The great unwashed / popular taste

entertainment

Well-known member
A lot of the time what you don't like really is something you just don't get yet. And even if that's noy that case it's a good assumption to work from. Otherwise you just turn into the equivalent of one of those anti-intellectual boors who say things like "no one really likes Uylesess they're just being pretentious"

It's not a good attitude that. Keeps you locked in your own stupidity.

Yes, I think it's part of the journey to bounce back and forth between those two approaches and eventually you find your own balance. A place where you trust your intuition and emotional responses enough to discern what has something that you don't quite get and what just doesn't appeal to any part of you.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Good post/points entertainment.

I spend so much futile time worrying about my taste these days. And not even my taste so much as the whole business of reading (it's mainly reading) altogether.

What am I after? Who am I trying to impress? Am I even enjoying it anymore?
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I think a lot of people go through this period of obscurantism, but I don't think it's a shallow thing of socio-cultural identity construction aka being cool.
g.

For me it was a little of column a and b.

Surely everyone's familiar with the feeling of hating something you used to like BECAUSE NOW ITS POPULAR.
 

luka

Well-known member
Does Mvuent actually like Hungarian fart music? Does it move him? Will he play it at his wedding? Will he still listen to it and 50 years and be brought to tears?

Only he can answer.

There's snobbery and there's reverse snobbery. Lots of people wonder does Barty actually like this 14 year old girl music he keeps listening to. Will be actually still like it as an adult? Will it still find it emotionally and intellectually rewarding?

Of course it's hard to believe in the integrity of someone else's taste. Incredibly hard. But again, it's worth assuming that people are earnest and like what they say they like
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
. Otherwise you just turn into the equivalent of one of those anti-intellectual boors who say things like "no one really likes Uylesess they're just being pretentious"

It's not a good attitude that. Keeps you locked in your own stupidity.

I thought we were friends.
 

luka

Well-known member
Yes, I think it's part of the journey to bounce back and forth between those two approaches and eventually you find your own balance. A place where you trust your intuition and emotional responses enough to discern what has something that you don't quite get and what just doesn't appeal to any part of you.

Exactly. Assuming anything of value will be immediate and visceral is a shortcut to being a moron. On the other hand I'm not going to spend the rest of my life trying to 'get' Michael Bolton.
 

luka

Well-known member
You develop a sense of what has something it's holding back from you. There are artifiacts that repel you at first contact but keep drawing you back in. Maybe not straight away. Often after a few years. And you go back and you test yourself against them again. And this can happen multiple times over the years.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's very very difficult to beleive in the integrity of another persons taste. How can someone experience this differently to me? How can someone be different? What's going on?
 

luka

Well-known member
And liking itself is in no way straightforward. It's incredibly complex and bound up with lots of other things. How we see ourselves, how we see the world, what our values are, what our unconscious desires are, and so on and so forth.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's very hard for me to beleive that droid doesn't like gimmie the light. Very very hard. All my instincts tell me he must be lying.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
For me it was a little of column a and b.

Surely everyone's familiar with the feeling of hating something you used to like BECAUSE NOW ITS POPULAR.

Definitely. Not just popular in general but also what's inducted into the canon of certain subcultures, like art school indie kids or hippies or something.
 

luka

Well-known member
But because of what song represents to him, how he understands it's meaning, how it fits into his narrative of dancehall and it's history, he doesn't like it. He's telling the truth.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
Your taste can't be assessed outside of its own historical development either. The way you understand things depend very much on what you've listened to earlier and how you've established your dispositions. Things need to arrive to you at a time, where you need it, where it makes sense to you.
 

luka

Well-known member
Absolutely. That's why people talk about 'gateway artists'. Americans who eventually got into jungle but first they had to see Prodigy on MTV or something.
 
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