When I was about 22, I had a conversation with my sister and my cousin about programmes we used to watch on TV. You know the ones: Rugrats, Raggy Dolls, Kissyfur, Pigeon Street etc. All was well until my sister and cousin started discussing 'Jamie and the Magic Torch'. What is this? I thought. I have not heard of this programme.
So it turned out that the two of them used to watch Jamie and the Magic Torch, and I did not. I have no idea why I did not watch; it is possible I was at an after-school thing or something (though I can't imagine what, as I didn't go to much that my sister didn't go to). But what bothered me was that I didn't even know that they did this. I had never heard of this programme. I didn't recognise it when I saw pictures. Nothing about this programme, or the fact that they watched it every week without me, had ever reached my ears.
I was outraged.
I feel like this on Facebook sometimes. You know when you see a 'People You May Know' thing, and it says 'Peter Smith. 27 mutual friends'. And you think Huh? 27 mutual friends? And I've never heard of this guy? How can 27 of my friends know someone, and not one of them has ever mentioned his name in my presence? I call this a 'Jamie and the Magic Torch' moment.
But if you think about it too much, it makes you paranoid.
4 comments:
I spend much of my life in such a "moment"
I had exactly the same experience. Same TV show, same age when I found out that everyone else watched it and I had no idea it existed. Bizarre.
I think everyone gets to a certain age where they don't know something that everyone else does. For me, I was quite old when I finally realised that "several" didn't mean "three". I thought "couple=2" and "several=3" for years and years and years. How embarrassing when I discovered it wasn't true.
Wes, I have a whole hoard of stories like that. But at least you had heard of the word 'several'. This was like getting to 22 and finding out that there was a word, which you had never heard before, but which everyone else used Quite Often.
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