I will never understand why some people think it's important for everyone to know when some star of a TV show they watched has passed away.
"Did you hear who died?!" she asked me.
"I don't know...." I answered.
She seemed so bewildered when I didn't recognize the name and felt it was necessary to explain the entire situation for me, checking her cable News channel for updates of the details.
/Why/ did the cable News channel have streaming updates? 🤷🏼

@Euphoria I think it is nothing special about TV.

It's more like "look who died" has been part of human culture probably for thousands of years. Of course it is a prerequisite that you know the person in question.

Some 80-, 90-year olds treat it almost like a gambling game

@saper Oh, of course it is, and sometimes the person I'm being asked about is someone who the asker personally knew and interacted with, though I may never have known them.
People filter their world views through their own environments and the actions of a lifetime without seeming to realize how specialized that world view is. Of course people with similar interests are likely to share aspects of their world views. I am often amazed by how little I know about.
#Culture #Society

@Euphoria what we mean by #TV is a certain subset of this world view that is shared by a larger group of people. It may be #EthnicIdentity as well.

Or just people who know who Conan O'Brien is.

@saper It's funny to me when I'm forced to fill in a section about ethnicity on a form and it doesn't have an option for "American", though I live in Central America now instead of the USA, where I spent most of my life, and I know that not all "Americans" are the same. Still, people from the USA share what I think of as an "ethnicity", no matter where their ancestors came from, skin color, or income level.
It's just another false classification.
Better to ask what one watches.