Nah this shit is super common, I’ve had plenty of people online and in real life do this with video games, movies, etc.

People know their own tastes, and with the amount of media available they probably already have a backlog of their own things.

Like, not to slam anybody who hasn’t seen Parasite, but the type of person to really like it has probably already at least heard of it, if not seen it.

I don’t think it has anything to do with the quality of your recommendations. People have limited time. With Avatar - you are asking that someone commit to 3 seasons of a children’s show that they probably already understand the gist of through its place in culture.

From their perspective - I think in the moment it sounds exciting to get a recommendation and feel like you’ll definitely make time for it but then you get home and it’s the next day and you’d rather spend your limited time on your own stuff.

I’m sorry that they aren’t reciprocating but unfortunately there really isn’t a solution here. This will be the case with the vast majority of recommendations your whole life. I wouldn’t read too much into it.

Entirely normal. It doesn’t matter how good your recs are most people already have a plan of what they want to do already. Unless someone is bored and looking for something to engage in recs will not be heard like ever. c/music is manifestation of this

People just don’t want to consume your shit, but are stuck in some bullshit white lies social pleasantries that NTs love to play instead of cutting through the bullshit and just saying, “I’m not interested lol.”

Why they are not interested could be for a plethora of reasons:

1. They have pleb tastes and can only find joy in consuming the lowest of lowest denominator slop.

2. They think you have pleb tastes and look down on you for consuming lowest denominator slop while consuming pretentious shit that they can barely force themselves to enjoy.

3. They have a massive backlog that they feel anxiety just thinking about and they’re barely holding it together only for you to add to an ever-expanding backlog.

4. They have no free time whatsoever and use the very little free time they can ration to choose the completely safe option by going on a pure nostalgia trip consuming the same work for the 200th time because they know that they’ve enjoyed the work the 199 times they consumed it meaning they probably will enjoy the work when they consumed it for the 200th time.

I haven’t consumed any of your recommended works and I probably won’t. Here are my reasons why:

• Avatar: The Last Airbender
  Everything I’ve read about the series point to an orientalist (in the not-necessarily-pejorative artistic sense where different Asian cultural motifs gets smashed together not the pejorative political sense about the so-called superiority of Western civilization over the inscrutable Orient) work created by white people who don’t understand Asian cultures. Their politics are not very good either and while most critiques say that the first series hid their trash politics better than the sequel, it doesn’t lead me wanting to give the series a chance.

• The Tatami Galaxy
  Overall, I’m just not into anime. The trailer and Wikipedia article doesn’t have anything jump out that I would be interested in. The art looks cool I guess.

• Parasite
  Everything about this movie point to capitalist recuperation where the proles get their release valve movie about how capitalism sucks before going back to their cages. I really don’t want to see a movie about how a worker and his family get immiserated by some rich assholes. I mean, if I wanted to hear about workers being immiserated by rich assholes, I just need to talk to my coworkers. And reading the plot summary of the movie honestly killed any interest I have in seeing the movie. At basic level, any anti-capitalist work must have the rich be eaten somewhere in the work for it to actually count as an anti-capitalist work. And that’s bare minimum. Better anti-capitalist works show us the means and methods in which the rich finally eat shit at the hands of the working class.

• Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan
  This one is probably the most interesting one, but reading the author’s background makes me think the work is going to massively informed by his scholarly work, if not a full polemic about whether message he wants to spread. It’s very hard to not suspect he has modern Coptic Christians in mind as one of the factions or he sets up the theological dispute that is only truly resolved with Islamic theology. I would rather read his scholarly work except everything he wrote would fly over my head, meaning I would probably need to read multiple books like an intro to Coptic Christianity, an intro to Islamic philosophy, the Quran, and so on before I can even engage with his scholarly work, which would then provide me the context in which to consume his fictional work.

I suppose this is the reason why NTs just lie and say they will consume them when they won’t lol

I thought I could read English, then I watched tatami galaxy.

I think you have good recs, people just take/give reccomendations as formality with no meaning behind it. I’ve been trying to get my best friend to watch a show, I know she’ll love, for years. Don’t take it personally and keep reccomending hits

my boss and my coworker are both like this lmao.

they give me an endless list of bullshit “you have to watch” but the few times i recommend anything to them they never get around to it. and whats even more annoying is after they recommend shit to me they’ll ask me for weeks on end “did you watch it yet?” til i finally do.

unless it’s something that sounds genuinely interesting now i just say “oh all my time is taken up by playing thru the mass effect trilogy rn”

There’s just a giant overabundance of media options nowadays and everyone is “driving in their own media lane” nowadays, they all already have long lists of stuff they are already planning on watching. Make plans to consume experience whatever media you’d like to share with them together, that’s the only thing that works.

Some things I’ve learned about recommending media is mostly learning to find the connection. Two of your recommendations here are anime, for instance. In my experience, people are either into it or they are not (I’m not). So you can recommend anime to me for days and I’m going to politely put it off. I’m sure it’s good but it is just not for me.

Another one is that books are very personal and the taste for fiction especially is something that is hard get people to get into. I can recommend good books for days but what do I know about your preferences for certain tropes or archetypes, pacing, style of story-telling, and so on. I tend to avoid recommending books without knowing deeply what the other person is into and then I try to keep my recommendation somewhat safe; nothing too long. So if you recommended me that Azazeel book I’d like that it is short but the subject matter? Yeah I could not me any less interested in it whatsoever. I’m sure the book is good for people who like that sort of thing but based on it’s description I’m not going to dedicate hours of reading to it.

