Things You Just Don't Care About

1. What other people are ordering at the restaurant. I don't care.

2. Waving my hands in the air.

3. Care Bears (there is an internet community for this, right?)

4. The Jimmy Saville thing that's going on at the moment. I don't care, sorry.

Sport. Got stuck at one of 2 tables people sat at from my course on Monday night and the rest of the table proceeded to talk about hurling.
I sat there thinking it was rude to leave, for several minutes, then got up and moved to other table and instantly found conversation interesting.

Does mean I'm less fit than I should be probably though. Used to dance quite frequently until I moved too far out of town to get home easily from wahtever clubs

I think I have a thing in my brain that just tunes out sport talk the moment it happens. If sport comes up in conversation or on telly all I hear is "blahblahblahblah" MAybe if I didn't have this handy cerebral device I might learn something, but sadly it's there to stay.

music criticism.

5. new radiohead album announced

ill-informed opinions, maybe just opinions
fashion
other people's private lives
most TV
superhero movies

sorry, that was 6-10

there's loads more tbh

11. whether something is real
12. what genre something belongs to

13. what a work of art is about

14. the Beatles and its members

who is president (unless eric b)

16. whether somebody used an apostrophe correctly

17. Straight White Dudes and their Straight White Dude problems.

18.

19. king and queen of country-x visiting your city soon

20. martin scorsese working on several potential future projects with leonardo dicaprio

21. Justin Bieber being sick on stage

22. best chocolate-covered wafer

23. record charts

24. relatively distant family member is having a baby. a babay!

25. what's in fashion

26. this thread

27. meta

28. whining

29. your cynical opinion

30. awesome lifestyle pictures you took with your expensive camera

31. dating website horror stories

32. grizzly bear not rich enough

lolled for truth

33. a list reaching 33, the age that Jesus was allegedly crucified.

34. "Why do YOU care?"

35. people who feel oppressed by things being popular

36. Married people
37. Their fucking spawn.

38. twitter

So?

39. giraffes

that's just wrong

adherence to a rigid midfield formation

european football

40. people moaning about cis-gender stuff, as if it was an inherently bad thing to be. Is it? I dont know.

41. the pathetic howls of my victims

42. foreigners diving

41. the pathetic howls of my victims

― Know how Roo feel (LocalGarda), Thursday, 4 October 2012 14:24 (46 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A+

43. Any of this shit.

44. Any of your shit.

45. what goes on a pizza

46. online gaming

Swatch riots

https://theonion.com/cool-dad-raising-daughter-on-media-that-will-put-her-en-1819572981/

I remember reading years ago about a real-life instance of that kind of heavy-handedness. The context was an interview with an aspiring UK singer-songwriter, who explained how she'd formed her artistic style. She recalled that when she was 12, her father had overheard her singing along to the Spice Girls. He declared "not under my roof", and made her listen to Nick Cave instead. She professed gratitude for the intervention, but I was appalled.

That’s pretty gross (but also, spice girls > > nick cave)

Saw someone online recently ask what's the right age to introduce their kid to The Lord of the Rings film series. I don't have kids, but I bristled at the idea that LOTR was clearly something that needed to be introduced at some point. And not just because I don't give a toss about LOTR. It was just the idea of treating a favorite movie (or album or book) as a self-evidently important work of human culture that must be transmitted to your child as a rite of passage.

I think it’s a balance, tbh. I don’t have kids, but some of my best memories of my childhood, particularly my teen years, involved watching movies with my mom, who would always suggest things. Watched my first Godard with her, ditto my first Bergman and my first Antonioni. Music, on the other hand, was an obsession from a young age and my parents didn’t understand where it came from, and didn’t care what I listened to and never argued with me about it…even when the music was incredibly obnoxious (my grind/crust phase lasted two years).

Some time in the mid-1960s MGM pulled Gone with the Wind out of their back catalog and re-released it into theaters. It was an event! My mother talked it up big and managed to drag me along with siblings to the 'fancy' downtown movie theater. We had to dress nicely. God, I was so bored. The damn thing just went on and on. I would have been about 11 years old.

i guess i don't see the issue with a parent showing their kid a book or movie that they liked at the kid's age. but the 'as soon as possible' mindset implied there sounds pushy yeah

Yeah, agree that is sort of obnoxious.

I mean, I was counting down the years until I could watch Twin Peaks with my daughter. But she was interested and I wouldn't talk shit to her if she would rather watch the Great British Bake-Off or whatever.

what's the ideal age to show my toddler Apocalypse Now?

