In high school, a long-tenured English teacher started her first class of ninth graders each year by pointing to a sign that said “I don’t know” and encouraging the class to ask her questions while acknowledging that “I don’t know” might be her answer. I think the bigger point intended was that knowledge is about asking questions and also understanding that someone may not have an answer — however that shouldn’t stop one from asking in the first place. That larger point was likely lost amidst the other big tradition of her first day of class when she drew a penis on the chalkboard and started repeating “phallic symbol” in a light Irish accent.
I think now about how rarely I hear someone say “I don’t know” or even indicate they know/have some of the information but lack the rest. Or, in a corporate environment, there’s the added layer of someone not adding any new information but wanting to participate so they then say “you’re right, Karen” and then repeat what I’ve already said but slower and in slightly different words and typically in the lower pitch of a man’s voice.
I recently started wondering if this societal shift to refusing to say you don’t know anything has also led to asking fewer questions in the first place. I certainly have noticed it at my own dinner table but that leads to me asking the same questions I ask all the time in my house: is this societal or just hormonal teenagers? And that question’s parallel: is this societal or did I just marry into a family of introverts who didn’t have mothers who believed small talk was a skill to be refined and told you you were a dud if you didn’t talk to people and/or make eye contact at the local CO-OP?
I bought multiple sets of “conversation starter” cards so I could ask more questions at the dinner table and drive more participation without constantly feeling like an overly enthusiastic cruise director with an all emo group of guests. The result has been a lot of shoulder shrugs and comments that the questions themselves are flawed. It turns out though that dinner table conversation and asking people direct questions may just not be the preferred mode of communications for this generation.
Over the summer, we learned that nearly 40% of Gen Z prefers TikTok for online searches over Google. I am fascinated by this as I don’t even understand why you would ever choose to watch a video to see if it answers your question over scanning words to see if it’s closer to what you need. Apparently the other piece Gen Z prefers is that the algorithm is so accurate that it’s more likely the results will be relevant. I certainly cannot criticize the TikTok algorithm as it learned extremely quickly that I would be interested in musical theater, cults, Real Housewives and Alabama sorority rush faster than I searched for any of those topics — or, in the case of Alabama sorority rush, even knew that it was a topic worth following!
However, the concept of the algorithm anticipating my questions confounds me as I feel I’m rarely searching for information on things about which I already know a lot or have searched in the past.
Examples of things I’ve searched in the last 72 hours (not including locations and restaurants):
How accurate are predicted hurricane paths? (Unhelpfully learned that they’ve “gotten a lot more accurate” in the last 20 years… you know, like most things that involve technology. But the answer I was looking for was that they’re most accurate for their 1-3 day predictions but, outside of that range, much less so)
Who is still together from “Love Island UK” season 5? (Won’t type the answer here because I’m currently begging my brother and sister-in-law to watch what, I believe, is the greatest season in the history of the series)
What is the smoothest store bought hummus? (It’s apparently Ithaca but I will report back since it’s on my menu for Thursday night dinner)
Morning buns vs. cinnamon rolls vs. sticky buns? (Morning buns typically use a croissant dough, cinnamon rolls and sticky buns use the same dough but a sticky bun is typically glazed and inverted out of the pan and a cinnamon roll is typically not inverted, iced and doesn’t have nuts. However, not a ton of consensus and it seems there’s a lot of regional specifics related to the usage of these last two terms — especially when it comes to nuts vs raisins vs inversion)
Why can’t I buy Lambrusco in Pennsylvania? (No good or consistent answers so, instead, I’m just very angry)
Are Disney Park face parts better than others? (This was me trying to find an article from the old print version of what I think was “Radar” magazine that spoke to a “caste system” among Disney performers)
1 cup dry Israeli couscous is how much cooked? (3 cups)
The above are also all related to specific questions or debates and do not include my many tertiary Wikipedia deep dives that have helped me learn more about Yul Brenner’s childhood as well as Togo the sled dog. TikTok can get me interesting nuggets but not necessarily specific answers which makes me wonder… does Gen Z not care about the actual answer as long as they’re entertained along the way?
