont even know what It means. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted June 18, 2002 Share Posted June 18, 2002 Keeping the "history" of "pop" culture should be left to those experiencing the tug of nostalgia. Isn't that an elitist attitude? What's the difference between pop culture and culture these days, though? Should we just have collective amnesia from generation to generation? Should history textbooks only talk about geopolitical events and ignore any and all references to the evolution of entertainment and mass media? Atari may not be as important as, let's say, the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it's still history worth knowing, certainly more important than truly frivolous pop culture like 1-hit wonder bubblegum music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baby Mac Posted June 19, 2002 Share Posted June 19, 2002 I think I can speak for both journalism and High School graduates, being a graduate last year and now starting journalism. One of the first rules of writing news is that it must have some form of interest. Who would care if these people knew what atari is? Dog bites man isnt news, man bites dog is. Secondly, being Australian, almost 100% of my class knew what atari was. Maybe because the Jr. was still being sold in 1993, or because red label games were still sold in 1997. But most people either once owned one, or played one at a mates place. I think that interviewing not too intelligent or sheltered students makes for the best story in this case, because who cares for someone who could answer the questions correctly? Maybe a story about kids living in the past could arise? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel D. Park Posted June 19, 2002 Share Posted June 19, 2002 I'm really surprised that people are complaing about the knoledge of the youth in the U.S. or anywhere for that matter. The last group of kids I had the pleasure of working with amazed me with the stuff they know.. It's embarising to try to compare myself at their age to them.. I feel like a real knucklehead. Maybe I just live in a good area or something, but kids, especially the really young seem to be advancing much faster than my age group did. My2Cents Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarimastermarty Posted June 20, 2002 Share Posted June 20, 2002 WHAT IDIOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE MISSING OUT ON??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicJoke Posted June 20, 2002 Share Posted June 20, 2002 cybpunks CosmicJoke wrote: Keeping the "history" of "pop" culture should be left to those experiencing the tug of nostalgia. cybpunks wrote: Isn't that an elitist attitude? What's the difference between pop culture and culture these days, though? Should we just have collective amnesia from generation to generation? Should history textbooks only talk about geopolitical events and ignore any and all references to the evolution of entertainment and mass media? There is nothing elitist about what I said. Why would you interpret it that way? There is a VERY big difference between culture and POP culture. Culture is handed down through the generations; Pop culture is all about what is happening now. Pop culture might be the typical American culture, but, the whole world isn't like that. Perhaps, you should discuss your theory with Native Americans or the tribal peoples of South America or Africa. I bet any of those people could explain what a real culture is. I am sure that they wouldn't agree with your theory that POP CULTURE IS CULTURE. I think you sound much more elitist then I do. I am a big fan of Atari, I had a VCS in 1979! But, frankly, Atari is not important to world history. It is not important for a person born in 1984 to remember Atari. And yeah, unless the High School kids are studying electronics, entertainment or something like that, Atari should not be mentioned in History books. The history and evolution of entertainment and mass media are subjects for COLLEGE not High School. People go to College to get degrees in fields such as these. I don't know what High School you went to but mine barely had enough time for World History and American History. There was nowhere near enough time to get into such specialized subjects as entertainment and the evolution of mass media. Learning about WW II or the Cuban Missile Crisis are a 100X's more important then learning about Atari, vinyl records, 8 Tracks or BetaMax. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted June 20, 2002 Share Posted June 20, 2002 I agree with CosmicJoke that other cultures than contemporary mainstream America have more of a lasting legacy that gets passed from generation to generation. But in mainstream America, pop culture is, for the most part, our culture. Why do you think the arts need so much public funding? Because the mainstream supports mainly mass media garbage, not art museums and symphonies. I also agree that history of popular culture largely belongs in college courses, not high school courses. However, I have a strong distaste for the way history is taught in school, at least where I'm from. Most of what we learned in history was about wars and military conquests. And while these were largely responsible for shaping the political world we live in today, war is fundamentally about destruction, and it is a terrible thing to focus on. Perhaps, in part, the fact that what history we do learn in school is all about this destruction is what has caused the American mainstream to lose contact with our true cultural heritage. Why not focus on inventors (like Johann Gutenberg, Henry Ford, or... Nolan Bushnell ), great thinkers/philosophers and their ideas (Socrates, Sartre, even Benjamin Franklin), artists/musicians (Rembrandt, Mozart, Picasso, Stravinsky), peace activists (Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Ghandi)? Sorry, maybe it's just because I'm a pacifist, but when I was in school I hated studying about wars, and I was desperate to learn about the constructive things people in the past had done. (Note: Nolan Bushnell was mentioned, in part, to justify keeping this post in the Atari 2600 forum!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ulikemeinoit Posted June 20, 2002 Share Posted June 20, 2002 I graduated this year, and I will never forget the Atari, the classics are what started this great hobby and nothing will replace them!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ulikemeinoit Posted June 20, 2002 Share Posted June 20, 2002 I graduated this year, and I will never forget the Atari, the classics are what started this great hobby and nothing will replace them!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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