Music/Films/Books/Art which so closely align with your personal style that you turn off...

This comes from reading Alfred's blog post about Wes Anderson. Despite being a fan of all sorts of twee, wacky, quirky, surreal stuff, I've never been able to embrace any of Anderson's movies. I'm starting to suspect that it's precisely because his style aligns so closely with the kind of thing I like, that I treat it with suspicion.

The first time I had this feeling was as a pre-teen who had already devoured all the Douglas Adams books I could get out the library. Terry Pratchett's Discoworld novels were suggested as a fantasy analogue to the kind of books Adams wrote. But something about it didn't quite hit. 12 year old me couldn't quite fall in love with Pratchett in the same way as a lot of my friends - the humour and style was like Adams, but it just wasn't doing it for me, and to this day I don't know why.

i've said this elsewhere, but guided by voices - i was a huge matador fan in the 90's, i love DIY/home recorded stuff, i love fuzzy pop music, but i could never connect with GBV despite multiple attempts

more recently i really like parquet courts but the specificity of their sound makes me feel like i'm being personally pandered to

'personally pandered to' - yeah this is often the feeling.

Hmm, I will have to ponder the question to come up with specific examples, but yes: I think pandering and/or empty mimicry would have to be involved.

Not quite what you're asking, but fan culture in general, for sure. It has always felt to me that the people who gather to celebrate a thing I enjoy are enjoying the thing from some perspective that I don't understand.