18 years and counting

[gfish]

I've been seeing this article being passed around quite a bit the last few days: Isn't Sinead O’Connor Overdue A Massive, Groveling Apology From Absolutely Everybody?

It raises some excellent points, none of which I want to get into here. Mostly, it just made me think of watching that episode of SNL when it happened, and how completely clueless I was about popular culture at the time. I became media aware fairly at a fairly late age, being the typical reclusive geek all my life. SNL was one of the shows I consciously watched not so much because I liked it, but because I knew I needed to start understanding references better. I wasn't even really paying attention when she ripped up the photo, since the music guests usually bored me. I mostly remember being a bit confused about why Sandra Day O'Connor was singing on SNL. Yes, I confused the singer for the supreme court justice. I didn't even recognize the photo at the time, I didn't realize what had happened until news stories about it the next couple of days. As an obnoxiously militant little atheist, I mostly just thought it was all pretty cool. I didn't even pay attention to the why she had done it -- I think I thought it was some Ireland Protestant/Catholic thing.

So, yeah, I guess my main response boils down to: I used to be a real dork.

Comments

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I was in the same boat about not knowing exactly what Sinead O'Connor was protesting--I just figured that there were plentiny of likely things to prostest about any organized religion. I didn't actually see that episode live, but my reaction to what I'd heard about it was roughly the same as yours. But I'm guessing I was a decade or more older than you at the time, so I didn't have much of an excuse.

At least I knew she wasn't a Supreme Court justice!

[tarkrai.livejournal.com]

I almost *never* watched SNL (working weekends); and this was actually one of the very rare occasions when I did. I remember watching and thinking 'WTF?!? That wasn't really very funny...'; and then forgetting about it for a couple of days. The political impact of her protest completely escaped me that night.

After learning what it was about, I remember at the time feeling that Pope John Paul II didn't deserve the vitriol from her, 'cuz hey- he's just a nice old guy, y'know? But at the same time, I was uncomfortable with how the media was just dissing her and dismissing her out of hand.