So, when I was a teen a really big thing was the game Trivial Pursuit. How to win? Answer lots of questions across different categories. You could make teams (so this is sort of like how bar trivia games work, I think) and pool strengths. The main point seemed to be showing off how much knowledge you had about things that didn’t seem to really matter in any other corner of your life. Trivia. Otherwise unimportant knowledge.
Back in those days, you picked up trivia in school, from reading magazines and newspapers, maybe watching your TV. You remembered random things your Great Uncle Al would say. It added up.
Now I pick up trivial knowledge online, through incidental encounters.
Today I share with you a random thing I saw this week. A point of curiosity. Yes, on Facebook (because I’m old) I learned about the Callin’ Oates hotline set up by Hall and Oates fans. You call, you can request to have a song played. Here is an NPR story about it from 2011.
How delightfully random and trivial! And how bizarre that people are still running a hotline like this in the 2020s, when most people would just go to Spotify to hear a song.
No comments:
Post a Comment