No doubt. I'm sure it was. I just think it was also a genuinely useful indicator of exactly which reporters aren't/ don't have access to people with general knowledge of the subject and that more people should make jokes like it for that reason.

"Truth and heroic goodness through meme knowledge," seems as morally and intellectually bankrupt to me as Ivy leaguers on Mad Men using preppy/main-line subculture as a proxy for ability. Knowing about memes only says something about where you hang out online. It's the same sort of proxy for actual ability or trustworthiness as being a member of the right country club. Such proxies can work, but they depend highly on particular circumstances. The company town residents in Matewan using Bible verse knowledge as an impromptu code uses the same principle. This is not evaluating character from first principles! It's trusting a label! It's knowing that one group has a bit of information that another does not. However, we of the Internet era should know how rapidly and irrevocably this can change.

(Actually, a good test for whether someone has A-lister perception is to see if they can see past their own prejudices.)

I've never seen Mad Men, but your comparison seems at least a little unfair. In this case, knowledge of the particular meme or participation in the culture that created it is not necessary. A complete stranger to internet jokes, who happened to be at least generally acquainted with the technologies being discussed, could very easily identify Snowden's claim as a joke (or at least something very odd and worth investigating) whether or not they had been exposed to the original meme. "Seven proxies" should make your eyebrow raise whether or not you're aware of the original joke.

In fairness, the line was delivered deadpan, and I couldn't make out any laughter from the audience in the recording. I chuckled to myself.

Now I'm curious as to how it actually worked.