I don't mean this in any way to be condescending, but it sounds like your question could he rephrased as "How do you make small talk about something other than media consumption?"

And the answer to that question is to have interests outside of consuming media. Not only does it give you other things to talk about, it gives you other people to talk to.

Outside of that, in a more general sense, it isn't hard to just prompt people to tell you about whatever they are into. You can literally just be like "So what are you into?" And let people just tell you point blank what they like talking about. From there it's super easy to just keep them rolling along with questions like "how'd you get into THING?" or "that sounds cool, what's a good way to get started in THING?".

Everyone has SOMETHING they're super into, so just get them to talk about it. It doesn't have to interest you at all - it's just cool to hear people talk about what they're into - and it gives you a lot of insight into whether or not they're the kind of person you want to get to know better just from how they talk about their interests.

There was a meme or tweet or ex or whatever that went around a while back that asked something like, "People who 'don't do small talk', do you just go home and say 'Hi honey, I'm home, do you think free will is real?'"

Or something like that.

And I saw that, and then got in the car with my partner of 20+ years and we talked about the epistemic behaviors of antivax groups vs. people with dementia.

Like, I don't know how the fuck to get on with people who don't want to talk about ideas and only want to talk about politicians or movie stars or butts.

But I think that's probably okay. The world is big enough for both gossip-fuckers and philosophuckers.

The trick is that you don't have to like the same thing as someone else to relate to them. Humans are really good at relating to things in general. Talk about what you're interested in, and definitely ask about what the other person is interested in.

Talking about pop culture isn't meant to be the end-all-be-all of getting to know someone, it's really just a quick filler conversation for if you want to catch up with someone but don't have the time to hold a long conversation.

It depends what you're trying to get out of it. If you're trying to relate with them then you can't really force that and you'd just have to try and steer conversation and hope to strike gold on a few things you might like in common.

But yeah, if you don't know if their interests match yours it turns into a prompting, then listening, then replying game. You conversate or ask about something general, maybe something going on around you, or something that is happening in current events, or hey, maybe you can even mention some pop culture release you haven't experienced, and ask them if they have.

If they have, then they'll tell you so and you can enquire about what they like about it, or if they don't like it, and you don't like it either, bam, relatable. If you ask about more general stuff then you can always make it more relatable by telling your experience when they've finished sharing theirs. You could ask if they paint, and if they do you can learn about it and follow up by saying you've never tried it or that you have and you're terrible, or whatever.

And then, of course, calling back to things they've mentioned previously shows you're a good listener and will get them to like you. Something like if they mention spending time with their mom recently, the conversation continues into other areas, you can later use that to pivot if the conversation dead ends by recalling, "so do you get to spend time with your mom often?" Mine doesn't live around here/I do all the time, too/what have you.

I don't.

IRL, I speak mostly in obscure TV and movie quotes and turn everything into a joke.