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What does it mean to have good taste?
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I m not talking about good taste in food.
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I m not talking about good taste in people.
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I m talking about good aesthetic taste.
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What does it mean to have good taste in art, music, interior design, fashion, movies, photography?
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What does it mean to have good taste?
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When I walk through an art gallery, I can determine, in my opinion, whether or not I think the art curator has good taste.
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Now, the art curator may not have my taste, but I have a sense that they have good taste.
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When I see somebody walking down the street, I can tell whether or not they have good taste, in my opinion.
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And they may not even have my taste.
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But still I can tell that they have good taste.
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I almost get a gut reaction when I see something and I decide whether or not liking it is a sign of good taste.
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And it s complicated because I like some things that I think are in bad taste.
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Like there s some music that I like that I think is in bad taste.
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Like I don t think it s actually good.
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There s even movies that I don t think are good, but I like them anyway.
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So this leads to the question of today.
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What does it mean to have good taste?
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We put a lot of value on good taste.
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You know, I tend to be attracted to people romantically and platonically who I believe have good taste in things.
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I consider my taste to be a huge piece of my own identity.
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My aesthetic taste is a huge piece of my identity and I am biased, but I think I have good taste in stuff.
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That s a huge part of who I am and how I express myself to the world.
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And although it s such a relevant topic in my life, I ve never investigated aesthetic taste.
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What is good taste?
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Does it even exist or is it so subjective that it doesn t exist?
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I m not fully convinced that it doesn t exist, but we re going to go down the rabbit hole together and try to answer the question, what does it mean to have good taste?
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Let s start with what aesthetic taste is.
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Taste is the most common trope when talking about the intellectual judgment of an object s aesthetic merit.
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To better understand this definition, let s also define aesthetic, concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty.
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So basically, taste, aesthetic taste,
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is what we find beautiful and interesting.
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How do humans develop their taste?
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I was so mind blown when I started researching this that we have not figured out how we develop our tastes as human beings.
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There s no salad answer like oh we re born with our taste.
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We develop our taste as we grow up or it s a combination of the two they have yet to figure out how we develop our taste.
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But some philosophers believe that our aesthetic tastes are innate, meaning we re born with them, though they re refined as we grow older and we re exposed to more aesthetic things.
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So our taste is literally deep, deep within us, and it s sort of unchangeable.
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We re born with our minds made up on what we like and don t like, but our taste evolves as we grow older and we see more and we experience more.
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And I have some personal evidence for this theory.
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Growing up, I had a very specific point of view when it came to what clothes my parents put on me or what movie they put into the DVD player or
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what music they played in the car on the way home from even preschool.
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Like from a very young age, my parents have told me I knew what I liked and I knew what I didn t like.
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And when I was that young, I didn t have any bias.
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You know, there s so much bias when you get older, because when you get older, you want to fit in.
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You re like, I want to watch the movies that other kids think are cool or other adults think are cool at times, depending on what type of adult you are.
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or I want to wear what other kids or adults think are cool.
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I want to listen to the music that other kids or adults think are cool.
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As you become more socially aware, you start to become more malleable and you start making decisions not just based on your own preference.
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But when I was a child and I had no bias at all,
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I still had a very, very specific point of view.
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And I find that so interesting.
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Like, for example, there were things that I liked that were actually kind of embarrassing.
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For example, I used to love to wear Halloween costumes all year round.
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I had this dolphin costume, I believe it was.
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I would just wear that around the house all year round.
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If it was up to me, I would have worn that to school.
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I was probably around four or five years old.
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I had no bias.
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That s just what I liked.
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I liked wearing the dolphin costume around the house.
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I was so picky about music, so picky, and so picky about movies and TV, so picky.
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And beyond that, like, my taste throughout my life has been so consistent in a weird way.
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The music that I liked as a young kid tracks so well with what I like now.
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The progression seems natural.
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The types of clothing that I was attracted to as a child, again, there s like a natural path to where I m at now.
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I mean, the dolphin costume, listen, I m not wearing a dolphin costume now, but I feel like that represents how I like to get dressed up and wear things that are more avant-garde.
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I don t know.
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Maybe I m reaching.
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I might be reaching.
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Like, making a connection there, I m kind of reaching.
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But, I don t know, as a kid, I also liked to wear tutus and, like, sparkly red shoes and lots of jewelry and lots of accessories.
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And again, as an adult, I m very much that way.
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My favorite movie as a kid was Coraline.
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And I ve grown up enjoying movies very similar to Coraline, movies with a similar intensity,
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movies with a similar aesthetic.
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I see that connection and I still love that movie.
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I also weirdly loved Hot Topic as a kid.
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I loved going into Hot Topic because I had a little goth streak in me.
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I had a little goth streak in me and it s funny because I never dressed like it but I always had it in me and that s followed me throughout my life too where I do have like a little dark goth vibe in me but it s very mild and it only comes out sometimes but that s been very consistent throughout my life as well.
