What’re You Curious About?

[Anonymous]

Hello, I am a college student who is doing a paper on what piques people’s curiosity in entertainment and pop culture as well as science, technology, and psychology.

Would anyone here be willing to answer these questions?

1. what recently piqued your curiosity?
2. Where/how did you learn about it (TV, movies, books, news, friend, etc)
3. What is something that you were curious about in the past that you didn’t look up an answer for, just thought “I wonder…” and moved on
4. If you are comfortable, specifying gender

I hope you will consider taking part in my little informal survey and maybe what you bring up will get other people curious, as well!

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Sure-
I was/am curious about the fandom culture and how it is breeding tribalism from the online sphere into the real world.
I think both Taylor Swift and Donald Trump are examples of how tribalism/fandom lead ordinary people to exhibit behavior that they would normally eschew.

Learned about it here a little, but also when my BIL (48 year old) went to a Taylor concert and was fascinated by the whole thing.

I also wonder about the intersection of religion/needing a figure greater than yourself and pop culture. Ex. Was Jesus a pop culture idol at some point? (Maybe even when the cult of Christianity took off) Is he still a pop culture idol (WWJD bracelets were popular years ago etc)

I’m a woman.

[Anonymous]

I recently became interested in NDEs (near death experience) when I randomly came across a video on YouTube. Now I've watched a lot of videos on YouTube and I'm reading a Mary Roach book on the subject.

The only thing I can think of that I was curious about recently that I didn't look up was a Supreme Court ruling. I am a lawyer but no longer practice and folks were talking about a supreme court decision and what they were saying didn't sound right to me, so I considered looking up the case, but then I was too lazy to read the whole opinion so didn't bother looking it up.

Woman.

[Anonymous]

I'm curious what kind of college works allow this for research.

[Anonymous]

I am curious about how it came to be that entertainment and sports became valued so much more than other arenas, so much so that they get paid millions of dollars.

When and how did this happen? Did it happen slowly, or was there a significant event in history?

I’m sure this is something I could look up, but I don’t. I just marvel each time I hear how much some of them make and compare it to things like cancer researchers and the like.

Woman.

[Anonymous]

Hi,
I originally posted the request. Thank you to all of you who answered. I am wondering if anyone else would like to respond? My paper is due in about a week, so there is still some time left.

Thank you!!