The New York Times’ impossible cultural literacy test

Forsake legacy elitism. Embrace video essay elitism.

Repackaging legacy media elitism into YouTube essayist elitism doesn't make you
a populist; it makes you a content aggregator. Preaching about "deepening human
connection" to a camera lens is just weaponized wholesomeness masking a sterile,
unilateral monologue. The Ground Truth here is absolute zero; this is nothing but
a parasociak digital "video essayist" simulation critiquing a legacy media trivia simulation to feed an algorithmic ouroboros.

Strip away the life-coach sentimentality, and the actual structural hardware is
just a parasocial funnel for your Patreon and Discord links.

You aren't democratizing cultural literacy; you're just peddling a highly produced, heavily
curated brand of delusional creator narcissism and parasocial dopamine.

Roughly from east to west:
1. The 5 Confucian Classics
2. The Vedas
3. Guru Garanth Sahib Ji
4. The Quran
5. The Nag Hammadi
6. The Holy Bible, KJV
7. The Book of Mormon
8. Native American Medicine bags/bundles

Because religion and culture are inseparable.
These should be understood in context, both historically and contemporarily. Many people and peoples have revered these and used the to connect to the divine.
These are not monoliths, and neither are their associated religions. They are influenced by culture and culture influences how they are interpreted.

the basso continuo one was super easy tho

Great video JJ! I'm having trouble coming up with 8 that I'm deeply familiar with but I wanted to try your little challenge.

1. The Rite of Spring: A ballet depicting the ritual sacrifice of a girl. The music, written by Russian/American composer Igor Stravinsky was widely controversial when the ballet premiered. Even today I think that most people would say that it "sounds bad". It's extremely dissonant, metrically and harmonically, and uses many instruments in strange ways, like having a low bassoon play a delicate high pitched melody. It is undeniable that this piece had a massive influence on classical music in the 1900s as well as film music despite being so widely hated in its debut.

2. Dark Souls: A video game series famous for its high difficulty and dreary, depressing atmospheres. Many would argue that it's difficulty is one of the most fascinating aspects, as it's no doubt an artistic choice that benefits the work as a whole, but is also a trait that only video games themselves can have. Games have long borrowed elements from books and movies for their art like music, storytelling, and point-of-view etc, but Dark Souls' difficulty is crucial to both its success, and the game's theme and is a choice that can only be made with the video game medium.

3. HTML, CSS, and Javascript: The technologies that render web pages. While the internet requires a lot of other computer science to operate, I think these three 'languages' (people love to debate on the first two) are a great window into what made the web so powerful, interactive, and lucrative. Try learning how to write a simple web page! It's pretty easy and will make you see web pages with a different set of eyes.

4. Esperanto: A synthetic language intended to be universal. It is largely euro-centric and is the most popular constructed language with around 100,000 speakers.

5. So you've been publicly shamed – Jon Ronson: A book about the process and effects of cancelling people on the internet. While the book is non-fiction and factual in nature, Ronson inserts himself as a character in the book in parts making it a good example of 'Gonzo Journalism' with him describing how he was able to get someone cancelled, as well as the stories of his interactions with the people he researched.

I got 9 of 30 just from guessing.

Is this brought to us by the Canadian government.

A list of "cultural" stuff I find helpful to be familiar with- definitely not the most high-brow list, but these are things that either come up a lot, or provide very helpful context for things that do:

– Weird Al Yancovic, and by extension most of the popular music styles of the last 40 years

– Basic knowledge of Marvel/DC superheroes' origins and major stories

– Pilgrim's Progress, one of the only English works to never go out of print

– Hero's Journey/Monomyth

– Star Wars

– Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (books)

– The MPAA's sliding rating system (an 80s G is would now be PG, etc.)

– Lego, both its impact and a basic idea of how to use it

Atari
Apple
The Virgin Mary
Sir David Attenborough
Toy Story
Shiseido
Lascaux Cave
MTV

Oops, didn't finish the video and missed the challenge, so, as a 28 y-old Mexican from Mexico City, I think that everybody should know about:

1.- In the same vein of Covarrubias, the architect Luis Barragan and his worldwide influence, like in the architecture of the Salk Institute
2.- The Brazilian and Japanese relationship; Why are there so many Japanese in Brazil and viceversa? Why does the Japanese love bossa nova so much?, bonus points if you also research the Mexican-South Korean relationship
3.- The music of Jean Michel Jarre: The enormous influence in electronic music in conjunction with his contemporaries Kraftwerk and Vangelis, feels like JMJ is usually the least researched of the big three of Electronic Music
4.- Blade Runner: The cyberpunk movie masterpiece, a movie so influential that is simply impossible to see anything related to the cyberpunk aesthetic without at least one thing being a reference to BR
5.- Proto-Indoeuropean: In specific how we came up with it, is fascinating learning how so many different languages in Europe were, a long, loooong time ago, just one
6.- Ultima series: Without a doubt, the most influential video game series of all time, party systems? immersive simulation? realistic physics simulation? mmorpg? FUCKING DOOM?, all Ultima
7.- The Little Prince: The quintessential kids book, so good that you must read even if you are an adult, correction, specially if you are an adult, a book meant for children but with a subtext that as an adult it reminds you of very important things in life
8.- And finally the most obscure one that I think everybody should know about, the history of the visual design of Mexico 68, including the sculptures of the Route of Friendship (Ruta de la Amistad) and the connection with the worldwide renowned iconography of the whole Mexico City public transport system; Metro, Metrobus, Cablebus, etc. and it's importance in the general visual identity of the city

I think my own idea of culture is still pretty heavily limited but if I had to pick what i thought of as important to modern culture i would select –

The Trial by Franz Kafka

Chungking Express by Wong kai Wai

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Casper David Friedrich

Bloodborne by From software

The Korean War

Mormonism

The life and work of Dmitri Schostakowitch

The General Theory of Employment, Interests and Money by John Maynard Keynes

Here are my 8 things I think everyone should know about, in no particular order. it was hard picking things that are influential, yet a little niche and also are topics that I really know about:
1. Anansi the spider
2. 12-bar blues
3. Musique concrete
4. Batik
5. Mirepoix and the “Holy trinity” of Creole cooking
6. The science fiction of Octavia Butler
7. Moroccan Zellige tiling
8. Balinese Gamelan music

1. History of BBQ in the American South
2. Slaughterhouse Five (alternatively, all of Kurt Vonnegut's writing)
3. Italian Neorealism film movement
4. Pat the Bunny (folk punk musician)
5. Sylvia Plath
6. Yume Nikki (through the lens of video games as an art form, and for its influence on indie games as a whole)
7. The animations of Don Hertzfeldt
8. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (by Christopher Browning)

The thing I have the most niche knowledge of is the genre of bossa nova, but it ties so much into Brazil’s political history of the time it’s a must know if you don’t yet!

you win

The appearant difference between culture snobs and regular nerds is that nerds want to share their cultural area of expertise. Why I like JJ. He loves talking about all of his interests.

My submission for the final task:
– Age of War (flash game)
– Helena (artwork)
– Poe’s Law
– Mountain Dew Baja Blast
– ASCII aquarium
– Bob Ross’s The Joy of Painting
– “Hunters in the Snow” by Tobias Wolff
– NOR gates

“In what country did the most Italian sounding name for an instrument imaginable come from?”