A meditation on taste + other things
what does it even mean to have taste and is the world grey???
A near-constant thought has been pinging around my head since December, and that’s the idea of taste. And taste in multiple forms, and as it shows up in different contexts:
Taste as a cultural norm (i.e. something being in good or bad taste)
Taste as an act of cultivation (i.e. the filter for what you allow in/out of your life)
Taste as an expression of self (i.e. what your taste signifies about you)
Working in the creative industry, there is so much that goes into the performance of taste – the perfect Instagram grid and follows, the right set of cinematic references for a creative treatment, and knowing one vintage chair from another. The exercise of taste can sometimes feel oppressive and suffocating, especially if you grew up outside the normative (read: primarily Western) confines of taste. [*Screams in Edward Said*]
The German writer Goethe famously stated that “Men in a state of nature, uncivilized nations and children, have a great fondness for colors in their utmost brightness,” whereas “people of refinement” avoid vivid colors (or what he called “pathological colors”). In short, a love of bright color marked one as uncivilized, as not possessing taste, as being “foreign” or other. Color represented the “mythical savage state out of which civilization, the nobility of the human spirit, slowly, heroically, has lifted itself — but back into which it could always slide” (Batchelor, 23).
Watching Love is Blind the last few weeks, one thing that has truly haunted me is this heinous Charlotte housing development:
Something about those houses just slapped together haunts me. And then you see the interior – everything is staged with the same millennial-friendly furniture appropriated from mid-century modern shapes. And while the creators of our beloved MCM furniture wanted this, owning the originals is a form of cultural credibility.
“Getting the most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least amount of money.” – Eames
I’m sure you’ve all seen the discourse around how the world is getting less c*nt and moving towards a greige middle. A part of this is around best practices, a general decline in optimism towards technology, and the production of fast, cheap, disposable consumer goods.
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A later de-bunked study had TikTok in shambles about the objective greyness of the world. The fact is, there’s more stuff and more of it is grey so the world might seem greyer but we can’t affirm that it is or isn’t.
Elizabeth Goodspeed tackled the subject of taste in her always-excellent column:
Most AI images look like shit. AI “artists” are quick to lecture me that generative tools are improving every day and what they spit out won’t always look this way – I think that’s beside the point. What makes AI imagery so lousy isn’t the technology itself, but the cliché and superficial creative ambitions of those who use it. A video of a cyber-punk jellyfish or a collie in sunglasses on a skateboard generated by Open AI’s new video-to-text model Sora aren’t bad because the animals in them look unrealistic; they’re bad because they’re mind-numbingly stupid. AI image generation is essentially a truncated exercise in taste; a product of knowing which inputs and keywords to feed the image-mashup machine, and the eye to identify which outputs contain any semblance of artistry. All that is to say: AI itself can’t generate good taste for you.
And even Paul Graham has weighed in on the subject:
If there's no such thing as good taste, then there's no such thing as good art. Because if there is such a thing as good art, it's easy to tell which of two people has better taste. Show them a lot of works by artists they've never seen before and ask them to choose the best, and whoever chooses the better art has better taste.
I think taste is a set of personal values and aesthetic inputs expressed. I think the reason taste is such a hot topic is because individualist expression of identity online relies upon curation. But I was curious to hear what everyone around me thinks, and opened up the floodgates on Instagram:
I asked people, What does Taste mean to you?
