This one stings. I have a lot of interests. Until the last six/seven years, those interests were considered punishably nerdy. I grew up in a time when you had to hide that you were reading a comic book lest you face ridicule. Luckily, times have changed, and “nerd” stuff is more commonly accepted. I can remember the name of Gary Oldman’s villain from the 1997 film The Fifth Element (it’s Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, and no I did not look that up) without fear of reprisal. However, it does raise another fear: that my brain is full of useless information.

This Jimmy Kimmel bit sums up that fear pretty well. People on the street were asked two kinds of questions. First, they were asked questions about Star Wars. Then, they were asked questions about U.S. presidents. People consistently (at least with what we are shown) know the answers to the Star Wars questions and not about the presidents. There is even an instance where someone fails to name the current Vice President. Woof.

I’m not attempting to get on any kind of high horse here. I would have faired better on this particular subject, but I could have easily fallen into a similar trap. If the questions had been about tax prep I would have been screwed. Math tends to turn me into a blubbering mess. I think the lesson here can be found in something I heard comic book scribe Mark Waid say at a comic con about a decade ago. He pleaded with the audience, who were there for tips on comic book writing, to read things that weren’t comic books.

He wanted people to be well-rounded. I think a lot of people could benefit from similar advice.

Andrew lives in NYC. You can follow him on Twitter.