A pet peeve of mine: Those memes where they say, “If you remember/get this pop cultural reference/lifestyle/article of technology, you’re old.” A variation is the insinuation that most people won’t get said pop cultural reference/article of technology.

We get it. You’re older. Things are different now. Younger people might not recognize the things we liked when we were their age.

But, unexpectedly, some might. I was listening to the Byrds, Donovan, and Steppenwolf when I was a kid, and those were way before my time. Don’t assume that you’re different than them because you rode your bike without a helmet and didn’t die. You’re not better because you can use a rotary phone. Helmetless riding is dangerous, and rotary phones were obnoxious.

I get nostalgia. I think there’s way too much of it, but I get it. Sometimes I feel like grabbing people my age by the shoulders and saying, “Remember dot matrix printers?” I don’t think I’m superior because I had to tear off the sheets, one-by-one, and those strips with the holes in them. Remember them? They were so wasteful. Did you ever make springy things out of them? I did, all the time. Printers are so much better now, but without the springy things.

Knowing this hiccup in the march of technological progress is kind of like being in a secret club with millions upon millions of members. I understand how that feels. But the smug winking of these memes really annoys me.