maybe you should evaluate whether arbitrary societal norms of "professionalism" or something else are leading to you miss out on cool stuff

Do you ask everyone you meet?

Then you must be old. Even in western countries Spy x Family (which the character is from) has sold millions of copies, while most people read mangas online and won't be counted. In the country I am from I frequently see people wearing merch of it, mostly because Uniqlo has had a successful line of it. And that is just one manga/anime out of hundreds of popular ones.

Using anime characters is similar to boomer nerds referencing Marvel/DC comics , Star Wars etc.

Python (the language) is named after "Monty Python's Flying Circus" simply because Guido was reading the scripts at the time:

> When he began implementing Python, Guido van Rossum was also reading the published scripts from “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, a BBC comedy series from the 1970s. Van Rossum thought he needed a name that was short, unique, and slightly mysterious, so he decided to call the language Python.

The cartoon is literally pointing at contextually relevant information, and it's far more pleasant to follow than yet another big red arrow. That said, I would have enjoyed my reading a bit more if the author utilized a more diverse cast of characters.

Why does github use an octocat as its logo? It's unrelated to software development

Old hoagie is more of a mindset. Anyone of any age can be an old hoagie if they like, all one has to do is practice getting upset when one sees anime girls, believe in the coming AI apocalypse and use Emacs.