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The guy at the video store who called out my movie tastes
Back in like 2001 I was in a Blockbuster in Portland and this older clerk watched me grab a copy of The Matrix for the fifth time. He just said 'you know there are other movies here right, ones that won't melt your brain.' He handed me a random Japanese film called Battle Royale and told me to watch it before returning. That one conversation completely shifted what I looked for in shows and movies from then on. Anyone else have a random stranger point you toward something that changed your whole taste?
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shanes6612d ago
Wait, did that clerk secretly work for some kind of movie taste intervention program? Because I swear I had the SAME thing happen to me but with a guy at a gas station who saw me buying a bag of chips and a soda for the tenth time that week. He just shook his head and said 'you know there's a whole world of flavors out there, right?' and handed me a weird spicy pickle chip. I couldn't stop eating them and now I basically only buy weird snacks from international markets. It's like these random strangers KNOW we're stuck in a rut and have to jolt us out of it with something totally unexpected. Man, that Battle Royale clerk was a hero - imagine if you'd just kept rewatching The Matrix forever, you'd probably have it burned into your retinas by now.
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emma_lee2212d ago
My dad was a projectionist in the 70s and he always said the best movie recommendations come from people who have nothing to gain. That Blockbuster clerk probably wasn't getting a bonus for renting out Battle Royale. But that's exactly why his suggestion stuck with you. It's like how I once had a librarian hand me a beat-up copy of a book called The Left Hand of Darkness and just said "this one might make more sense to you than the others." She was right. Sometimes the unsolicited opinion from a random stranger carries more weight because you know they're not trying to sell you anything. They just genuinely want you to experience something that opened their own eyes.
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emma_lee22 your dad was totally onto something. That whole "nothing to gain" thing is honestly how ALL the best discoveries happen in life. Like, think about it the most random food you ever loved came from someone who just shoved a spoonful at you with zero explanation, not from a fancy restaurant review. The best music I've ever heard was from a stranger at a bus stop burning me a CD with hand-scrawled track titles. When someone has NO skin in the game, their recommendation is PURE because they're just sharing joy, not trying to push a product or look smart. It's like these people are secret guardians of taste who appear when you're most stuck in your habits and gently nudge you out of them for no reason other than they genuinely care about the thing itself.
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