@epidiah I know the feeling. When I started high school, there was a big Nirvana-Revival. Everybody was wearing T-Shirts and stuff, so I wanted nothing to do with that band.
@epidiah I have a couple of friends where I have to measure the amount of hype I need to communicate for them to actually look at it like a medical professional administering morphine. If I am casual about it, they'll think it doesn't fit their taste or forget about it moments later, if I recommend it too much they'll make it their mission to avoid it and everything the thing has ever touched.
@epidiah Also sounds like avoiding stepping into an echo chamber. Someone recommends you something and it’s likely you’ll be biased in searching for the good in it rather than being more critical. Not reading it while everyone else is gives you that space or time to make sure you’re not just one more recommendation in a line of recommendations.
@epidiah I think bracing against recommendations indicates a certain mindset - I have certainly come back to things years later and been like "this is amazing, why did nobody tell me about it?" when lots of people did in fact tell me about it. I've also picked things up that multiple people recommended and thought they were terrible - multiple people recommended Dragonlance, for example.
The real gold, for me, is finding the people whose recommendations I like and ignoring the rest.