If they mention something that you’re not familiar with, e.g. an actor or a singer you don’t know or don’t know why they are being brought up, you could try asking them more follow up questions about it.

In the same way you enjoy sharing your interests with other people, other people also enjoy sharing theirs. If you show an interest in what they’re talking about, you might learn something interesting about a new topic and you would be able to more easily share something you know that is relevant to what they are talking about if you know more about their interests.

The idea that moderating slurs on an online forum is a stepping stone to an authoritarian hellscape really requires a special kind of brain worms