I cannot describe the visceral level of aversion I have to mainstream shit. It doesn’t matter if the show is the best thing on earth, if the general public knows about it (And I don’t mean the internet I mean the general public) then I refuse to watch or partake in it. I have no idea why and it genuinely kills me to be like this and I have no idea why.
It prevents me from joining most fandoms nowadays unless the fandom is super niche. Things like Hotel Hazbin, Star Wars, The Office, K-pop (in general), Kpop Demon Hunters, most popular anime… WHY. WHY AM I LIKE THIS?? Is anyone else like this? Even people just mentioning “Oh yeah I love One Piece, you should watch it sometimes” makes me go “Oh fuck nah I’m good” as if the damn show was a personal insult. I feel like a stuck-up prick when I do this but I genuinely can’t control it, why???
No one will really be able to answer that question but you, but other people can make suggestions for consideration that may help you find the answer. I would suggest spending time with the feeling and approaching it like a puzzle. Is your repulsion to a thing proportional to it’s popularity or does it not make a difference until it reaches some threshold? What in your mind makes a thing popular? Does it make a difference if you found out it was only popular with people you know but not popular in the larger community? What about the inverse? Do you care about what is popular to other distant cultures/languages that you will probably never interact with?
This may or may not lead to you finding the answer of “why”, but it can help you better understand the dimensions of your personal quirk.