zvi: self-portrait: short, fat, black dyke in bunny slippers (Default)
still kind of a stealthy love ninja ([personal profile] zvi) wrote in [community profile] podficmeta 2010-03-02 07:29 pm (UTC)

Protip from someone who writes a lot of meta

1) Don't use the construction "what's so great about X?" if you want people who like X to talk to you. That phrase implies that there is nothing great X.

2) If you want to find out why people like something, don't start out the conversation listing all of the reasons you don't like it. This makes it sound as if you've made up your mind about the something, and there's not much in it for people who like X to try to convince you otherwise.

I find that the best way to get people to explain the appeal of something I don't is to structure the discussion so the deficiency is placed on my lack of understanding, instead of the appeal of the thing I don't get. For example, "I don't really understand why people are into Supernatural. Can y'all tell me what you like about it?"

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