How to make peace with being too old to understand cultural references

This past week, we've been treated to a new Taylor Swift single, a new Taylor Swift video, and a thorough analysis of why she's made every life choice she's made.

Which is important if, like me, you actively care about celebrity feuds, celebrity rebrands, and celebrity inventions.

However, if you do not, your age and impending mortality will never feel more obvious than when you're suddenly faced with the realities of Look What You Made Me Do and the VMAs that showcased it.

So for all you darling olds, here is a guide to making peace with the end of your journey as a cultural critic. Your days of pretending to care about which girl group or boy band broke up are officially over, and the onus of explaining anything to anyone has now been lifted off you forever.

After these steps.

1. Admit that you don't care

Admit it to yourself, admit it to those around you: you could not care less. You could absolutely care more. At some point you cared a lot, but you can't recall the specific feeling, much like trying to summon the strength to do anything you did between the ages of 16 and 24. Close your laptop with a revelatory "I don't care!" and nod to yourself with newfound purpose.

2. Acknowledge your irrelevance

It's okay. It's fine. However, few people will want to hang out with you at a restaurant on Oscar Night or interact with your tweets about whatever-it-is-you're-on-about. It's lovely that you want to share your feelings about your favourite Radiohead song on the same night as the VMAs, Twin Peaks, and Game of Thrones finale, but in the same way you don't care about Katy's performance with Nicki Minaj, none of us care about anything you have to say.

Which is fine. In the immortal words of the spoken-word performance from She's All That: be silent, be still. Take solace in knowing you needn't engage with social media for the next 48 hours. Sleep soundly knowing that you don't have to make the "sportsball" jokes nobody needs.

3. Embrace your anger about feeling left out

It's normal: in the wake of personal liberation, one must also come to terms with the end of an era. Which, admittedly, is lonely and terrible, particularly when you want to be included but will not be because you've chosen not to invest your time and space in anything we're talking about.

But don't deny this part of your journey. Express your frustration by yell-announcing that there are "other things going on in the world." Tweet passive aggressively that you don't care what everybody is tweeting about, while betraying the fact that you're still reading our tweets. Comment on the statuses of members of fandoms, claiming that you did something other than watch the TV show they're all watching. Have the online equivalent of a temper tantrum in the Walmart candy aisle, knowing you should go home to nap but that you won't until it's acknowledged what a good person you are.

4. Fake your way through a conversation long after the fact

Much like the denial stage of grieving, tell yourself that it isn't too late. That, like George Costanza quitting his job and showing up to it the next day, nobody will remember your rant about how much you don't care about Westworld. So this is where you sidle up to the water cooler, to the online space, to your coworker's desk, and ask what he thought about last night's episode. You do not commit to an opinion. You nod, you say, "interesting." You feel a part of yourself die, trying to recall the details of a recap you hurriedly read on the bus into work. You scan your coworkers' faces for recognition, for how impressed they are at your insight.

You go home and listen to Swish Swish, wondering if it's really about Taylor Swift, and wondering why it's so bad.

5. Calmly accept your new phase of life

There's a moment after a layoff, after a breakup, after a funeral, where you reconcile who you are with who you used to be. You reflect on and confront the parts of yourself that bred admissions, acknowledgements, and even avoidance. But then you realize you are strong –that, unlike me, you do not care about famouses. You simply do not have the energy to comb through a celebrity's latest single, or take sides in the midst of a Twitter feud. You are fine with your NPR podcast and the new episode of Radiolab. You only want to tweet about food now. Maybe you'll get around to Big Little Lies or that kids' show, Riverdale. Maybe you'll do it for Luke Perry.

But either way, you are finally a Proper Old™. You have left our world and moved onto one rich in bootcut jeans and flannel button-ups. Your shoes are sensible, your watch counts how many steps you take. You ask your young neighbours to keep it down while you sip your artisanal craft beer. When Taylor Swift's new song comes on, you think it's fine. You think Katy Perry is 23. You wish Better Call Saul was more like Breaking Bad. We no longer follow each other on Twitter.

You are free.

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