The Things You’re Supposed to Have Seen

If you were chronically online in 2011, you probably remember Your Favorite Martian and the era when Ray William Johnson ruled YouTube. One of their songs, Nerd Rage, featured a wheezy, furious nerd losing his mind over people who failed to love the correct things. DC comics. Captain Kirk. Citizen Kane.

Citizen Kane sat there in that list like a cultural checkpoint.

Here is my confession. I had never seen Citizen Kane until February 2026. I knew it was important. I knew critics adored it. I knew it carried the sort of reputation that makes people nod thoughtfully at dinner parties. I just never felt compelled to press play.

So I saw it on BBC iplayer and gave it a go.

I Didn’t Get It

Worse than that, I hated that I didn’t get it.

The discomfort had nothing to do with boredom. It was ego. I felt as though I had failed a test I did not remember signing up for. There was a quiet panic in the background. How could I call myself someone who likes culture if this one slid straight past me?

Studying for a Test No One Set

I responded the only way a recovering hipster knows how. I googled. I read essays. I went to my local library and borrowed the only book on Orson Welles they had. I learned about deep focus camera shots. I learned about structure. I learned about innovation.

Within days I could hold my own in a pub quiz about it.

That is the part that unsettles me.

When Taste Was Competitive

In my university years around 2010, taste felt competitive. The internet still felt small enough that discovering something obscure carried weight. Knowing the right bands, the right films, the right references gave you status. Obscurity functioned like a membership card. If you could cite it, you belonged.

It was cultural exclusivity dressed up as individuality.

We pretended it was about appreciation. Often it was about insulation. If you knew the right things, no one could catch you out.

Taste as Armour

And here I was at 35, still chasing that insulation. I told myself I wanted to watch Citizen Kane out of curiosity. In truth I wanted protection. I wanted to be able to drop a clever fact into conversation. I wanted to avoid that tiny flicker of embarrassment if someone ever asked.

The irony is brutal. In thirty five years no one has ever asked me about Citizen Kane. No one has tested my credentials. The only examiner in the room was me.

Letting Go of the Membership Card

I understand the film now. I see why it matters historically. I can admire the craft.

Admiration, however, did not turn into affection. Knowledge did not bloom into feeling.

That is the uncomfortable lesson. Cultural literacy can become a performance. You gather references the way some people collect designer labels. You hope they signal something about you. Depth. Intelligence. Belonging.

All the while, the actual experience of watching the film drifts into the background.

This is not a review. Plenty of film buffs can explain why Citizen Kane remains a landmark in cinema.

What I am trying to untangle is why I felt the need to consume it in the first place.

I watched it so I wouldn’t look stupid.

That impulse says more about me than the film ever could.

Maybe the real maturity move is allowing yourself to shrug. To say, I see why it matters and it simply is not for me. To let culture be something you explore instead of something you defend.

Otherwise you risk turning into the protagonist of Nerd Rage, wheezing with indignation over imaginary cultural crimes, terrified that someone, somewhere, might discover you have not done the reading.

And that seems far more exhausting than admitting you prefer Emma Stone in Easy A on a Tuesday night.

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