![]() It would only be obscure if he is unknown among scientists and biologists, which obviously is not true. So for instance, while Darwin is a famous scientist, and one cannot call him obscure simply because the majority of people who know his name haven't read his works. Some scientists and philosophers owing to their great social and political influence end up becoming famous, their witticisms become proverbial in society by Memetic Mutation and so become a "known name" to people outside their field, but the fact is their works were never reasonably and realistically expected to be read unhindered by the non-specialist. ![]() Some works are likely not intended for mainstream appeal or mainstream audiences in the first place.įor instance, works of philosophy, science, anthropology, and other social sciences, are not intended to be best-sellers, they are meant to be read and perused by peers and educated readers, and are likewise published in philosophical and scientific journals. Likewise, one should not assume that a work is more famous than it actually is. Defining the mainstream is hard but a workable definition is that what is mainstream is the general knowledge and awareness in culture and society that people can have without having to go out of their way.Ī work for general audiences appeals to people who may not have, for instance, played other games, known or seen or heard of other works in said genre or other works in the said franchise, and likewise never have read a comic book, or listened to albums and artists of the given music genre. Likewise, people can be widely aware of an artistic movement or genre, but unable to describe what it was about.įor this trope to hold meaning, a few conditions need to be met. If a character portrayed by an actor (or that version of a character, if an adaptation) becomes more famous than their portrayer, the actor's name may be completely unknown to all except trivia buffs and paradoxically lead to extreme typecasting to the extent that an actor can't escape being pigeonholed, or rather mine it for the rest of their life. Iconic movie stars have their image reproduced in so many other places that it is easy to recognize their faces or get what part of them is being parodied and alluded to, without having to ever watch any of the movies they starred in. A "famous author" can be widely read, best-selling but largely unread, widely quote-mined, or just well known for "being an author". People, groups, art movements, and entire genres can also be swallowed by Mainstream Obscurity. When the work has become so famous that "everybody else knows about it", yet no one has actually read or been exposed to that work, that work is wallowing in Mainstream Obscurity. A good example is a famous witticism that an intellectual is someone who can listen to Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture without thinking of The Lone Ranger note on account of the fact that the finale of Rossini's overture became a Standard Snippet used by the famous TV show, becoming associated with The Wild West despite the fact that it derives from an Italian opera about a Swiss rebel, which, being that it's an opera, has a smaller audience. ![]() Thing is, these elements become so overexposed that a lot of people might think they've seen it, or might even feel they don't have to see it, but individuals can't name things about it beyond these famous well-known aspects. Sure it lands on every critic's top 10 list, has a fantastic word of mouth on many amateur review sites, and is one of the most truly well-known works in media, and some part of the media (the Iconic Outfit, Iconic Item, Signature Scene) is known by Pop-Cultural Osmosis. Mainstream Obscurity is what happens to a famous successful work intended for a wide general audience, that succeeds so well and becomes so known, that paradoxically, despite its fame, it remains relatively unknown to the general public.
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