The Trap of Familiarity: Do We Choose Our Taste, or Is It Imposed on Us?

There is a crucial distinction between choosing what we love by our own free will and growing accustomed to what repeatedly confronts us until we delude ourselves into thinking we love it. The distance between these two choices is far wider than we perceive in our daily lives. In times past, people discovered their tastes with a certain deliberation; they listened to a song, contemplated a film, and followed a dramatic series before deciding whether that work resonated with them and deserved to remain in their memory. Today, however, we live amidst an unceasing flood of images, sounds, and suggestions, to the point that the very act of choosing requires conscious awareness. We open our screens, and algorithms preemptively determine what we see. A song is suggested because it has garnered widespread listening; a film because its viewership numbers are rising; a personality because millions of accounts follow them. Thus, popularity gradually transforms from an indicator of appeal into something akin to a “certificate of validity.” The question then arises: Do we love things because they truly touched our taste, or because we were exposed to them repeatedly until they settled in the zone of familiarity? A repeated name becomes familiar, a frequently seen face appears more important, and a song that pursues us across platforms slips into our daily routines before we ask ourselves: Do we really love it?

Art is perhaps the clearest arena for this transformation. The phenomenon of dubbed works, particularly those adapted from Turkish dramas, has expanded to the point where a successful model is easily transferred and reproduced in another environment. There is nothing inherently wrong with adaptation; creativity has long known the processes of influence and reinterpretation. The problem begins when a ready-made story becomes easier than seeking a narrative born from our own environment and life details. Some dubbed works bring with them rhythms, characters, and conflicts that do not necessarily reflect our societies, causing us to lose the opportunity to see ourselves in art. Conversely, there are writers who present stories that capture societal transformations and questions, but their texts may remain in drawers because they do not fit the format the industry is accustomed to betting on. When the system rewards tried-and-true formulas more than new ideas, cloning creeps in; plots, formats, and characters begin to resemble one another, and the question “Does this work offer something new?” recedes in favor of “Will it achieve the same success?”

In the same climate, social media metrics infiltrate artistic decision-making; follower counts, engagement rates, and name recognition have all become factors influencing selection and casting. This does not mean that those with a digital presence lack talent; some have combined reach with competence. The problem begins when digital fame becomes a substitute for artistic testing, as if numbers were a certificate of validity. Producing successful content on platforms does not necessarily imply the ability to build a dramatic character, understand a script, or carry a scene. Because numbers are easy to measure, millions of views become a seductive language for the platform, the producer, and the advertiser, while harder-to-quantify standards—authenticity, talent, depth, and the ability to leave a lasting impact—recede. The circle completes itself: what succeeds is reproduced, and what is repeated spreads further, until it sometimes becomes difficult to know whether the audience is truly choosing, or choosing from options pre-determined for them.

Taste is not merely personal preference, but the ability to distinguish and to be aware of the reasons behind preference and rejection. When fame is conflated with quality, repetition with authenticity, and popularity with value, taste loses part of its independence. However, escaping this cycle does not mean rejecting technology, social media, or dubbed dramas. What is required is to regain critical distance; we must not confuse the prevalent with the good, or the familiar with the authentic. Followers can create a star, but they cannot create talent on their own. A dubbed work may achieve popular success, but its success does not necessarily grant it creative value. Texts that remain in drawers do not become less valuable simply because they did not find their way to the screen; sometimes the problem lies in the path, not in the text.

Perhaps it is time to reclaim the simple question amidst all this flow: “Did I truly love this work?” Not because it topped trending lists, nor because everyone is talking about it, nor because the algorithm placed it before us for the tenth time. In a world moving toward speed and similarity, clinging to one’s own taste and critical thinking becomes a form of quiet resistance. To choose what resonates with us, rather than what we are asked to grow accustomed to. Perhaps it is not only our taste that has changed, nor only art. Perhaps what reaches us has changed, and who decides what deserves to be seen, and what deserves to be repeated before us, has changed. The real danger is that we gradually lose the ability to know what we truly love, except after others tell us what we ought to love.