I've enjoyed watching movies from my younger days with my son. He's a bit of an aspiring movie buff, so not exactly strange. I agree about pushiness, but I think it's nice to share stuff in a non pushy way.

As or more important than introducing art to kids is encouragement. My parents didn't introduce me to Emily Dickinson in eighth grade, but when I requested a book of her poems they didn't hesitate and in my mom's case directed me to some of her favorites like Frost.

Ha, I also recently gave him a stack of books from Kafka, Borges, Melville, Pynchon, and William Gibson when he expressed an interest in all of the above. He's been studying Computer Science at the local community college, but I think the core English classes he had to take made a bigger impression on him.

I've always been pretty out of touch with pop culture but yeah it was pretty alarming actually looking up some of the stuff my 9 year old daughter and her friends are into and seeing it all has like half a billion Youtube views, I thought I was at least *aware* of stuff that popular but I guess not. I do remember being aghast when I was 10 that my parents didn't know who the Backstreet Boys were. anyway there's this one group she really likes and when we were watching the video I was like, "oh, this is just like the Spice Girls", so I played her a Spice Girls video and she really liked it. I know because she's now playing "Wannabe" for her friends.

anyway one cool thing that came from that is, once I showed her interest in stuff she likes, she's now asking me about music I like. to what extent she actually likes it I don't know but she was dancing around the house to Jethro Tull the other day which made me happy.

See, you're corrupting her brain with Spice Girls when you should be playing her the Beatles, something suitable and male.

yeah sharing things you love is fine and "sharing" is the key there, finding out about what your kids love is part of that two-way street. it's only that "I am gonna show you what *real* culture is, for your education" vibe that's stupid and revealing.

Walking a tightrope between encouraging interests and exuding the slightest whiff of indifference so they will engage instead of being pushed away by parental excitement.

“The Slits? Yeah, they’re pretty good. You like them? That’s nice.” *CARTWHEELS IN MY BRAIN*

the other day I did catch her listening to the Pinkpantheress song that samples Underworld so of course I pulled out my phone and showed her video of them playing "Dark Train" at the show I was at...I don't think the musical connection impressed her much (she was more interested in trying to find me in the crowd) but she is at that stage where she thinks there's only like, 300 different bands out there. it was a cool moment for me at least :)

I have literally no idea what my teenage daughter likes besides Dua Lipa and Yelle. She’s fine. I let her and my wife go to see the Michael Jackson biopic, because I’m not a dickhead. I did say I was extremely uninterested though, so that might verge on “not in my house” territory? She never got into LOTR. It’s up to her what she likes and if she wants to share it with us! My parents were horrid about shitting on my favorite things as a teen and surprise surprise, turns out they were assholes in a lot more ways than one. Let the kids do their own thing, they either GAF or they don’t about your stupid obsessions. IT IS COOL IF THEY TURN OUT DIFFERENT FROM YOU.

my father actively discouraged my burgeoning interest in punk rock, I think he thought it was some kind of drug gang which I suppose it was

My dad was rude and incredibly dismissive of things I liked and constantly relentlessly tried to make me care about what he liked. It only made me dislike him even though I remained neutral on what he liked.

Neutral to negative. Sorry chess and Indy car racing. Not interested.

My mom liked some things I liked (New Order, Talking Heads, Iggy Pop's Blah-Blah-Blah), tolerated others (Judas Priest, Ted Nugent), hated some (I was forbidden to play AC/DC in the house; she haaaaated Brian Johnson's voice).

Going in the other generational direction, I got an email from a friend this morning that kinda lit me up:

The girls brought [her ex-husband] David your book for Christmas, and I said "hey, Daddy and I know that guy who wrote that." They were mildly impressed that we know a published author. Ah, the youth!

only song I've banned from the house is "APT" by Bruno Mars because I find it so fucking annoying

xp

Can't blame your mom for being a Bon Scott purist

I've had a lot of conversations with my 11 year old about all sorts of music and pop culture, much of which is triggered by he and his friends picking up on some weird old song via videogames or youtube or whatever. I express opinions but tell him his are equally valid, and try to get him to understand that there can be songs you love in spite of themselves and others you dislike for reasons that you may consider trivial or insignificant.

This means that currently he's heavily into what he calls his "crooner phase" and sings the shit out of Englebert Humperdinck and Frank Sinatra songs while showering.

be good if your kids were all independently crazy into the beatles i think it would be an opportunity for growth

xp that’s amazing joygoat.

Walking a tightrope between encouraging interests and exuding the slightest whiff of indifference so they will engage instead of being pushed away by parental excitement.

