A friend pointed out today that you can often tell when people don’t really follow “Dr. Who”, because they think the main character is called “Dr. Who”. Those who actually follow the show know better.
That reminded me of another instance of a similar phenomenon in popular culture. There was a time when you could tell the real fans of the musical group “Blondie”. They were the people who didn’t keep referring to the lead singer Debbie Harry as “Blondie”.
I wonder how many other instances of this there are: An inaccurate identification of a brand name with the brand’s representative character, an understandable mistake that separates the real fan from the fake.