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this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Ask Lemmy
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I don't mean this in any way to be condescending, but it sounds like your question could he rephrased as "How do you make small talk about something other than media consumption?"
And the answer to that question is to have interests outside of consuming media. Not only does it give you other things to talk about, it gives you other people to talk to.
Outside of that, in a more general sense, it isn't hard to just prompt people to tell you about whatever they are into. You can literally just be like "So what are you into?" And let people just tell you point blank what they like talking about. From there it's super easy to just keep them rolling along with questions like "how'd you get into THING?" or "that sounds cool, what's a good way to get started in THING?".
Everyone has SOMETHING they're super into, so just get them to talk about it. It doesn't have to interest you at all - it's just cool to hear people talk about what they're into - and it gives you a lot of insight into whether or not they're the kind of person you want to get to know better just from how they talk about their interests.
You're good, that was sort of a variation on how I considered phrasing the question. Another form of the question in my head was something like, "How do you relate to others when your interests tend to be niche" or something in that vein, because your advice is solid for an avid pop culture fan, but it only kinda gets to the other side of this with asking about others' interests and having other interests beyond following media.
Part of the reason I asked this was less to do with my interests only revolving around pop culture & following media, and more to do with so many others' interests seeming to do so, or at least that being the way some have tried to relate to me.
Talk less, listen more. You’d be amazed at what you find yourself getting interested in.
This is my new years resolution every year.
Fwiw offline I primarily listen, which is why I find it a little difficult to handle the talking part (sometimes literally, speaking is weird after an extended period of minimal speech!).
“Huh! That’s really interesting… [ask a follow up question]”
The second part of my answer is how I go about it, as someone with some weird niche interests. I just try to get people to talk about their interests.
Sometimes though, people use safe standard topics as a way of setting boundaries, and that's cool too. Especially in a work environment where competition for promotion exists, people aren't very chill about letting their genuine freak flag fly. The same goes for weird awkward situations like the plus 1 conversation pit at a partners work (adjacent) event. Gotta be on the best behavior and talk about the ball game, the movie premiere, and the Hollywood strike instead of things you don't know people's reaction to when it could hurt your partner's career.
But in truly social, zero stakes, situations, I just try to get people talking, and if they toss the question back to me, pick some interest of mine that seems less weird to chat about and see how they react.
I mean, your niche interests can't be THAT weird if you're looking to connect to people about them, so just stick one of them out there and see how it's received.