So you think you are an individual do you?

These days it seems that every time I find something slightly unique and special half the world is already talking about it on Youtube, Facebook or Reddit. I wouldn't call myself a trendy person so I doubt that I am particularly sensitive to the zeitgeist but I am beginning to wonder if it is actually possible to hold a individual opinion about something any more.

Some years ago my wife and I took a bit of time to come up with a special name for our first child. We picked a name that was beautiful and had some family significance. It was also an unusual and uncommon name. Or so we thought. It was only later that we realised that this long forgotten name had somehow caught the public imagination and had bubbled up to be one of the top ten names of that year.

This year I found my gaming tastes swaying towards more challenging titles. I talk about that in this blog post in which I surmise that "My age and gaming history allow me to overlook fancy graphics and current fashion trends in order to enjoy games both old and new that provide me that challenge". That's just me right? Well yes just me and most of the rest of the gaming population if the various top ten lists of games of the year are to be believed.

I had another example last night when I spotted something during an episode of Board-walk Empire that caught my eye. It was an obscure reference to a German Sniper mask that was quite incidental to the story but I had never heard of one before. It stuck in my mind so this morning I searched Google to find out more about it. It turns out to be a real thing that is quite prized by collectors of WWI memorabilia but what immediately struck me was how many of the people inquiring about it had also seen it on Boardwalk Empire.

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