Have You Experienced Things??

[littlelum]

I've been fortunate enough to not experience hostility for being out of the loop. Mainly because I simply keep quiet. Usually, when people find out, they just get excited that they tell someone about their interest without getting a "yeah, I already know" in response.

What counts as pop culture is different for everyone, so there is no reason to require someone to experience a piece of media. Getting angry at someone for being out of the loop is very irrational. After all, for every loop that they think they are in, there are infinitely more that they have no idea that they're out of.

Trying out mainstream stuff has value, but it should always be from a place of curiosity, never fear or obligation. I'd argue that experimenting is important, since I've learned the hard way that sticking to close to what's familiar can lead to some bad burnout.

As for Risk of Rain, my former roommate plays it occasionally. It's one of those XBOX games where you play as a group (or solo) and try to survive as long as you can. Sessions usually take a really long time for him, since he's super into competitive XBOX stuff. I can see its appeal, but its definitely not my cup of tea.

Out of all the media you mentioned in the OP, I've only really experienced Alladin, and Kurt's Smells Like Teen Spirit.

[lakes]

I've also had this a couple of times. Usually, it's my brother making fun because I don't know a meme, a well known fact about a game, or sometimes just the name of the meme. This happened with Wojak where I knew of it but did not know what it was called because it's not like anyone captions it "hey here's my new Wojak meme" y'know. But even then it's not like he's mad mad just that he thinks it's funny.
I also remember when I was in middle(?) school, some girl asked me if I liked Twilight, I said no and then she assumed I must like Harry Potter then and I didn't like that either. I only saw one Harry Potter movie when I was in class and was bored the entire time. I think a lot of people just assume everyone has the same knowledge of pop culture and interest in it as them. But you're not gonna be able to see every popular show or movie.
Hell, I'm not immune to this because I get surprised a little when someone genuinely doesn't like TV shows or movies. I remember one guy bragging about "not watching TV" but then being a big fan of some cartoons and anime as if that's not basically the same media from TV, just accessed online probably. So I used to assume everyone who said they didn't like TV much were like that for a while. But it turned out that some people just prefer reading books or doing their hobbies and aren't actually "bragging" per se.

[citizenalex]

I've had similar experiences of not being up on what is considered "in" for the cultural moment. As I get older, and deal with people my age, I get less of the "what do you mean you never saw..." and more just acceptance with kind of a quizzical look. Or an explanation of what I'm missing. I'm genuinely not that interested in a lot of what passes for popular culture. But one thing I've figured out is that "small talk" or talking about these cultural items does have useful function in that it helps ease initial social connection. So, I try to keep up just enough to at least know what people are talking about.