I was just about to comment on this, but in a different way. I'm 26, most of my friends are early-to-mid twenties, and all of them would get a Three Stooges ref

I was just about to comment on this, but in a different way. I'm 26, most of my friends are early-to-mid twenties, and all of them would get a Three Stooges reference, or at least know who they are. It almost always feels super condescending to say it like "if you're under..." as opposed to "if you don't know them, they were a staple of physical comedy and comedy of errors, you should definitely look them up". Definite "You wouldn't get it kid" vibes that I'm never a fan of. > it used to be that any society used to have fairly consistent cultural references that could be rely upon for analogies and such. I wouldn't agree with that, or at least I wouldn't put this nearly as recent as you make it sound. I think that idea fell away when we stopped having folk tales. In America, I would point to the fall of the tall tale, like Paul Bunyan or John Henry. As someone who grew up adjacent to Appalachia, story-telling was a big part of my cultural education. I think it's something I was to pass to my kids too. As a side note, in making this comment I came across the wikipedia page for "American Folklore" and it's actually a really interesting read. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Folklore_of_the_United_States https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Folklore_of_the_United_States