Otm. It’s tricky! Sometimes it’s such a relief when they find something i don’t enjoy, so I can finally tune it out, instead of accidentally watching e.g. a full season of Phantom Pups

it does however pave the way to your enjoying ghost dog with them a few years down the line

I used to threaten my older brother that if he didn’t treat me nicely, I’d Christmas gift “The Bell Jar” to his tween daughters

hahaha

I remember being at a performance of Stockhausen's Gruppen and a couple had brought their son, who was like 4 or 5, and not being sure whether that was a great idea or not.

I didn’t really receive artistic guidance from my parents, probably for the better because I would have dismissed it, if only unconsciously. Come to think of it, of the small handful of albums my dad exposed me to, most are quite good, but to this day I’ve never bought them for myself. Meanwhile, when my musically savvy older cousin visited us when I was 10, it was groundbreaking. It stuck in ways it wouldn’t have with my parents, probably because it felt like a dispatch from somewhere else. I think a big part of music and cinema and art’s appeal for me in my adolescence is that it felt like discovering something from outside the dissatisfying world around me. I thought I’d do the same for my younger suburban cousins, but when I actually visited them it was just “is this really my job, to ostensibly save them from their suburban lives?” Paternalism backfires for a reason, and parenting/pedagogy that just seeks to reproduce sameness is NAGL.

My 11 year old is going to start drum lessons in the fall. I tried to get her onboard with my music project: Sweet Sister Ray in which the band plays “Sister Ray” for whatever the allotted time is. She was not enthused and I don’t know if we can continue to work together under these conditions, she has absolutely no respect for my genius. Quite frankly, I’m fed up with her and I’m going to find another drummer ASAP

lol

My dad cut off my drum lessons I started around 11, which came without warning or consultation. Although it turned out I have no sense of natural rhythm, it presages a lot of bitter feeling toward him. Make of that what you will

I once read some interview where the artist's mum took him/her to a screening of Salo when they were 18 or so..

I had a few marching drum corps lessons as a child. I retained nothing of them when I started playing drums in my teens. They remain the only music lessons I've ever had (despite playing a bunch of other instruments).

(xp) I think that was Gaspar Noe? I also think he was younger than 18.

xposts cow_art that is very dad_surprises_daughter_with_remain_in_light_lp_the_onion.jpg i love it

I took both the kids to see the Stop Making Sense rerelease in Imax

They liked it!

but some of my best memories of my childhood, particularly my teen years, involved watching movies with my mom,

Me too, but that's because my mam knew that I already had an interest in old movies. She also didn't make a big deal out of them, she would just point to one listed in the paper and say "you should watch this, I think you'll like it" and that's how I saw things like Casablanca and Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. The problem with kids not listening to linear radio or watching linear TV is that they never find stuff like that on their own because it's never just ON. So to some extent you have to steer them towards it if you want them to know about it.

Love this thread. My eldest kid isn't that into music yet.
My youngest has mini obsessions and has been earnestly creating playlists of computer game music to wake up to. Different orders for different days. He LOVED the Mario sheet music book I got them for the piano. Even when he was like 5 he wanted to play a Mario tune on his toy keyboard for the school talent show, so had to learn the notes and write them down (it was the Ghost House music from SMB). It was so cute.

things i don't care about in the utah outdoors:

arches
slot canyons and "canyoneering"

both in the category of "if you've seen one you've seen em all" imo.

what about buttes and mesas

I like big buttes and I cannot lie

(xp) I think that was Gaspar Noe? I also think he was younger than 18.
― Tom D, focussed with getting on with the job (Tom D.)

My parents introduced me to lots of cool stuff but frankly the 90's media onslaught of "of course you don't like YOUR PARENT'S STUFF" felt much more oppressive to contrarian me at the time than any pushiness they could have mustered.

what about buttes and mesas

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, May 19, 2026 11:50 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

buttes and mesas are easy to appreciate as part of ecosystems imo.

arches = "derp there's a hole in the rock". at the expense of seeing and appreciating the entire erosion mechanism at micro and macro scale. idk they just don't do anything for me anymore. if i happen to see one i'll appreciate but i don't go out of my way, and where there's an arch there are usually like 20 other people at least.

slot canyons. i just think they're one of those places that people really shouldn't enter. maybe as some kind of ritual. really narrow slot canyons are death traps, devoid of life. to spend all day spelunking in one just doesn't do a lot for me. i like narrow canyons that harbor life though, so the virgin river and paria river narrows are cool in my book. you can see how water erosion works over and down into sandstone well enough in those.