It was September 2011 and I had recently returned from China after living there for 2 years. I had just started working at the adult learning centre and I had a meeting at our Continuing Education head office about a 15 minute drive away. A few minutes into the drive the radio announcer started taking about the Kardashian family. I listened out of interest about who these people might be, and out of shock that there could be a tv show about these people’s ridiculous lives.

I arrived at the centre and after walking into the office with 4 secretaries I had only met a few times, I asked, “Can one of you help me out with something? Who are the Kardashians, and why do I want to keep up with them?” This got a laugh, but not a response. I had to add, “No, really… I’ve been in China for a couple years, I have no idea who they are?”

Their answer didn’t help me. I was completely unaware of this pop culture reference and Bruce Jenner was the only name I had any connection to. Admittedly, I never ended up watching the show, and still don’t really know who they are beyond the name Kim, and that Bruce is now Caitlyn.

I think of this now because I’ve noticed that today there seems to be more and more pop culture references that I don’t get. I don’t watch TV, my Twitter network is mostly educators, and the Facebook and TikTok algorithms know that I’m a 50+ year old dad. I am shielded by an information wall that hides many new pop culture reference. I see memes that reference people I don’t know. I hear names I have to Google. I hear words that don’t mean anything to me.

How good are the algorithms? When I go on TikTok I don’t see a single teenager dancing, but (very) occasionally I see a mom doing the moves their kids do. The only place they get me wrong is that I have to tell them (using the ‘I’m not interested’ feature) to keep creators telling bad dad jokes away.

So it’s not easy keeping up with the modern day Kardashians. The newest cultural references seem to change weekly, and despite not living in a foreign country, I feel like I am missing out on what’s going on in the different and fast changing world. This is especially true with hit songs that seem to get popular on TikTok. They are what we used to call ‘one hit wonders’. Artists who catch a wave of likes thanks to a single use of their song in a TikTok that explodes in popularity, and then the song hits the pop charts. This isn’t always an unknown artist, one 1-minute video brought Fleetwood Mac back to the top of pop charts.

By the time I’ve heard and recognized that it’s a thing, the cultural reference or song is usually almost at the end of its life. So it seems that I’m at an age where I will always be behind and catching up. This realization isn’t going to change what I do going forward, it’s just interesting that a decade ago I had to be literally on the other side of the world to be left in the pop culture dark… And now it seems like a weekly thing, simply because my social media consumption is based on algorithms that are completely different than a younger generation.