As a sports fan, I know a lot of names and faces for no good reason. I have a relatively speaking memory of random stats and facts like the starting center on the 1993 Indiana Pacers, where Andy Van Slyke started his MLB career and what college quarterback Steve McNair went to.

To some, the answers to those questions aren’t gimmies, but it’s not that difficult. I didn’t take much to think about them and actually debated if they were difficult. But I realize to those who find this stuff important, it would be easy.

To the others, the only way they could conceive of getting the answers would be via Siri or Alexea. Those are clues from Jeopardy? They clearly don’t find sports knowledge to be important and it’s not like they would need it for a sports game show. The couple of times it has been tried as failed.

However, the TV game show is a fail-safe feature that is the foundation of the medium. That’s why it’s not surprising to see a comedian in their element – holding a mic on a stage in front of a crowd – bantering with a lucky so-and-so and asking questions for cash.

It matters not if the comedian is not that funny or one of the all-time greats like Ellen Degeneres. Her show’s final game was a 3-second identifier game and if you are familiar with actors and celebrities, this would be easy. A game like that featuring the 3rd Kardashian sister, the latest Bachelor and…

Look, even trying to come up with a potential picture of gossip magazine celebrities is hard. Ellen’s images were easy because she made sure to use important people. Granted, she’s helped to make these same people important, bringing them onto her show so they can self-promote.

It’s an interesting cycle when you start to think about the decision-makers that decide this person deserves to be more important than this person. This is somewhat similar to sports, but the athlete has mathematical numbers to support thier case for importance.

The ‘celebrity’ stats aren’t similar since they are based mostly on people’s opinions about them, despite minimal interaction with their actual self. I’ve seen many a Sandra Bullock film, from Love Potion No. 9 to While You Were Sleeping to Practical Magic to Two Weeks Notice.

I think she’s a great actress, but I don’t know about her as a person. Yet I and many others form opinions about who she is when she’s not acting in a role on the screen. That becomes important because we ‘like’ Sandy, while disliking others for whatever reason that has little to do with whatever they actually do to make them important.

Who and what we deem important is important, but just as important is who’s deciding and determining what should be important. It’s a decision that doesn’t sound important and is taken for granted, but one that shows self-confidence and that’s the truth.