I don’t know why I feel the need to articulate what I like or don’t like. Perhaps it’s so I can spend some time thinking about why I like the things I do.
In general, my tastes are pretty different from those of other people. I’ll see if I can explain why.
I’m also fully aware that it’ll be difficult for me to explain my weird tastes without sounding snobby, but that’s just the risk I’ll have to take.
Games
A few key criteria for me here:
- The game must not be changing drastically all the time.
- The game must not have too much randomness.
League of Legends breaks the first criterion, and games like PUBG break the second. So does Catan.
These other factors aren’t game-breakers, but are highly desired:
- The game rewards good technical skill.
- The game has a learning curve somewhere, either at the bottom or the top.
A pet peeve of mine is when a game seems like it will have transferable skills but doesn’t. I want my skillful aiming to count for something significant. I’m looking at you, Borderlands.
And generally, if a game’s too easy all around, I won’t have much fun with it, though those games don’t tend to exist. Most games have a learning curve somewhere, even if they’re easy to pick up from the start. Super Smash Bros. is a good example of that.
Movies
I’ve had too many instances when I’ve gone into a theater to expect greatness and have had an awful time. Therefore, I have created but two simple steps that will determine whether I watch a movie.
- Don’t watch anything in theaters (save for special occasions).
- If people are still talking about the movie a year after its release, I will go and watch it.
People are still talking about Interstellar (2014) and James Cameron’s Avatar (2009). I will watch them.
I’ve also just got a bias against movies that have more action than story, and will not enjoy them. If I want to spend an hour and a half witnessing explosions and killing, I’d rather play a video game, where at least I’ll be able to control where and when the explosions are happening.
Side note: I fell asleep during the first fifteen minutes of Wonder Woman (2017) and couldn’t figure out why she was being unrealistically stubborn the entire rest of the movie. Is that on me? There was no character development for the remaining two hours.
Shows
If it’s a sitcom, it has to be witty. Bonus points if it makes references to things in real life, but I understand that’s difficult because of timing / aging.
If I can predict the joke, it’s not funny to me, no matter how good the delivery.
Otherwise, I like shows with dark tones. Thrillers, horror (somewhat), complex relationships between people. Same thing as with movies: I like more story than action. This rules out most anime, though I believe anime is moving on a more mature trend.
Music
Hoo boy. I think this requires a post in itself.
tl;dr
I don’t know how to summarize this. The best one-sentence summary I can come up with is:
- I prefer to consume media that require me to pay active attention to what I am consuming.
But that’s leaving out a lot. I like being surprised, I don’t like a ton of repetition, and I’m always wary of what’s popular at the time.
Stay tuned for the post about my music tastes. It’s the one I’ve thought the most about, and the one I’m finding hardest to articulate.
If you haven’t thought about why you like what you do, I’d highly recommend it. This entire month has been a wild ride.
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