"how do you just know this" is a question I get asked a lot, because I tend to be someone who can contribute unusual facts or insight on whatever topic a casual conversation turns to, and I never know how to answer because "I pay attention" sounds rude and isn't super actionable. but that is really it, I just take an active interest when I encounter something curious or unusual.
like recently one of my friends linked me a funny paragraph from a very badly written erotic novel. it was so bad that I thought "I wonder if this is real", so we looked up the book it was from and learned it was a vintage horny housewife type story by someone who wrote a lot of shitty cheap porn back in the 80s, all of which now seems to be completely out of print.
in the course of googling the author, I discovered that one of their works had been cited in a 2004 court case over a prisoner's right to keep erotic novels in his personal library after the prison confiscated them. a bit more googling turned up the case details in a legal database. the guy had received the books by mail and kept them, among others, in his cell. the prison seized them, citing a policy against prisoners having pornography. his lawyers argued that 1. erotic novels are distinct from pornography because they have artistic and expressive content beyond the depiction of sex acts, and 2. since he received them by mail they are therefore protected under his constitutional right to freely access non-disruptive information from outside the prison. I don't know if he got his books back, but he won his case.
then we googled the defendant and found out he was in prison for helping a woman to drug and murder his boss (who she lived with), mutilate the body with acid and dump him in a ravine.
anyway my point is, take an interest. that's how you learn weird stuff.
