What's with all the dialog directed at the audience?

I felt like every other line of dialog was directed at the audience, rather than characters interacting with each other. Seriously, characters literally say "Warner Brothers told us we were going to make another The Matrix without us, so we had no choice," and in the context of the movie that's supposed to mean Thomas Anderson's video game called "The Matrix." Or "The Matrix [game] was a thinly veiled critique of capitalism, yo." "No no! It was actually a rejection of binary sexuality!" basically copying and arguably making fun of clickbait headlines from the meta discussion over the films.

I swear at one point a character looks at camera and says, "Wow Neo, I wasn't sure if fans would accept you with long hair and a beard, but it's totally working for me in this new The Matrix sequel!"