Mainstream America, the whole nation doesn’t have your entertainment tastes
Mainstream America, the whole nation doesn’t have your entertainment tastes
My most unimportant tweet has gotten the most attention
As a Twitter user since 2008, there are two things that I know will happen — the most unimportant tweets on my timeline will get the most attention and I’m too argumentative to let people get away with talking spicy to me in the comment section. The latter has been a factor in entirely too many of my weekends. Why people never argue with me on weekdays is beyond me, but that lawyer who lives inside of my head rent-free just cannot control herself. She must respond until she loses interest and starts blocking users.
But my latest Twitter debate rubs me wrong for a different reason. It’s a complicated one that will more than likely split opinions among (largely white) people. The topic: 50-year-old Amanda Peet. Do you know her? I didn’t. I haven’t seen one film with her in it nor did I know her face. She’s got the kind of face that makes me think she may be in something, but she’s definitely an actress I would walk by without giving a second glance.
Imagine if my reply to that tweet was, “Literally everyone knows [Erika Alexander, Jasmine Guy, Kellie Shanygne Williams, Karyn Parsons, Cree Summer, Essence Atkins, Tichina Arnold, Meghan Good, Regina King, Regina Hall, A.J. Johnson] who watched movies or TV in the 1990s.”
Still, the Twitter question about her was innocent enough: “If you know who this is, like this tweet. We’re settling a debate about whether or not she is ‘super famous.’” Nothing controversial here. My original answer was a GIF of Hugh Laurie shrugging and saying I didn’t know who she was. She’s a pretty woman who is (probably) perfectly lovely as an actress, but hell if I know her. I scrolled on, wondering why Twitter included this tweet on my timeline since I wasn’t following the person who tweeted it.
But there was one response that made me pause. It read, “What age group is having this debate? Because literally everyone who watched movies in the 1990s knows who Amanda Peet is.”
And that just didn’t sit right with me. This is the type of thinking that keeps the #OscarsSoWhite mentality going — the one that thinks if you don’t like or know who I know, then there’s something wrong with your entertainment choices.