Wow. You just argued that references to Indiana Jones, Star Trek, and Doctor Who isn't obnoxious low-effort crap, as if they weren't shoehorned in to every possible situation by legions of idiots with no imagination just as much as any other meme. That's like saying that referencing Monty Python and the Holy Grail when you're playing a tabletop RPG is fresh and inspired. And that's terrible.
That's not what I said. I called the thing being referenced crap, not the reference itself.
Really? So DF is crap because of the shitty magma meme? Or are you talking about stuff that's wholly self-contained and self-referential like the Navy Seal copypasta, where calling the thing being referenced crap is functionally equivalent to calling the reference crap?
Not to mention that you're dodging the point. Why are shitty overplayed internet memes bad while shitty overplayed references to TV shows and movies are good? Both tend to be exclusionary and not particularly funny after the second or third time, never mind the two thousandth. Both are essentially social keys that help to bind in-groups together as part of shared culture. Neither are objectively bad, either, and mostly tend to be derided by people who aren't particularly self-aware but want to rag on an in-group that they don't think they belong to.
I meant references to internet culture are worse because they're generally references to low-effort crap that holds little value on its own. Stuff you very likely don't want to be reminded of (if only because you've seen it used better hundreds of times). Not that the references themselves make the thing they're referencing bad.
Also, I do not count a reference to a meme related to a game as a reference to the game itself. Throwing in "Leeroy Jenkins" is not a reference to WoW so much as it is a reference to a viral video of some guy screaming in an mmorpg. There's a difference between a Skyrim reference and an "arrow in the knee" reference. Mostly in that the latter cannot do anything other than repeat an overused joke, whereas the former can take any part of the referenced media and do something more subtle with it.
I did not say cultural references shoved in to the extent of FO2 are good either. It's just not as bad if it was internet references like it is in Borderlands, if only because it'd be mostly references to works of little to no effort (memes), questionable value, and way bigger overuse.