Why Your Body Rejects “Popular” Games

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It's always funny how calling something "mid" is somehow more of an insult than calling it "bottom tier".

It's not just social media, just being online ruins my hype for games. Everywhere you see memes, secrets, clips of cutscenes and funny moments, bugs they found, etc etc etc. It completely ruins it for me. And if I somehow avoid all of that and play the game a few weeks after it comes out, all of a sudden it's old news or I get responded with headpats and oh you're just finding out now. Like if you don't partake when everyone else is, you completely missed out.

Bobs burgers of all shows has a really good episode about this phenomenon. Everyone gets obsessed about a game played over recess except for Gene, who ends up being really good at it, despite resisting the whole episode. He admits to liking it, but really, he’s just fine with doing his own thing at recess. Doing his own thing in his own spare time, regardless of what’s popular. I think when your spare time is spent genuinely enjoying something, everyone else cannot stop talking about something else, that’s when rejection settles in. It’s like everyone else is going off topic.

I worked as a marketing pro for small and medium businesses for a certain "social media company" and I can confirm this phenomenon is very well known. We aim to show people ads no more than three to four times, anything beyond is overexposure and drastically drops the likelihood of a purchase. Essentially, the more often you spam someone the less likely they are to buy your product.

I feel like your explanation of how intergroup threat creates toxic communities is right on the money. I noticed pretty much the same thing recently: that as soon as we start rooting for our favorite franchises/pieces of art like they’re sports teams, nuance dies.

"Suddenly that hidden vista becomes a bustling resort overrun with tourists." I get such feelings when I compare the internet before and now...

I don't remember the last time I had this with a video game, but I experienced this phenomenon with Breaking Bad. To this day I have not watched a single minute of that show, despite people telling me how amazing it is and constantly pestering me to go watch it. I feel there is an element to this where your exposure to the thing has to be voluntary. You have to be excited about the show/game or whatever yourself first before interacting with others who are just as excited. When people try to infect you with their excitement it can either work or turn them off completely.

It's not my body that rejects popular games. It's my wallet.

Something I felt wasn't mentioned here is a very simple reason I personally become averse to popular games: when enough hype builds and enough people talk about it, it's not that I get tired, but rather the expectations become so high that they're impossible to meet. It happened enough to me that I simply checked out of the mainstream for a while because I couldn't enjoy basically anything because it always fell short of what was promised. I've since changed my mindset to enjoy things as they are as opposed to what was promised, but setting expectations too high, even when you really want to enjoy something, can lead to nosediving interest as well.

I think it would be interesting to explore this idea further with the idea of a “second hand burn out” where, by seeing it so much, you’ve experienced a version of it so much that it elicits a negative connotation and sets your nerves on end

For me part of it comes down to the sense of discovery. Experiencing something on a personal level, feeling like I found something special, to me fells more poignant than jumping on a band wagon.

I'm in this weird middleground where I'm not against popular things but also not really drawn to it. The bigger issue to me is that, once I do like something, I'm with most certainty the one person to enjoy it for way longer than any of my friends will. Leading to me being completely alone with what I enjoy, everyone had their fill, nobody really wants to hear about it, so all I can do is either give it up like everyone else or continue enjoying it. But now it always serves as a reminder of when it used to be a thing I could share And from how much this has happened, I've become more distant to anything that I dont have an innate reason to get for simply myself. If I dont want it for "just myself" then I'm more against getting into it

That mere exposure effect causing people to stop liking something (later on, after 15 exposures or whatever) is fascinating. I've seen so many articles mention the mere exposure effect without mentioning that part of it.

This was something I've been scratching my head over for a while as to why I would frequently be repulsed by certain shows, anime, and videogames. Really glad you touched on this topic. There's also another possible reason for someone to start disliking when something gets popular. I've had many times where I've tried to get my friends to check out a game or anime and they tell me they aren't interested, then have someone else in my friend group suggest the same damn thing and they decide it's one of the greatest things they've seen. This has led to me feeling sick of things I've enjoyed and despising even the thought of trying out things my friends pitch for me to try.

The thing about your favorite turning into content to be pumped out perfectly fits into my feeling on so many fandoms I use to be a part of. These fandoms don't offer me the refuge they once did, but I also feel that is part of becoming an adult. I also think some of the reason some of us turn away from popular content is that some of our identities were never made to feel accepted in popular spaces, so when something turns popular we no longer feel welcome.

I know you said you were kinda frustrated writing this one, but it definitely still came out really well!

There's always that one YouTuber that makes a three hour long video essay on why "new popular game" is actually "overrated garbage."

Honestly, it's pretty nice hearing you say "sometimes, Fine is fine." I often times tell my friends that I like to play games that most people would consider "bad" or "mid" because they are palette cleansers. They are a return to form to the kind of games I played as a kid. Sometimes just popping in a generic JRPG is exactly what I want. Sometimes a bland or average racing game just hits the right spot. I don't WANT every single experience to be this crazy mind blowing thing, because then I get exhausted of that kind of "grandness" and it doesn't feel as grand as it should. This might get me crucified, but I really don't think Elden Ring is anything special. I liked it well enough at first, but as the game just keep going, kept going, kept going, I was getting more and more irritated with it. Everyone else was like "But it's just more of a great thing, why is that a bad thing?" I can tell you there were five separate times where I felt like I should be reaching a natural conclusion to the game, and then I'd find a NEW HUGE portion of map that needed to be explored. It was honestly exhausting. I honestly think Elden Ring personally is in the lower half of Fromsoft games. I liked Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3, Sekiro, and Armored Core 6 more than Elden Ring. And maybe I wouldn't be as harsh on Elden Ring, except that everyone else LOVES it, claims it's one of the greatest games ever made, when I thought it was only "good." So I'll admit, I am that friend in the case of Elden Ring.

I find it interesting when the inverse of this happens in a way, when you find something and you really like it only to find out that it's widely hated, which usually leads to you becoming more attached to and defensive of that thing.