> You’re not wrong, but these are mostly untenable solutions at present.

In the past, it was a lot worse. There was a lot more "shared culture" that seemingly everyone tuned in to, that you kind of had to grin and bear. If you didn't know what happened on Seinfeld last night (90s), or on the Simpsons (2000s), or Game of Thrones (2010s), then you really had nothing to talk about at the water cooler. Nowadays, there really isn't much popular stuff that -everyone- watches, so it's easier than ever to drop that popular stuff.

A sticky notable exception is still national sports. There's still so much shared pop culture in knowing what the local city's Sportsball team sportsed about during last night's game that you have to kind of put up with if you want to socialize at the water cooler.