I saw the movie Shrek for the first time this week—well, part of it, anyway. The other Jungen und Mädchen in my German class voted for it for a post-break movie day and came out on top.

Shrek is one of those pieces of children’s media that is widely considered a staple of my generation’s media consumption, yet it completely passed me by growing up. Ironically, I also watched my first full episodes of SpongeBob Squarepants in the same class at least a year ago. I always knew of these things through cultural osmosis and memery, but I just never watched them either voluntarily or involuntarily, and I probably wouldn’t have watched them voluntarily anyway.

Whenever situations like that come up, I feel like I am an alien field reporter coming down from my satellite, observing Earth and its cultures, gathering information from the locals, trying to process their collective memories surrounding such media. I’ve gotten used to being separated from certain strains of that cultural mind. But it’s interesting gaining a better understanding of whatever comes my way in bits and pieces.

Just don’t shove Disney princess movies down my throat anytime soon.