None of my friends know tbh, my boyfriend does because I often bore him with talk about chart battles and stuff like that :lol:

I've mentioned it to a few of my colleagues - I'm the youngest by a long shot and they're usually surprised that I care about any of this stuff!

And of course my stan friends on social media know because they're chart obsessed too ^_^

I met my boyfriend on here so naturally it has come up in conversation over the years.

This is so sweet omg :heart:

My friends (who generally are autistic like me) know that I am obsessed with random bits of trivia and having a strong memory when it comes to certain things.

It's a weird one cos I know someone who's 22 and I recognise the artists she's going to see even without being a massive fan of them, purely because of how much I glance at sales figures and the like.

I'm interested in the charts but know there's no point over engaging with friends or family on the subject who don't have the same interest. It would be like a darts or badminton fanatic talking incessantly about that to those who are not interested. Its about knowing your audience. I have a friend who is similarly interested but only in 80s/90s music which is my favourite era too. I have answered some very random pop music questions at table quizzes that no one else n the pub could answer so that's one benefit!

Also, I'm not sure if this is an Irish thing (where I'm from) but a lot of my gay male friends are Eurovision fans. I mean they have encyclopedia knowledge, know every participant country song from every year and travel all over the continent to each Eurovision annually and gave regular Eurovision social nights here. I've been to a couple but they're too fan intensive for me!! I was interested in it during the 1980s/90s but stopped after Ireland stopped winning!! (ha ha). I get a similar vibe on these chart forums as I do to my friends Eurovision engagement...I suppose its also all about music and number positions too! 😄

Mine are fascinated that I can reel off every number one single from 1998 to 2010 in order. They turn it into a game haha they love it!

Friends what are they 😅😅

Na but seriously its not really a subject that comes up

Interesting topic! I suppose anyone who's known me for any serious length of time realises I have a pretty thorough knowledge of pop music and especially the UK charts (or at least HAD - I confess it's weaker now than it was 25-40 years ago), and so it's all taken as part and parcel of my character really, and not thought of as especially odd anymore. Saying that, I don't feel the subject really comes up in regular routine sociable conversations with my current circles of friends that much, partly because my knowledge can get a bit too 'granular' for them to hold any interest in, and partly because a large number of my chums are my own age or older, sometimes by 10-30 years. So such folk generally don't have any awareness of, or interest in, more recent/current chart content, limiting any chat about it to earlier decades which perhaps they considered 'their era'. Anything before the 1980s I know about but not to the extent I do for after that time as I wasn't born until the mid-1970s, so even then it can fall through the cracks quite readily and it's just easier to avoid boring people with too much data/trivia they'd only find fascinating if they held similarly strong attachment to the charts as I do. And let's face it folks, most people don't, even less than might've been the case in the latter decades of the 20th century.

In the '80s and '90s, when I was most into listening to and buying into the singles charts, I was undoubtedly dismissed by some as a 'chart geek', impressing, bewildering and irritating people in equal measures with the depth and breadth of my knowledge! Though with more contemporary people then still engaged with and interested in pop, that wasn't such a negative thing; as someone said earlier our sort of specialised knowledge can and has proved very successful with pop quizzes, and when one brings home a load of beer or money for one's mates to share thanks to one's geekery (happened a few times while at University), then one tends not to be too unpopular for long! As the '00s and '10s passed I found myself less and less interactive with what was classed as modern pop and what troubled the weekly charts, although a general handle on the way they work and the wider market remains. Sadly though a lot of that kind of stuff won't win me any prizes at pub quizzes etc and my awareness of who had a hit with what, what number it reached and when etc isn't now anywhere near as encyclopaedic as it once was, meaning I have effectively 'retired' from such participation. Actually, when's the last time I even saw a pure POP quiz being held? All seems to be so-called 'general knowledge' nowadays...

Happily though I have found that in the last 20 years at least, UKMix, and to a lesser but still relevant extent BuzzJack, have provided all the necessary outlets I seem to require in order for me to really indulge those trivial and obsessive aspects of this now more niche topic online, in a way that I know will be shared, respected and even enjoyed. So I appreciate still being on board with you all!

Oh all my friends know I'm a complete chart nerd and I fully embrace it.

55 minutes ago, Gambo said:

Actually, when's the last time I even saw a pure POP quiz being held? All seems to be so-called 'general knowledge' nowadays...

There is a very good pop music only quiz at The Lexington in Islington every Monday that I go to sometimes.

44 minutes ago, Julian_ said:

There is a very good pop music only quiz at The Lexington in Islington every Monday that I go to sometimes.

Oh I went to a few of those back in 2018 I think! Yes a very fun quiz, I especially remember a question about naming everything Meredith Brooks is in Bitch.

There also used to be a pure music clip quiz I went to in Bethnal Green around that time but it was discontinued post-pandemic.

They think flipping heck Mack, how did you know that?

1 hour ago, Dobbo said:

Oh all my friends know I'm a complete chart nerd and I fully embrace it.

Same, they think I’m a geek deep down but they have their own geeky things they love so it’s a thing that everyone’s different and has different interests so not a big deal.

It did help me on a Christmas songs quiz where I got my team right to the top of the table when that round came up and the usual mate who knows everything big about everything was raging lol.

They embrace it. When some friends realised that I could name a lot of songs from the 1st second or 2, made this into a game whilst we were in the car.

What they didn’t realise is that I actually realised what was going to come next on the playlist before they played it 🤣

Then I have friends like @Jessie Where who are similar to me, and we can discuss and debate chart rules and regulations.

And I handle their disinterested when I feed them a really (un) interesting fact about chart history 🤣

I think I consider myself very much a chart geek in the way I document and record the modern Top 40 charts today, and even a bunch of the past Top 40 charts.

Nice to see an old topic of mine gets bumped up 4 years later