It never ceases to amaze and disappoint me just how unwilling people are to even consider being curious about something that just Is Not Their Thing. We build such strong narratives about ourselves that breaking through them to even try new things feels like a superhuman effort.
I am just as guilty of this as everyone else is, but I'm trying to work on it and be more curious and try more things and expand my horizons. I've been working on that since i was 15/16. ish.
No idea who it is that's being quoted in the second post, but the vicious, visceral reaction to the suggestion that they expand their music tastes is really something. The mere suggestion that you expand your musical (and thereby cultural) horizons is not dictatorial. If it's being presented that way, that's someone you shouldn't listen to. Nobody with your best interests at heart will force you to listen to jazz.
But they can suggest it, and if you agree to go along with their suggestion, they might have a ready-made playlist or some album suggestions to hand for you to try.
It's also worth noting that you can substitute jazz for basically any genre of music here. You absolutely should try listening to jazz. But you should absolutely also try listening to: metal, rock, indie, folk, rap,* hip-hop, grime, r'n'b, soul, gospel, classical, EDM, trance, etc etc etc. There's no end to music, so there's no end to the stuff you can try. And you should try as broad a cross-section of a given genre as possible, if only to say for certain that it doesn't work for you.
How can you say, for certain, that you don't like something if you don't try it? That is a child's response. It's a very childish thing to reject something without trying it. "I don't like it." "But you've never had [x]" "I don't like it."
It's beyond my capability to discuss the neurodiverse angle on this - which is also something that I personally am still struggling with, but that obviously does play a factor in how people respond to stuff. But even if you do have some form of neurodiversity, I would recommend trying new stuff so that you can say for certain you don't like it.
I also believe that jazz falls easily into the "that's just noise" criticism. Which, frankly, is bullshit. Jazz is just as diverse a genre as any other. Yes, there is weird, free-form, wholly-improvised jazz out at the fringes that sounds like people throwing music at the wall, seeing what sticks, putting that in a blender, and throwing it at the wall again. But there's a lot that's easier on the ears (or easier to start with, at any rate).
I got my introduction to jazz through playing trombone at school and so my bias is towards orchestral/big band jazz, so that's where i'd recommend starting.
Personally, I love Melody Gardot. Her style of orchestral, melodic jazz is beautiful, and a very easy-going introduction to jazz as a whole.
Failing that, you can try Bandcamp. Their editorial section compiles a monthly "Best of" list where they choose the best releases in a given genre in a month. Here's April's list
*rap gets a similar level of outrage when you suggest to people that they try it, and there's likely to be a level of racism in that response - just as there is with jazz, the foundations of which were built by POC and it is POC who form the most vital and interesting branches of jazz today.
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