it comes out naturally
i have never given even the littlest of fucks about discussing it with friends if it's a relevant topic or bringing it up in appropriate situations. for example "what did you do this weekend?" "i honestly went to the pokemon world championships in DC." "really, tell me about that" or "hey what are you doing?" "nm, doing hw and playing pokemon" "huh? but you don't even have a ds out or something" "yeah it's a simulator, blah blah" or whatever. if it's a natural extension of a conversation it's entirely appropriate to bring up without any degree of fuss, and even if it's not, it's just like anything you do. if people are bringing up internet jokes in real life all the time, it's really irritating, regardless of the situation--reddit, LoL, whatever. if you do every once in a while, it's not a big deal, and if it's natural, it's natural.
everyone does nerdy shit and everyone has their hobbies. it doesn't matter if your hobby doesn't conform to what other people find "normal" as long as you're not hurting anyone. i've brought up pokemon a load of times and a lot of friends know i'm interested in it / play it competitively (or at least, when i was good enough to say that haha). granted, i don't explain it all that well so some people think i'm the next coming of christ with pokemon (and don't realize how large of a community it is) but that's another thing entirely.