People should be free to study what they want, and they usually don't get to. That's because school is about learning obedience to authority figures for your future supervisor. Not learning.
Don't blame teachers for this institutional failure.
Funnily during my college, one of our lecturer is "cool" by adding some funny memes on certain hard part of lecture. Can say it helps for some people to remember as learning can be fun too and to keep everyone relaxed.
But yes if you're trying to meme so hard with 10 years old of meme, and then the audience does not understand them, it does feels awkward for some people, like who does rage comic panel in 2023?