I will answer that in hope that you will rethink your ways and benefit as a fellow human being. Jokes and references to a popular culture are ways of interacting with others that are less formal than in give-and-take relationships.

Agreed.

People probably do that from the inception of the civilization. Categorizing that as cringe perhaps is not off-mark in some settings, but calling out people on that is not mere categorization - it is means to put others down.

It is not off-mark here as also evidenced from the only other commenter, who was as baffled as myself about what that meant. As for the “means to put others down”, that’s purely your inference. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Some people with fragile ego may take that to heart and stop interacting in a playful manner in fear of being called out.

Yes, that’s precisely you in this whole interaction.You did something that you yourself admitted as being potentially cringey, got called out on it, and then instead of soaking it up and moving on, decided to be passive-aggressive (and continue to do so) and call people "asshole"S who wish to “put others down”. By that token, no amount of interaction beyond passive-aggressive echo-chambered rote comments would be possible in such a setting, not real interactions. Get over yourself.

That results in two things: a good taste for joke has no space to be developed (the more we try, the better we do),

By whose measure? Yours? So others’ opinions on how tasteful (or tasteless) a joke is has no import whatsoever? Nonsense.

and the overall culture suffers from making the casual speech dull.

The irony.

That’s why I’ve called you an asshole.

No, you called me an asshole because you were upset by that comment, and decided to be a passive-aggressive twat instead of being a normal human being.

That said, I really hope that you will think about it sincerely. Cheers.

Not at all. This road of idiocy has led, quite literally, to the end of Western civilisation (well, whatever bits of it could be called a “civilisation”). I will not indulge in such fetid and insipid modes of a joke of a communication. You are, presumably, an adult. Learn to act and behave like one. That’s all.