I’m still not sure if that’s exactly how I want to put that question, but it’s the best that comes to mind at the moment. This isn’t asked as though you’re totally oblivious to or avoidant of pop culture (see defining terms), but closer to like maybe someone on a casual diet or something.
defining terms
For the purposes of this post I mean pop culture in the mostly literal sense of popular culture, so box office hit movies, big sports events, major album releases, big budget video games, etc.
It seems kind of hard to figure out how or what to relate to people with if it isn’t through questions like, “Hey did you see [the game/recent big movie/etc.]?” or other times like, “Do you play or have you played [major game release]?”
You don’t want to kill the conversation before it’s even started, but it can be almost unavoidable when opened like that and you haven’t yet experienced that bit of pop culture or whathaveyou. It gets a little more clunky if you may have (a little) and you didn’t really click with it, but at least there’s a little more room for conversation then.
You’re good, that was sort of a variation on how I considered phrasing the question. Another form of the question in my head was something like, “How do you relate to others when your interests tend to be niche” or something in that vein, because your advice is solid for an avid pop culture fan, but it only kinda gets to the other side of this with asking about others’ interests and having other interests beyond following media.
Part of the reason I asked this was less to do with my interests only revolving around pop culture & following media, and more to do with so many others’ interests seeming to do so, or at least that being the way some have tried to relate to me.
Talk less, listen more. You’d be amazed at what you find yourself getting interested in.
Fwiw offline I primarily listen, which is why I find it a little difficult to handle the talking part (sometimes literally, speaking is weird after an extended period of minimal speech!).
“Huh! That’s really interesting… [ask a follow up question]”