Don't Be Proud of Your Ignorance!

If you spend a great deal of time online, as I regrettably do, you end up seeing the phrase “I don’t even know who that is” an awful lot.

Depending on the context, “I don’t even know who this is” can mean different things. “I don’t even know who this is”  can be a simple statement of fact, a way of sheepishly acknowledging that you’re out of the loop where someone is concerned. 

Even at its most innocuous, “I don’t even know who this is” can be narcissistic and obnoxious. Who cares whether or not you’ve heard of the famous person being discussed? What does that add to the conversation? Why do you think it needs to be mentioned? 

In a world with powerful search engines, the phrase “I don’t even know who this is” should be used sparingly, if at all, because literally ten seconds on Google should be able to be able to clear up any lingering confusion regarding a mystery figure’s identity. 

Don’t know who someone is? Google them! Then you will know who they are! Using technology and the internet, the same tools you use to tell other people that you don’t know who someone is! 

“I don’t even know who this is” can also be self-deprecating, a way of conceding that you’re so old and un-hip and out of it that you have no idea who a lot of big new celebrities are, particularly if they occupy niche worlds like Instagram influencers or Youtubers. 

These folks similarly should avail themselves of search engines and quickly and discreetly acquire the information they so puzzlingly volunteer they do not possess but they are utter charmers compared to the unfortunately sizable continent of commenters who employ the words in a manner at once mocking and arrogant. 

Way too often, when someone comments, “I don’t even know that is” the implicit connotation is that the person they don’t know about is too unimportant, irrelevant and trivial to be worth knowing about and that furthermore they have more important things to do with their time and energy than know who someone is. You know, like commenting online about how they’ve never even heard of someone everyone else seems to think is very famous. 

How very American to not only eagerly tell the world that you do not know something, but to be aggressive and confrontational and even cocky about that lack of knowledge, to treat it as a source of pride. 

There’s no shame in not knowing something but there’s no glory in it either, particularly if you do not want to learn and to grow. 

Leave it to Marjorie Taylor Greene to give us the most obnoxious “I don’t even know who that is” variation in human history. 

When Robert Reich tweeted “Can we all agree that Marjorie Taylor Green must be expelled from Congress?”, the Georgia simpleton responded, “Don’t know you, but when I saw Berkley in your bio, I got it.  Just put the hammer and sickle with it.

Being a communists professor, you’ve never done the real hard work that builds the economy, you just teach ideas that will destroy it.”

Greene didn’t even need to go through the tedious labor of entering “Robert Reich” in a search engine: all she had to do was look at the entirety of Reich’s Twitter bio to see that Reich was, in fact, a Former Secretary of Labor .

Reich wasn’t just part of Clinton’s cabinet. He’s one of the best known secretaries of labor in American history and one of our most respected economists. Seeing as how Greene fancies herself an expert on the economy, he’s someone she should definitely know about. 

This is nearly as epic a self-own as when Greene tweeted to AOC of an upcoming debate that exists only in her vivivd, Q-fueled imagination, “I’m glad I ran into you today @AOC to plan our debate about the Green New Deal.

After I finish reading all 14 pages, like we agreed, I’ll schedule time for our debate.”

Who knows how long it will take Greene to read those fourteen pages? It could literally takes years. 

Don’t be like Marjorie Taylor Greene! Don’t be proud and aggressive about your ignorance. If you don’t know who someone is, find out! It’s quick and easy and simple and will single-handedly make online discourse at least a tiny bit less obnoxious and proudly ignorant.

Pre-order The Joy of Trash: Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place’s Definitive Guide to the Very Worst of Everything and get access to original articles AS I write them and plenty more bonus stuff like exclusive cards featuring Felipe Sobreiro’s amazing artwork for the book at https://the-joy-of-trash.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders/cart

Help ensure a future for the Happy Place during an uncertain era AND get sweet merch by pledging to the site’s Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace