MJN SEIFER
09-21-2013, 03:00 AM
This is kind of a pet peeve of mine, but for some reason it annoys me that people who write online lists will often assume things about the readers based on their titles. I'm mostly talking about lists of things like "10 Jokes, in Children's Movies You Never Got as a Kid" or whatever - whenever I read lists like that, I actually got most of the jokes as a kid, so it kind of grates on me. Some of the jokes aren't even "of adult humor", there just references to movies that pre-date the movie in question. I still got them though,
I feel that it's kind of an arrogance thing; we as adults do not want to admit that children have some level of intelligence so we act like we didn't understand things as kids, when we did? Is that what this is all about, or is it something else?
The same applies to when people look at children's shows around now and point out the things that are "Clearly for adults", when, like I said, I remember getting certain jokes as a kid. I feel like it's just some silly meme or something that I'm not getting.
Some of them are almost impossible not to get, regardless of age; for example, someone did a list of "Simpsons Jokes You Didn't Get as a Kid", and one of them was when a young Homer thought that two monkeys were killing each other, and was told they were actually having sex - the article writer made out that the "They're having sex" line was a big secret, but it is actually said very audibly.
So, if this isn't meant to be some ego trip we're all on to make us look better than kids, by acting like it's impossible to get certain jokes, and references until a certain age, and the people who wrote these articles really didn't get these as a kid, then I would much prefer that they would title them as "10 Jokes, in Children's Movies You Probably Never Got as a Kid" or even "10 Jokes, in Children's Movies I Never Got as a Kid" so it's literally the writer's own opinion, which is what it is.
Sorry for the rant, it's just been annoying me for a long time. Even though I do enjoy reading these kinds of lists.
I feel that it's kind of an arrogance thing; we as adults do not want to admit that children have some level of intelligence so we act like we didn't understand things as kids, when we did? Is that what this is all about, or is it something else?
The same applies to when people look at children's shows around now and point out the things that are "Clearly for adults", when, like I said, I remember getting certain jokes as a kid. I feel like it's just some silly meme or something that I'm not getting.
Some of them are almost impossible not to get, regardless of age; for example, someone did a list of "Simpsons Jokes You Didn't Get as a Kid", and one of them was when a young Homer thought that two monkeys were killing each other, and was told they were actually having sex - the article writer made out that the "They're having sex" line was a big secret, but it is actually said very audibly.
So, if this isn't meant to be some ego trip we're all on to make us look better than kids, by acting like it's impossible to get certain jokes, and references until a certain age, and the people who wrote these articles really didn't get these as a kid, then I would much prefer that they would title them as "10 Jokes, in Children's Movies You Probably Never Got as a Kid" or even "10 Jokes, in Children's Movies I Never Got as a Kid" so it's literally the writer's own opinion, which is what it is.
Sorry for the rant, it's just been annoying me for a long time. Even though I do enjoy reading these kinds of lists.