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I don t know.
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I don t know.
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Like, am I reaching a little bit?
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Maybe.
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But when I look at my whole life and my aesthetic taste throughout my whole life, it s just been so consistent to me.
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And the evolution has been so seamless.
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It doesn t mean that I ve liked the same things my whole life, but rather each phase that I ve had has felt like a proper stepping stone to the next thing in a way.
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And there have been some drastic changes in taste, but in my brain, it still kind of makes sense.
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In retrospect, any aesthetic preferences that I had that don t track with who I am to my core now were aesthetic preferences that I had to try to fit in.
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Like that s the outlier.
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But I wouldn t even count that as being my taste because it wasn t.
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It wasn t my taste.
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It was the taste of the people around me and I was copying it.
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It was forced.
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So anything that does not
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makes sense in the general evolution of my aesthetic taste was not my own taste.
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So I don t know.
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I mean, I, I m kind of sold on that theory, but there s another theory.
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Some philosophers believe that we re born a blank slate completely and our aesthetic senses are learned over time through our personal experiences.
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in our exposure to aesthetic things.
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I have a little bit of a harder time with this one, but I do also have some personal evidence to back up this one as well.
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My taste very closely resembles my dad s taste.
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My dad showed me a lot of music, a lot of movies, a lot of fashion, a lot of art growing up.
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And him and I do have very similar tastes.
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Now, what confuses me is that I don t like everything that my dad likes.
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There s a lot of music that my dad showed me growing up that I liked, but there s also a lot that I didn t like.
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Same thing with art, same thing with movies, same thing with everything.
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And we still disagree on things all the time.
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Another thing that confuses me is that my mom also showed me music and movies, not as much art.
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I mean, my dad is an artist, so that s why I saw art with him, but my mom didn t show me art, but music, movies,
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interior design with her because she s very into interior design.
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We have a little bit of overlap, but I would argue we have very different tastes in almost everything.
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I was equally exposed to aesthetic things from my mom and dad, but I did not ever align with my mom s tastes.
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And it just like, it doesn t make sense because in my own personal life, I just don t see as much evidence for this theory that we re blank slates.
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To be honest, I think if anything, it s kind of a combination of the two, but I m leaning towards the first theory, which is that we re sort of born with our taste.
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Okay, so now that we have discovered virtually nothing, because nobody really knows how we develop our taste, let s try to figure out if good taste even exists.
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Is it even a real thing?
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Because taste is subjective.
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It s opinion-based.
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Everybody interprets and perceives things differently.
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Therefore, taste is arguably not even real.
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It s a figment of our imagination.
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It s not tangible.
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It s not real.
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It s all in our silly little brain.
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But see, I don t really feel comfortable with saying that taste doesn t exist because it does exist.
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It s so relevant in day-to-day life.
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Yeah, technically it doesn t exist because it s not tangible and it s not real, but it plays such a big role.
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in so many things that we do in life that it feels wrong to say that it s not a legitimate thing.
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Some argue that good taste does exist though.
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So there is also an argument for good taste existing.
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Good taste is taste that is unbiased, well-practiced, and properly exercised through experience.
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Let s really dive into that.
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Unbiased, meaning you re not listening to your friends.
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You re not listening to the media.
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You genuinely like something and find it beautiful because you do.
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We so often like something because other people like it.
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I mean, my entire identity in middle school was built of what everybody else thought was cool and good and great, not what I thought was cool and good and great.
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Even now, when I spend time around certain people, I start to like the things that they like.
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And sometimes that s genuine, but sometimes it s not.
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It s really hard to be completely unbiased in life because there s a whole lot of noise telling us what to like, what to not like, what s cool to like, what s not cool to like.
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A person with good taste also has well-practiced and properly exercised taste.
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meaning they know what the fuck they re talking about.
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If they have good taste in music, it s because they listen to a lot of music.
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And maybe they studied music.
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Somebody who has good taste in clothing has done a fuck ton of research on fashion, looks at fashion magazines all the time, reads fashion books all the time, is making Pinterest boards all the time.
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Somebody who knows a lot about fashion
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somebody who has good taste in art, knows a lot about art, maybe makes art themselves, you get the idea.
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It s hard to have good taste in something if you have not involved yourself in that art form.
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Like for example, I don t know if I have good taste in movies because I haven t watched a lot of movies in my life.
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I think my taste in movies is very heavily tied to my taste in everything else and my taste in a lot of other things are more developed so maybe my taste in movies is,
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better because of that, but I m not a movie connoisseur, so I can t walk around saying I have great taste in movies.
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I mean, maybe I would if I started watching them more, but I wouldn t feel comfortable telling people I had good taste in movies because I just don t watch movies.
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So ultimately we ve determined nothing, right?
