Entertainment comes in many forms, languages and genres. We often stick to a certain genre or language of what we like, but this limitation prevents people from discovering many other wonderful forms of entertainment.
I’m not saying you have to become an arts and entertainment connoisseur, but try to keep an open mind. Many people today are very open about liking anime like “Attack on Titan” and “Jujutsu Kaisen” and K-pop groups like BlackPink and BTS. These entertainment genres have become extremely popular in the past few years.
Last year, BlackPink did history at Coachella when they became the first Korean act to headline a music festival. And according to Forbes, the anime “Attack On Titan” was the most popular anime TV show of 2022-2023. It was the most searched show on Netflix in February 2022, surpassing widely popular American shows such as “The Walking Dead” and “Stranger Things” . When ‘Squid Game,’ a Korean language show, comes to Netflix in 2021, it becomes Netflix show number one of all time, amassing 1.65 billion streaming hours in its first four weeks.
These record-breaking statistics show that we clearly can and do enjoy other forms of entertainment. Whether it’s in a language we’re not used to or a genre we usually ignore, people gave it a shot and many became obsessed. Whether it was because we bought into the hype or just stumbled upon it, most of us liked what we saw or heard, even though none of it was in English.
Being open to trying new forms of entertainment enriches life in many ways. On the one hand, you could potentially make new friends from it. When I wore mine “eat your protein” “Attack on Titan” covering the pump at the gym, I had several people come up to me to start a conversation about the show. Even though we didn’t know each other, we knew we had one thing in common. Opening your mind to trying new things can lead to more opportunities to make new connections and make friends. Liking and/or disliking the same things is one of the easiest ways to form new relationships.
There are also scientific studies on the benefits of listening to different genres of music. One study found that different genres Music affects the brain in different ways. According to Patrick Wong, a researcher at Northwestern University, having the ability to listen to music from different cultures shows that the brain makes more use of the auditory and potentially emotional areas of the brain.
Each genre of music offers its own special advantages, so why not branch out a bit? The worst that can happen is that you don’t like it, and in that case at least you tried. But the best case scenario could be that you just discovered a new genre of music or an artist that you really like.
In my case, I discovered that I don’t like musicals as much as I thought, even though they were never really my thing. I’ve never done theater. I really fell victim to the complete belief that the whole ‘theatre kid’ image came along with liking musicals, so I never tried. But one day my friend sat me down and put on Hamilton on Disney+. He said, “Just try it. If you don’t like it, we can watch something else. Turns out I really liked it.
Lin-Manuel Miranda added some bops that completely changed my opinion of musicals in general. And I hate to admit it, but I casually listened to the Hamilton soundtrack for the next two months after that. Since then, I’ve started to become a bit more open to the genre that is the musical. Even though it’s still not my favorite genre of music, I wouldn’t mind seeing it in person. Obviously, it can’t be that bad if so many people — including celebrities — are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to see a Broadway show.
Branching out can be one of the best things you do for yourself. At any moment, you can get a taste of a whole world of different genres and content, just by opening yourself up to experiencing media in other languages. Just think what else is out there for you to discover.
Kelly Xiong writes about all things fashion, beauty, personal health and sometimes pop culture. You can write to her at [email protected]