This is truly so counter to every single way in which I operate; I want answers on everything. When I pass a car accident or experience weird traffic, I make a note to Google the street after and see what caused it. I read the entire plot of a movie to decide if I want to watch it. I didn’t always, but after seeing “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” in theaters with a friend, we went for drinks and I spent the whole time asking “am I too dumb to understand this movie? Who is this movie made for if I can’t keep track of the plot?” Never again thanks to the Wikipedia plot summary section! Back before Jeff gave up on asking me to watch movies, he’d request that I not read that before we went to the theater but then I’d die of curiosity and go to the bathroom and read it on my phone there. (See: cheating on spouse).
There are so many questions that are inappropriate to ask or things where we’ll never get answers. I just can’t imagine trusting an algorithm to give me that information or staying quiet and… not caring whether I ever learn the answers?
All of this came to a head over the weekend when I received an interesting marketing email from my favorite tea company, Harney & Sons.
In the past, Harney’s brand collaborations have included one with “historic palaces” and one with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Some random individual tea blends have popped up tied to “Little Women” and “Murder on the Orient Express” and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. I am not anti-Disney (although very interested in learning more about the hierarchy within Park staff) but this collection seemed odd to me. And then I looked at the five themed teas and the characters they celebrated: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Snow White, Jasmine and Moana. I easily spent 45 minutes debating with Jeff why these were the characters selected and, while you have to be very careful when sending a customer service team an email when your name is Karen, I couldn’t resist taking a chance and seeing if I could get an answer. I sent the below:
Hi Harney!
I continue to be a huge fan but spent a bizarre amount of time at dinner with my husband questioning why:
Mulan, from China, where most tea leaves originate, does not get a tea
Alice, of Wonderland, who is the only Disney character to my mind to have an infamous tea party, does not get a tea
Belle, who had a tea pot and tea cup who sang to her, did not get a tea
And yet, Moana did. My assumption is that Snow White and Jasmine snuck in due to white tea and jasmine tea already existing despite no relevant tea plot points in their stories. No need to reply but felt as though anyone who put this much effort into tea blends might also have thoughtful perspective on who was selected as well as the noticeable omissions.
All best, Karen
I didn’t even make note of the fact that Mickey and Minnie both have disproportionately sized/gloved hands that must make it hard to even hold a teacup!
I heard back yesterday from Courtney:
Thank you for reaching out! The teas were done in collaboration with Disney, and they had a large part in naming the characters to include. We do hope to add more characters in the future and these are all great suggestions, I will pass them along to the boss.
This is actually the biggest issue in asking questions and getting answers: having follow ups and nowhere to take them. Now that we know Disney made the selections, I have only spent more time processing and thinking about it:
Mickey & Minnie are obvious and, while I do think the large hands make it harder to drink tea, no hands at all didn’t stop the Mad Hatter! No questions here.
Snow White is their next live action film. Makes sense.
Jasmine is still an actual tea/flavor.
Which leaves us with Moana… WHY? A teenager in a tropical environment tied to a movie from 2016 with no new media properties to promote?
Actually as I type the above, I wonder if Harney & Sons just wanted to use tropical flavors and used Moana as the excuse to create that blend? I will not be bringing that theory back to Courtney but I will be able to sleep easier at night now that I’ve created a logical answer.
See that’s the thing, I’m okay with “I don’t know” as long as it’s followed by “but I’ll figure it out.” I want more of those kinds of people in my life whether they’re Googling or using TikTok or asking Courtney in Customer Service or hypothesizing on their own to get answers.
So many things to say here, but I'll restrict myself to just saying it is increasingly harder to find genuine, factual information because there are so many (editorial) explainers and regurgitators that have spread like kudzu through Google.