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Because we don t even really know if taste exists.
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I think it does, but because it s so subjective, it s up for debate kind of.
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And it s even more tricky because good taste can look different for everyone.
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There are so many different ways to have good taste.
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It s not like one specific aesthetic.
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It s not one specific style.
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As I mentioned earlier, when I see something tasteful, I can point it out even when it s not my taste.
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And I feel like what I see is something that s thoughtful, something that s personal, something that s creative and unique, something that s genuine.
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And weirdly something that s humble, like those are the consistent qualities that are present when I think something is tasteful.
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I ll give some examples of tasteful things.
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In my opinion, in my opinion, when I see somebody walking down the street and they re wearing a tasteful outfit,
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That usually means that they re wearing something that they clearly put a lot of time into putting together.
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Maybe there s a cohesive color scheme.
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Maybe there s a cohesive theme.
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Maybe there s a lot of intricate little accessories.
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Maybe it matches their personality really well like you re watching them walk down the street in their outfits matches them perfectly and you re like wow that is so cool you know.
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It doesn t look like a carbon copy of something else that you ve seen before it feels.
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a little fresh and a little new.
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It might have bits and pieces from pop culture or whatever, but it still feels fresh.
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I would say tasteful music can be anything that hits a nerve.
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It makes you feel something deep because the way that it was composed or the lyrics that were put along with it,
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are so real and so true and so genuine that it just hits a nerve.
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It hits a nerve and it gives you that feeling.
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We all know that feeling.
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We all know that feeling that we get when we hear a song and it just fucking hits and we don t know why and we don t know what it is and it just makes us feel a certain type of way.
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But like there s definitely music that I enjoy that to me is not tasteful.
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It doesn t hit that nerve the same way, but it s fun.
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And so I enjoy it still, but it s like there s a difference there.
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You know what I mean?
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When I walk into somebody s house and it s decorated in a way that s truly comfortable and livable while still being inspiring to the person living in it, that s good taste.
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I think tasteful home decor balances comfort with aesthetic.
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And that is a truly tasteful home.
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Something that s comfortable and livable, yet something that says something about the person living there, that has a thoughtful color scheme.
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I keep hesitating.
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See, this is what s so hard about this topic is that it s so
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subjective, like you can t put a finger on it.
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So me even saying like, has a thoughtful color scheme, it s like, yeah, maybe, but somebody can have really good taste and literally have no color scheme.
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Do you know what I m saying?
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Like, oh, it s hard to put a finger on.
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But when I personally think about what is tasteful to me,
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These are the things that I think of.
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These are the through lines across all the different things that could possibly be good taste in my eyes anyway, but it s so hard to put a finger on.
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Let s discuss popular opinion versus good taste.
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I feel like we would assume that if something was popular among human beings, that it s tasteful, it s in good taste.
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But in my opinion, enjoying what s trending, popular, widely enjoyed, an example being like Taylor Swift or Picasso, isn t necessarily good or bad taste.
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Like something s popularity has nothing to do with whether or not it s tasteful, in my opinion.
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I think the only way to judge if something is tasteful is to strip away all of its value in society and then to judge it.
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How would this song be if no one else had ever listened to it?
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What would I think of this art piece if no one else had ever seen it?
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What would I think of this clothing piece?
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if no one else had ever worn it.
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I think that that s the only way to judge any kind of art to determine whether or not it s tasteful, at least in your opinion.
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There are a lot of popular things that are really bad.
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Popular movies, popular music, popular art even.
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Bad, it can be really fucking bad.
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It can also be really, really, really fucking good and it s popular for a reason.
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But see, again, I m calling it bad, but that s just my opinion.
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I mean, oh God, it is just my opinion.
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Geez.
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I mean, a lot of people share that opinion with me, but still, it s just our opinion, right?
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Things can become popular for a number of reasons because there are some people out there whose taste consists of mainly popular things.
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And some people would argue that that s having bad taste.
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I don t think that that s having bad taste.
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I think that s just having taste that is not yet developed because what else is there to like other than popular things if you don t have any interest in digging around on the internet
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and digging around in the library and digging around in galleries to develop your taste more, right?
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And I think a lot of times popular things tend to be more simple and more digestible in a way.
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They re not polarizing or weird or unusual or
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As challenging and that s why they re mainstream because they can appeal to a wide audience in one way or another.
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And I think that that puts people off who have more developed taste in things.
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They re like, popular stuff is fucking lame and fucking boring and too easy to understand and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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It s not good.
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It could never be good.
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If it s mainstream, it s not good.
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And as much as I do think that it s true that mainstream things tend to be more simple, that doesn t necessarily mean that they re always bad.
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Can they be mad?
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Yeah, but...
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Again, I don t think that popularity and tastefulness are related.
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I would argue, that s my opinion.
