I think it's all down to having an open mind and strengthening your grasp of what it means to be a storyteller.

In a sense, Jaws is essentially Beowulf. Would you go into a lit class and ask them why they like Beowulf? Do you hate Beowulf as intensely as you hate Jaws?

You shouldn't have to ask people what they like about stories in order to understand how stories work. Their answers will only reflect their own rationale. You have to understand the story.

eg. I don't like Twilight, but I understand who it was written for and the appeal of an unappealing female anti-heroine who manages to capture the interest of a centuries-old vampire. I understand why men like vampires and I understand all the different reasons why teenage girls like them.

I tried to watch 50 Shades because I was a fan of Dornan - I couldn't. I physically couldn't. And yet, for the past year, I've been spending my free time "studying" romance novels and why people like them, and I get it.

You have to take the red pill and dive deep.

Another example: I absolutely hate Green Book and I could write a book on why everyone should hate it. The internet is full of parodies of it, rightfully imo, because it seems objectively stupid and racist in the most absolute way, but I'm not confused by people who watch it and like it because I understand that people like journeys where two people reconcile their irreconcilable differences by the end. It's essentially Jim and Huck down the river. In a decade or two, somebody's going to make a movie about a cannibal and a vegan on a road trip to Vegas... that's just how stories go.

So yes, Jaws might be bad to you, but people like stories about heroes fighting monsters to protect innocents. It's as simple as that. They liked it when Theseus did it, they liked it when Ellen Ripley did it and they're going to keep on liking it forever until monsters stop being a part of our imagination.

Sharks are normal animals in real life, but Jaws isn't a documentary, it's a monster movie. The shark isn't a shark, it's a monster that's threatening life as the people on that beach know it.

Simply calling people stupid (as some comments have) because they don't agree with your taste isn't the answer if you want to understand storytelling.

I think instead of standing your ground on what you hate and what you resist, you should take a look at some Jungian theory on the collective unconscious on Youtube or somewhere. Take some time to truly understand tropes and trope subversion and all that before you mock them. Even cliches have their place in the story world. Whenever you have the time to spare, it's an interesting area to get lost in, to see how and why people love stories. The psychology behind it is fascinating.

Also, there's a book, The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker which is about 50 hours long (by audiobook iirc). You'll never be confused by people's love for a story ever again, no matter how stupid the story seems to you.

If you watch/read a popular story and hate it, that's perfectly fine, but if you're legit confused as to why people love it, that's a you problem. You asked why you should try to like it, you shouldn't, but you should understand it.

Don't try to change your taste to fit the popular mood. If you don't like barbarians as they are, that's fine. If you want to change it, fine. If you want to invoke the "My barbarians are different" trope, go ahead. But don't write it thinking that you're fixing it and doing it the correct way because you happen not to like the way other people do it.

There are reasons why people like the things they like. Readers have expectations. Especially in genre fiction. Don't write the next Dinosaur Lords.

We're all different people. One man's Shakespeare, is another man's toilet paper. Unless you're writing for yourself though, you need to understand the audience you're writing for. You really need to think long and hard as to why people like barbarians before you start recommending your mild-mannered version of it.

TLDR: A piece of advice that I got from learning to code that I apply to everything ever - before you break it, you better understand how it works inside out. Mel Brooks might not have been the authority on race relations but he was a master of joke construction which is what Springtime for Hitler is at the end of the day. It's a punchline.

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