I'm an "elder millennial" about 5-15 years older than all my coworkers, who are between young millennial and Gen Z.
Work banter is very funny and I love just being around them but I find it quite often someone will say something random and I have no idea what they are talking about. Most of the time I will ask and they will super kindly explain the tweet or TikTok sound or Vine that it was from.
Sometimes this happens daily and I become self-conscious, so I just don't ask. My thinking is even if they explain, what's my response besides "Oh, I haven't seen that" and simply reminding the group over and over that I'm out of touch?
I'm not as chronically online as I used to be. Also, since everyone's algorithms are different I would have no idea how to catch up to all that knowledge anyway. I'm still on YT and TikTok a bunch but it's all tailored to my own interests. In addition, the speed of trend cycles and memes is pretty insane these days.
Does this happen to anyone else and do you have advice?