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.
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]”