As for movies I don’t really watch them so I can’t help there all I can say is I tell people regularly I don’t watch many movies and I haven’t seen hardly any of the Marvel movies (zero Avengers stuff) and yet they insist that I should and recommend me their favorite Marvel movie. Look, I’m not unaware of their existence, I’m just not interested. So I nod and say, “maybe I’ll check it out if I find the time” knowing full well I have no intention to. You know what I like to watch? Historical Chinese dramas with my wife. You know what most people are uninterested in? That. So I don’t recommend anything unless they ask because insisting someone watch an 80 episode series that takes place in the restrictive Forbidden City of the Qing Dynasty in a language that will require subtitles the entire time is a big ask.

The fact that you’re willing to do this for other people is proof enough that you’re wonderful tbh, I bet you’re a kickass buddy and/or partner

hey, tatami galaxy is actually pretty rad

tatami galaxy? Avatar? Parasite? Oh wow, I already watched these, and they were all really good, my favourite is the tatami galaxy, especially their OST

I’ve seen 2 or 3 of those 4 recs, I wouldn’t say they’re bad, I enjoyed them all (though I will say, ATLA is long, Parasite is a bit niche because its horror, and the tatami galaxy is really made for a particular audience as well, so they aren’t exactly universal or bite size recs, but they aren’t unreasonable either).

But ultimately this is the fate of most recommendations in my experience too. there’s not a strong cultural norm of them being reciprocal, and people are often too wrapped up in their own little worlds, their own social media feeds, tiktoks, reels, doomscrolling, whatever, to really engage with long form content, let alone engage critically and come back with thoughts, especially for something that didn’t catch their fancy, just came recommended.

It’s sad but it’s true, and my opinion is that you should adapt to that new normal and not expect anything in return. sometimes you’ll find people who really want to engage with the same things you do and that’s great, but if its not a short little clip you can watch together or something you can describe or explain in the moment, then never assume they’ll go back home and spend hours of their free time on your rec. If you don’t make such promises, then you won’t be disappointed. You can still watch their recs, just don’t consider it a trade.

If your desire to discuss a thing is so strong, you need to find somewhere to discuss it with people that are already predisposed to watch it or have already seen it, maybe a club or forum or something. It can be frustrating to have nobody to talk about this stuff with, but at least take solace in the fact that its nothing personal.

If you can find it in your heart at this point, this is a really good place to not take it personally. I have really good friends who never take my recommendations. There are all sorts of good recommendations for activities, media, business deals, and advice (solicited or otherwise) that we’re all ignoring all the time. Personally, as a rule of thumb, if someone asks to be taught something, I agree but don’t go out of my way until they follow up because the likelihood it falls through is that high.

The whole schtick behind (good) sales is trying to push people into saying for themselves why it’s important that they get a product and why they want it. They make the process behind desire into a wretched sith-like art. "What’ll happen if you don’t watch Avatar and all your friends want to talk about it? "

Taking recommendations makes you a good friend. And it’s a special thing for those with eyes to see. Part of my career at the CIA monitoring leftists who post too good has been seeing people who would benefit (profit) easily and obviously who seem interested simply become unresponsive. We’ve had a dozen ideas fall through.

I think most people take ‘recommendation’ to mean endorsement like a little thumbs up that you put next to a given book/show/movie. As in ‘person x said this show was good, I’ll keep it in mind’ rather than ‘person x said this is good, I’ll add it to the top of my list’.

I get ‘recommended’ stuff by people, unprompted, all the time. Stuff I can’t even watch because I don’t have any streaming platforms (I watch occasionally at my parents’ place). Or games I can’t play because I don’t own that console, or don’t want to pay or go to the effort of pirating.

If everyone chased up on their reccos after giving them I would be pissed off, if I watched everything everyone recommended also wouldn’t have time to do any of the other things I do other than watching/consuming media.

I think it also goes when people are asking for recommendations, they aren’t taking a single recco as a straight up ‘this is going on my list’ rather they may be crowdsourcing, and then putting things higher on the list they hear more frequently.

Also, people may receive a recommendation, do further independent research about it and decide it’s not for them, in which case that’s fine too.

Sooo many people do that. I only give people recommendations when I think it aligns with their other interests and they still don’t budge. I have given up. People want the same slop they’ve been into since the get go. The stupid fucking white lies are so annoying too.

It’s the same type of person who doesn’t want to seem caught out when you ask them if they have seen a TV show or movie and they respond “bits and pieces”. I’m not saying it’s not possible for someone to have only seen “bits and pieces” but if you don’t think you’re going to know why I’m bringing it up, just say “no. I haven’t seen enough of whatever you’re talking about to get the reference or whatever”. I only ask so we can further the conversation. I didn’t ask if you happened to walk through a room while Priscilla queen of the Desert was on and saw three seconds of it.

I already limit my engagement about pop culture to the bare minimum with other people, but damn I wish once a year I would find someone who knows where I’m coming from. Not just for the above reasons, but I’ve kind of stopped being friends with people like that. If we can’t talk about music or movies, what’s left? I don’t want to always be talking about heavy stuff with friends and I don’t want to just spend an evening in silence sitting around a campfire drinking beer. I could do that alone and not have to be “on”.

People don’t have a lot going on anymore aside from their entertainment, and if that doesn’t line up, then I don’t know what to do with them. At least my good friends like to play tabletop board games. We can bond over that.