Why is that something that needs to be dealt with?

I am jealous of those people in some ways. They're probably much happier than I am.

so much of our culture is now based on media consumption, it's hard to avoid. too expensive to do anything but sit at home and watch TV

I guess movies etc can be a segue into talking about other topics. so if they talk about Furiosa you can bum them out by talking about the real climate apocalypse

Change the topic to older movies. Get recommendations. Pirate the recommended movies and watch them. Now you can talk about the older movies.

I have befriended several coworkers this way. People fucking love it when other people listen to their recommendations. And hey, sometimes the recommendations are good!

I say "Hi" to my coworkers and try to change the subject

Stare at them reproachfully every time they talk about the new Tay Tay album, or the new PS5 game.

I have some friends who are Disney adults, they made me watch Free Guy...

How do I tolerate it? I pretend to like it while I die inside... I'm profoundly unwell.

i used to be addicted to pop culture and to an extent probably still am

no one got through to me by curbing my pop culture addiction. i needed the gnawing, numb emptiness inside of me to grow beyond the joy a rebooted IP gave me. only then did i start caring about actually important shit

Fortunately I don’t run into them. My condolences.

Mostly envy

If they somehow have no grievances at all to agitate on, move onto more agitable targets to radicalize

This is pretty much every human being I see in person

What more is there to be excited about though?

There isn't much in the way of positive projects to get involved with that aren't 1) very personally dangerous or 2) hard to physically be involved with (for various reasons) or 3) by some group that is dodgy.