I remember this kid in highschool that, when I asked what was his favorite movie or TV shows, he said he never really watched much stuff before. Like… I ask him about piracy, I forgot what he answered but it was something on the lines of “idk”, dude doesn’t have a netflix and never figured out piracy… So um… yea, strict parents sheltering him… I guess… so that’s why we never really “clicked”.
To be fair, I wasn’t exactly the most outgoing person, but like I could do some amount of random conversations, I know common topics to talk about.
To me, shared experience is always an easy ice breaker. Stuff like mainstream media is a quick win. And yeah, sometimes if people are a bit more underground or indie as far as their media is concerned grants them an image of having a distinct personality, but that usually only works if they’re socially strong and have other stuff they can connect with other people over.
I’m not saying you should consume anything that gets promoted massively, but keeping an eye on what’s popular and seeing if anything floats your boat might give you an easier time striking up a conversation with someone.
I used to be really dismissive of anything with a huge advertising budget. If something gets promoted everywhere all the time, it’s unlikely I’d give it a chance. Somehow I felt more interesting than others because of this. Turns out you’re not, people lose interest really quickly when they can’t talk to you about anything.