On “Guilty” Pleasures and What Even Is Good Taste

I used to call Post Malone my “guilty pleasure.” I loved listening to his music but I didn’t want to admit it. Now? I’ve crossed out the guilty. I love Post Malone. There. I’ve said it, loud and proud.

What changed? Why do I no longer feel shame over my love for Post Malone? Is liking Posty cool, or uncool, or so uncool it’s cool? And what does it say about me and my taste?

This change of heart got me thinking about this idea of taste and whether or not I have it. Some of it is just insecurity. I’m cool, right?! “Taste” is part of my DNA and when you think of me you see it too, right?

Actually, this is bigger than my fragile ego. I genuinely want to know: In an era when anyone can be an influencer, why do certain people break through the noise? Who is truly cool, and who only thinks of themselves that way? What even is taste?

Try Googling that question and you’ll get a science symposium on our sensory systems. Taste, the noun, can be defined as the sensation of flavors in the mouth or a person’s penchant for particular flavors. So, a physical stimulus triggers a subjective experience. Posty’s music makes me bob my head and body. Check.

The third definition of taste — “the ability to discern what is of good quality or of a high aesthetic standard” — is better because it moves my understanding into the zone of creativity and culture. It starts to tie the notion of taste to something larger than an individual’s preferences.

However, there’s a huge, honking elephant in the room with this definition. WTF is meant by “good quality” or “high aesthetic standard”? One person’s high culture is another person’s low culture, and vice versa. How can we know what’s what?

Back to Google. This time I type in: “What is good taste?” I’m immediately spun into multiple directions, all of which make it sound like something that is mutable.

• What is it?
• Is it teachable?
• Is it a skill?
• How to acquire it and refine it?
• What does it mean to have it in music/food/art/fill-in-the-blank?

Turns out the question of “what is good taste?” is quite hard to define.

A top search result is a Forbes expert post from a person named Natalie Stoclet, a lifestyle reporter. (A little random but I’ll go with it.) One of the first things she establishes is that good taste is now in our own hands. It no longer comes to us in funnels from on high. We don’t have to rely on some high-falutin editor to tell us what good fashion is. We don’t need mainstream radio to fill our lives with music.

At one time, these structures did have a point. Being able to decree what was “good taste” was how society’s ruling class separated themselves from the rest of us. And as soon as something was adopted by the lower classes? Yep. No longer cool.

How the goalposts have changed. Now anyone can influence the culture, and more status does not mean better taste (see: tech billionaire outfit du jour). “Good taste” is still a kind of cultural currency, but it’s been freed from the shackles of class.

That’s all well and good but we still haven’t answered the question of what is “good taste.” (This is hard!) In trying to come up with a form or formula, Stoclet cites three principles from ancient Greek philosophy that helped something be perceived as pleasing: proportion, movement and balance. The golden ratio is a golden rule … but there will always be exceptions to what people find attractive. Symmetry schmimetry!

Stoclet concludes that talking about taste as “good” or “bad” isn’t correct. Teachable theories like the golden ratio are one thing, but so much of what makes taste “good’’ is cultural, contextual or downright inexplicable (“you just know it when you see it”).

Anyway, I don’t want to belittle bad taste. We all can think of things that are so tacky they’re glorious. There’s a charm to it.

Maybe YouTube would be better at helping me resolve this question. In a video called “Understanding Good Taste,” Queer Eye’s Thom Filicia explains that taste is an emotional, not a factual, thing. Which explains why “good taste” can be so hard to describe. It’s largely a feeling.

My lightbulb moment, though, is the idea that no taste is worse than bad taste. “At least, with bad taste you’re committing to something,” Thom says in the clip. But no taste? That just means you’re boring.

That’s it!

Taste is being doggedly devoted to an aesthetic or point of view.

It’s being attracted to something for reasons that can be hard to articulate and staying committed to it until the object of admiration is not the thing but the admirer itself.

It’s making boring the enemy.

What is good taste is less important than how honestly that taste (any kind!) is derived, maintained and shared. So find what brings you joy, cultivate with care, and commit to spreading what moves you … even if it is a nasally singer with a tattooed face.