Sure it does, such a joke is often called absurdist or surrealist humor. Quite popular on Twitter.

Anyway, I think that is a lot more likely than some obscure cultural reference that we’re expected to parse in the middle of musing about digital mapping.

No, it’s clearly a joke - it made me laugh! It doesn’t need another reference point because the claim’s very existence is a reference to people’s reticence to admit their own age (due to vanity) or fear (of facing one’s mortality). That has been a common point of humor for ages (pun also intended).

As bizarre as this may sound to your generation there are, in fact, such things as standalone jokes.