@Background Pony #492F
That’s true, but as the corpus of the canon grows, the ‘exploring’ becomes more and more about the finer points. If you don’t give any guidance at all, people won’t be able to even engage at the surface level if the canon is too large.

This is not even exclusive to a fandom. Actual businesses does this.

lurk moar

That’s like asking an old man for the secret to wisdom, and he tells you to pay attention and listen to others.  
“But that doesn’t tell me anything, I need to know right now.”
 
The point is you’re supposed to pay attention and maybe do a little legwork yourself, lurking is part of the culture and you’re refusing to assimilate. Know Your Meme and Encyclopedia Dramatica exist, so do screencap threads and oldfag threads.
 
The other point is, because there is no account history tracking or forum ratings, the only way to distinguish yourself is with the knowledge in your post. It’s also a form of insider identification, but nobody knows you’re a newfag who hasn’t adopted the culture if you aren’t posting. Go beg for Reddit gold and see how far that gets you.

Reddit tier meme

@Background Pony #2F22  
This.

I fully agree to chryssie. Im 2013 oldfag, the hive was save and wonderful

@Background Pony #2F22  
And i don’t know, watch the show?

…yeah pretty much.
 
I got into the fandom relatively late (mid-season 6) so a lot of fandom references make no goddamn sense to me.
 
Case in point : @Background Pony #2F22  
There is over 190000 pictures tagged “screencap” on Derpibooru. Even if only 1/100th of them get passed around, NO ONE is learning that fandom from 1900 screencaps.

I learned a lot about the fandom like this:  
https://www.derpibooru.org/search?q=*&sf=created_at&sd=asc  
(and pressing “Next”)

They’re supposed to lurk and absorb the culture through osmosis, context clues and the hundreds of screencaps floating around. It’s not even hard if you have any grey matter between your ears.