If you just want to get to using and enjoying an operating system without reveling in nerdery (which can be fun!), Mint is fantastic. Just make sure you understand partitioning basics if you want to install alongside Windows.
You can’t go wrong using something like VirtualBox to try the install process without touching your actual system :).
If it were depicted in this comic, it would be even easier than Debian because it doesn’t lean toward any particular extreme, it just goes for being usable.
I’m pretty sure there’s a simple check box to include proprietary codecs and things that are commonly used, so you can still watch Netflix or open .mp4s and stuff.
Wide variety of drivers. Should just work on most systems. Friendly community if it doesn’t!
That said sometimes the applications feel a bit old, and you’re looking over at people playing with shiny new features in something like Blender or Krita…
Well, Mint has flatpaks built into the software store! Flatpak is basically a self-contained app that can be the latest version so it doesn’t care about the rest of your system and “just works.”