I see it as a weird sort of Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)
half advice, mostly lore dump of how I deal with this
this is awful so I do not recommend, but extreme social withdrawal to the point where I don’t know what’s popular anymore helped me personally with this lol
I think staying off corporate social media and sort of avoiding fandom spaces does most of the work of making something less intimidating or avoiding the feeling of I’m too good for it, because I don’t see any of the fanfare
I also stopped watching YouTube video essays of tv and games I haven’t watched/played (and altogether tbh)
I try to get minimal external stimulus of any media until I’m ready for it and seek it out on my own
[Switching to second person instead first person phrasing, but the second person is vague and mostly about my experience and not entirely directed at OP]
also not passing off everyone as a normie, if you’re talking to them you’re on the same boat as them in some way
everyone is as worthy of being heard out as you are, it would suck to give an earnest recommendation only for it to be discounted
liking things is fantastic and you deserve to like things too!
it’s not a race, there is no contest
I see it as a weird sort of Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)
half advice, mostly lore dump of how I deal with this
this is awful so I do not recommend, but extreme social withdrawal to the point where I don’t know what’s popular anymore helped me personally with this lol
I think staying off corporate social media and sort of avoiding fandom spaces does most of the work of making something less intimidating or avoiding the feeling of I’m too good for it, because I don’t see any of the fanfare I also stopped watching YouTube video essays of tv and games I haven’t watched/played (and altogether tbh)
I try to get minimal external stimulus of any media until I’m ready for it and seek it out on my own
[Switching to second person instead first person phrasing, but the second person is vague and mostly about my experience and not entirely directed at OP] also not passing off everyone as a normie, if you’re talking to them you’re on the same boat as them in some way everyone is as worthy of being heard out as you are, it would suck to give an earnest recommendation only for it to be discounted liking things is fantastic and you deserve to like things too! it’s not a race, there is no contest