No. 3 Taste
Where do we get our preferences, 'Wife Swap,' and eff-boys
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
What is taste? I’m not talking about the sense, but the concept. A joke can be “of poor taste” (most of mine if you ask my grandma), we use “tasteful” to describe choices in fashion, and judge each other based on “music taste.” Who decides these rules? How does overexposure and mainstream values define them? And what happens when we choose to go beyond the binary of taste? Does that make us any worse — or any better — than anyone else? I’ve been thinking about it a lot these past few weeks.
On the topic of no taste, another COVID variant is going around. No other joke there, and while this piece about how a return to normal is bullshit didn’t quite assuage my uneasiness, it was a good reminder everyone is going through it.
Is Michael Cera hot? Certainly a matter of taste. But as someone who ran cross country and was thus called a Michael Cera doppelgänger for most of high school, I loved reading this interview between him and a writer who had the biggest crush on him at 13. Also, this gem from the man himself:
“To me, the best compliment I could ever get in the world is when I make dinner for someone and they enjoy it. I love that, because you really work hard on making a meal. That to me feels like a very personal compliment that I can take a lot of pride in. I can fully enjoy that feeling."
THE EXPOSITION - story time
My top-played artist on Spotify for the past three years has been Taylor Swift… but I have vowed to never date a Swiftie. I majored in film and will likely tell you my favorite is Richard Linklater’s ‘Slacker’… but the movie I watch the most amount of times each year is probably ‘Easy A.’ There’s a sticker on my laptop from this fancy coffee shop in Brooklyn, but the café I frequent the most often is Starbucks.
Taking note of these contradictions, I realized there might be some aspects of performativity to tastes and preferences and favorites. A while back, I read this book (flex!) called ‘You May Also Like: Taste in an Age of Endless Choice,’ which delves into the theories behind what we like versus what we don’t, and the uncontrollable forces that determine it. It turns out some of it is algorithmic and marketed; some of it may be an instinctual way of asserting class or race or community. But a lot of it we don’t understand.
One of my favorite studies came from someone who curated Spotify playlists. They talked about how a Miley Cyrus song rhythmically and stylistically fit the same beats as other tracks on an indie playlist, giving all the numerical cues that potential listeners would enjoy it, but they wouldn’t program it because the typical indie listener wouldn’t like the song — and perhaps the playlist as a whole — on the basis of this included artist.
When I was in high school, I really wanted to be a hipster. I bought fake glasses from Urban Outfitters and wore them to school and then gave them to my sister after someone called me out for it. I had such a strong desire to signal to my peers that I was different. My sister, on the other hand, was in middle school and lived for Victoria’s Secret and Hollister and Abercrombie and anything with a label emblazoned upon it because that’s what the who’s-who were wearing. Now, her Apple Music plays like the soundtrack of ‘Big Little Lies’ and my clothes are all from H&M.
All this to say, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being “basic.” I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being “quirky.” We can’t control what we like and what makes us feel good, and we should be able to enjoy things without being wholly defined or written off by them. In a lot of ways taste is subjective, and we are changing everyday.
There is less chance than we think that we will like tomorrow what we liked today and even less chance of remembering what led us to our previous likes.
THE SOUNDTRACK - an eclectic mix of songs I’m grooving to
Anything But Me - MUNA: “Dancey-springtime-is-finally-here-vibes”
Sweetest Pie - Dua Lipa and Megan Thee Stallion: “This year’s earliest contender for song of the summer”
Love Sux - Avril Lavigne: “New Avril is still Old Avril is still maybe Melissa”
Once Twice Melody - Beach House: “Depressing and dissociative pop music makes some points”
Lost Track - HAIM: “No one is making music as optimistic as it’s pessimistic, or as jubilant as it’s depressing, and also the video is cute”
THE VISUALS - an unhinged onscreen opinion
The best part about having my own newsletter is no one in their right mind would ever ask me to write about ‘Wife Swap,’ but here I am doing just that. The debate between pop culture “quality” and “guilty pleasure” has been hashed a million times so let me make this clear: the series is objectively bad. In the pantheon of early aughts reality shows, ‘Wife Swap’ has aged particularly poorly — racism, homophobia, misogyny, exploitation — but at least it gave us Bacon Boy. Here’s the thing: it is so addictive.
There was this mom named Big Juicy whose husband worked all day while her gay best friend Princess took care of her kid, put him to bed, and then they partied and spent her husband’s money every night! You’ve got a pint-sized son with a mohawk who calls himself an anarchist forced to play baseball by an overbearing sports hag! It’s ridiculous, clearly produced, so-so-so 2005, and just when you’re done, the next episode comes on and the setup is absurd enough that you have to see how it plays out.
But I would argue there’s a lot you can learn about relationships from all the manufactured drama. Finding someone you’re able to tolerate living and procreating with is hard enough, but then you factor in housework, bedtimes, nutrition, errands, schedules, religion, and uh, happiness? There’s a million different values to prioritize in raising a family and even though it’s never as simple as asking yourself, “Should we be punk-rock parents or drill sergeant parents or traverse county fairs performing a family theatrical production from our RV,” it certainly shows the importance of being on the same page as your partner.
I think before you get married, you should have to watch at least three hours of ‘Wife Swap’ together. I think you’d be pressed to stop there, but that’s just a matter of taste.
THE KICKER - everyone loves a good button
New York Dating Tip #3: A “fuck boy” will always be the first person to tell you he’s “not a fuck boy.”
Is this just common sense? It should be. But when it comes to dating, we’re all programmed to be relentlessly optimistic, more than willing to ignore any red flag in pursuit of finding the exception to the rule. Sex and the City instilled in an entire generation the idea that at any time, any age, and under any circumstance, you could be one date away from finding The One. (And for what?! Big died! I digress.)
A “fuck boy” may not recognize this in themselves, but their lives are dictated by a different set of rules. They live and breathe by the fine print: “No labels.” “Humans aren’t made to be monogamous.” “I don’t text anyone back.” “You could’ve just asked me and I would’ve told you.” “Send me a picture of your ass. Wow, nice badonk.” They typically stand by what they say, but it’s the implications of what they don’t say that they’re not going to take responsibility for. In their eyes, they aren’t “fuck boys,” but only because they take note of the details so fastidiously.
Get a lawyer because there will be no explicit omission of change in feelings, priorities, or loss of interest because if it is not in the contract (a.k.a their Tinder bio), it’s not a guarantee.
But at the same time, if a guy tells you he IS a “fuck boy,” he most certainly is. This warning is an excuse to not text you back, show up to a date with a hickey, or invite you over for a hookup at 3 AM and make you pay for an Uber back. Perhaps it’s just best if the words “fuck boy” never come up in conversation. I’m clearly not an expert here. Remember, we’re all hopeless.
XOXO