“An adventurous palate. Eclectic, unexpected, and piques curiosity. – Daryl Nuncio
“For me, it’s having a standard that aligns with what I like and enjoy. It gets into snobbish territory when a person [projects] standards onto others and judges/belittles another person for it.” – Andie Washington
“It means judging what feels right according to my internal set of values.” – Kennedy Ryan
“I think it depends on who’s saying it. Is it someone who grew up on one side of the class spectrum or another? Someone who values expensive versus quality/practicality. A better question is, “what matters?” – Latavia Young
“Knowing what looks good on you and sticking to it/being confident in that, not being influenced by other people’s styles – so having your own sense of style, asethetic, interest.” – Natasha Walia
“Maybe I am a snob, but to me it’s good. There’s a difference between good and bad work.” – Harriet Pudney
“Being true to yourself but also in tune with what’s out there.” – Danilo Sierra
“Taste feels adjacent to style, which I would argue is more positive and individual than taste, which can be shared. I often attract people with similar tastes while I want [to have] individual style.” – Cat Dunn
“Personal intuition expressed through aesthetics. In my opinion, bad taste is either half-hearted or coopted.” – @erma.fiend
“In a world where subcultures have given way to merely just “aesthetics” (surface level representations without the ethos and urgency of true culture-creating movements), I would argue that taste is more important and relevant than ever before.
Why? I feel like taste is intrinsic. Like “cool” has this intangible quality that’s tricky to define and impossible to fake. You are either born with taste, or you’re not – you either have it or you don’t. I think often taste is associated with ‘tastefulness’ which is why it can be misconstrued as snobbish. The difference between the two is a type of 6th sense or material empathy – those with thaste can feel something is tasteful and they’re drawn to it or naturally create it. ‘Tastefulness’ is like mores or manners or a sense of propriety – a blanketing ‘should.’
Taste is quite the opposite of that. The people I know who have the best taste are often drawn to the fringes or discover beauty or magic in something – art, music, fashion, design, whatever. If others were drawn to the same things, somehow they wouldn’t be quite as cool. However when tasteful people embrace something, it feels seductive and compelling. I think it’s because of a certain effortlessness that true taste communicates.” – Olivia Fialkow
“This is all through a particular lens ... I remember there was an essay "the market of imaginary goods"
I think about levels of taste that are high medium and low brow- the point of it is that high-brow culture is the most refined - such as most expensive, the most "intellectual" (meaning incomprehensible- the people who can read academic texts have to understand the language ofacademia meaning they are usually educated at a higher level which is [expensive]) - the most "sophisticated" and BEST taste- and that taste becomes equated with accessibility and the most high value things are ones that are only accessible to those who can afford it. So what's low brow is mainstream popular affordable and basically for people with "low taste" it really ties class and taste level together. But I think "low taste" actually informs high taste not the other wayaround now.” – @lil.dancing
Sound off in the comments – what is taste, to you?
What’s going in in my world?
This newsletter is hugely delayed – my ambition was to post it in January because I launched my studio’s first multi-channel campaign. More about that, here.
I launched my fine jewelry brand with my mom. DM me for a little code :)
I have been posting a lot more on TikTok. One of my big goals this year is to post more, but also to move beyond Nikita the founder to Nikita thinking in public. TikTok is a part of that. If you want me to come to speak to your studio/agency about strategy, culture marketing, and more – I’m free!
I have some rare consulting bandwidth. Hit me up.
Do you want more of these short little editions? Curated links? Cus I’m here for it.
Thinking a lot about brand universe strategy… :)
Nikita’s open tabs corner
- wrote a great guide to freelance social.
I’ve been loving what Loewe is doing on social, and how they’ve successfully bifurcated their presence on TikTok versus Instagram. Turns out (shocker!) there’s a whole planned strategy around this and in how they have treated advertising.
Mentally, I have an open tab on The Row. After the Birkin, it feels like the Row Margaux is the newest out there luxury bag. And their latest runway show not allowing social publishing seems like a move to protect what was ‘sacred’ and ‘exclusive.’ I just find it such a contrast to the Loewe strategy, but it depends on the commercial ambitions of a brand, after all. It feels in line with the MK-A Olsen brand.
- wrote a great piece about AR, the vision pro and the future being a dupe of reality
Alexi Gunner in Dirt re: the nostalgia we have for Y2K ads and the ~unhinged~ vibe of them versus manufactured nostalgia now.