Not only has he grown to be a good actor and a young man with remarkable social conscience, but Daniel Radcliffe is not afraid to tell the world he's not up on things. Like Justin Beiber. A CNN blogger notes that he wasn't familiar with the tweener singing star until a couple weeks ago, and when he heard Bieber's voice, he thought it was a woman singing.
Now, I don't pass that along to bash Bieber. I have heard the name but don't know of any of his music; nonetheless, who cares? I'm hardly in the demographic of Beiber's feverish fans.
But I do like Radcliffe's remark that, “I'm so out of the loop when it comes to pop culture that I kind of don't even try anymore.”
That's great. You get no points in life for being up on the latest silliness. Some people would probably argue that such an attitude could leave Radcliffites (Radcliffians? we need a word here ...) at a loss in party conversations. But I think instead it means that his conversations are probably more interesting than most people's.
It reminds me of when Playboy's longtime executive editor Arthur Kretchmer said upon leaving his post after decades at the top, "Let me put it this way: At this point in my life, I don't care who Weezer is. And that's not fair to Weezer, that's not fair to Playboy magazine."
Now, I would argue that the fact that he knew enough to know that Weezer is unimportant is exactly the reason he should continue to edit a magazine. But I still applaud him for deciding not to fake enthusiasm for the latest passing fad and instead pursue his own interests.
I suspect Kretchmer and Radcliffe could have a very interesting conversation.
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