All my friends are telling me I should play Animal Crossing, and part of me wants to get in on all the shared memes in this time of social distancing.

At the same time, I have a strong aversion to the feeling of grinding (in any game).

Should I give it a shot? Is it worth it?

To calibrate what I mean when I say i have an aversion to grinding: Stardew Valley is just on the cusp of what I'm able to enjoy, and even that's only because the game has enough variety in things to do that you can spread the grind out over in-game months or years

which, I realize, is quite rare for video games. generally grinding is presented as a blocker towards the primary goal, but because Stardew Valley is basically ten different games of different genres combined into one, the grind can always be halted by switching to another "game"