A tag-based, user-directed media recommendation scheme is described herein. For example described herein is a recommender system (and method implemented by the recommender system) comprising: a recommendation engine configured to generate a recommendations list which includes a current set of recommendations for a user of a client device; and, a tag engine configured to: (1) receive the recommendations list; (2) obtain information about representative items associated with the user of the client device; (3) correlate the recommendations with tags; (4) correlate the representative items with the tags, (5) sort the tags into a tag list; and (6) provide the recommendations list and the tag list to the client device. The representative items include at least one of following: (1) an item previously purchased by the user; (2) an item previously watched by the user; (3) an item previously placed on a wish-list by the user; and (4) an item recommended by the recommendation engine for the user. Further described herein, are the client device and method implemented by the client device.