Any time somebody argues that you should avoid the use of obvious pop culture references and current slang in prose fiction in order to avoid “dating” the text, I’m reminded that our primary evidence for when several of Shakespeare’s plays were written is that their dialogue quotes specific pieces of contemporary popular media, and that there’s strong evidence many of the words he’s credited by modern authorities with inventing are literally just contemporary youth slang. Like, if it’s good enough for Shakespeare it’s good enough for me, buddy!
I have gotten so mad before, about how much BETTER Shakespeare’s writing would be if we didn’t have to have all the references explained to us.
Just imagine any pop-culture-reference-heavy book or movie or show that you enjoy, and try to think what it would be like with marginal notes explaining every reference to whoever didn’t get it
(in a time when literally no one could ‘get it’ organically and the only people who had any idea had to develop it through years of studying)
grrrRRRR