Internet culture outsider

I was in the car an hour ago, listening to an episode of the Vergecast, and I had a sudden realization: I am a cultural outsider. An internet culture outsider to be more precise. Which is weird considering my job is to make things that live on the Internet.

I can't remember at which point exactly but growing up there was a moment where TV was no longer a thing at my house. We just stopped watching TV programs and that was it. For years the TV was not plugged into cable, satellite, or an antenna. It was a screen, connected to consoles and a Blu-ray or DVD player. But during that process, I slowly fell out of "mainstream" culture. I remember hearing people chatting about popular TV shows and having no clue about what they were talking about. To this day, I still don't know and am not familiar with the vast majority of TV celebrities. Because TV is not a thing in my life.

But the internet, it was different. I'm spending hours upon hours of my life on the internet. I work on the internet. I create content for the internet. I became an adult with the internet. And I was sure that the internet was part of "my" culture. But guess what? I was wrong.

Listening to the podcast I couldn't stop myself from thinking "What are these people even talking about?". They were talking about trends on social platforms and TV series on streaming services, and I had no idea what was going on. But now I do know. The mainstream culture moved over to the internet and I am, again, falling out of it. And I'm fine with that.