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I don t think that they re related because there are so many things that are not mainstream that are incredibly tasteful.
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There are so many things that are not mainstream that are not tasteful at all.
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There are so many things that are mainstream that are tasteful.
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I just don t think that there s a relationship there.
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Now let s discuss the relationship between taste
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and money.
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Good taste and wealth are often confused, and I think it s because there s some overlap.
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Pierre Bourdieu, a French philosopher known for his book Distinction, a Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, was one of many to note that good taste was merely a way of society s ruling class to separate themselves from those less powerful.
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Weaponizing good taste is not hard to do because number one, the more money you have to buy excess in life and art and aesthetic things tend to be excessive.
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They re usually not.
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necessity.
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Wealthy people can afford to buy clothes that aren t functional but are just tasteful.
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They can afford to buy a really crazy piece of art that s super expensive.
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And though many expensive things are very tasteful,
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There are also a lot of expensive things that are not tasteful, in my opinion, but that s why it s confusing because there are a lot of tasteful things that are expensive.
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And so it s easy to think of good taste and just think of expensive things, but
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I m a firm believer that once again, those two things are not connected.
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I mean, I do think that to an extent, money is necessary to express your taste to the world, to buy certain clothes, to buy or even make art.
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I think music tends to be more fair game.
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It does cost a bit of money to express your taste.
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But again, expressing your taste is different than the taste that you have inside you.
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And that s sort of what we re talking about.
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What is good taste?
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What does it mean to have good taste?
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And just because you re wealthy and you can afford this, this, and that, and you can express your taste as loudly as you want, it doesn t mean you have good taste.
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It doesn t mean the things that you re selecting
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are good.
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They re just expensive.
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And they might be good, but they might not be.
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somebody who does not make as much money but has good taste might thrift an outfit that looks phenomenal and is so tasteful and might make art that is incredible, might even buy art from their friends for like 15 bucks and it s incredible.
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Do you see what I m saying?
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Like it makes sense to me why good taste and wealth get confused
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Like we ve all watched those architectural digest tours, house tours that are just fucking hideous.
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They re hideous.
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The house is $150 million.
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The decor is hideous.
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The whole design, hideous, hideous.
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Now, some might argue that we who cannot afford a $150 million house could never understand the taste that is present in this home because we just don t get it.
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But I m not so fucking sure.
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I m so sorry, I m not so fucking sure.
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Because in some of those homes, I m just like, I can t even see a world.
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I can t even see a world where this is tasteful.
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I can t understand it.
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Is every single piece in that home expensive?
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Absolutely.
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For sure.
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For sure.
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But is it tasteful?
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No, I don t think so.
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And I read the comments and no one else thinks it s tasteful either.
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I don t know, I don t know.
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But I think people automatically assume that expensive things are tasteful.
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And so they sort of blindly purchase these things.
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They buy a piece of art because it s a million dollars.
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They buy this furniture collection because it s $5 million.
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And they don t really know if it s good or not, but somebody told them it was, so now they re buying it.
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Or they kind of like it, but they know that it s a status symbol and that s really why they re buying it.
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Like, I don t know.
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I just don t get it sometimes.
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Listen, there are $150 million homes out there that are fucking gorgeous and tasteful and incredible.
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And I ve watched those house tours too.
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And yeah, maybe there is a $5 million furniture set in there and maybe there is a million dollar piece of art in there.
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More often than not i find i m shocked by what i perceive to be the lack of taste in things that are incredibly expensive i mean even when i m.
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Online looking at designer clothing i m like what is half of this.
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What the hell is this?
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This is a $5,000 jacket and I find it to be hideous.
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I would rather go to the thrift store, buy something for $3 that actually is cool and tasteful.
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This is not cool and tasteful.
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But again, maybe I just, maybe I personally just don t understand certain things.
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I ve seen a bit of chatter online about how wealthy people tend to have bad taste.
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And I have noticed the same thing.
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It s not always true.
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It s absolutely not always true, but I see it a lot.
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And I wonder if it s because in order to become a multi multi
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millionaire, maybe even a billionaire.
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You have to spend so much time working towards making that money.
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You don t have any time to explore aesthetics.
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You don t have time to explore art.
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You don t have time to explore music.
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You don t have time to explore fashion.
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You re so wrapped up in making that money that you don t have time to do anything else.
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I ve also theorized that some people who have had money their entire lives had never had to question it.
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have been able to get whatever they want their whole lives, have never had a reason, a deep emotional reason to explore the arts.
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Again, I m not talking about all people who grew up wealthy, but I think maybe growing up wealthy, you just develop a taste for just things that are simply expensive, not necessarily for things that
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Are deeply tasteful maybe there s not a desire to go and explore.
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Fashion because you re like well i don t need to look any further than my favorite designer stores.
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That s not how you develop your taste you develop your taste by.
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looking everywhere, you know what I mean?
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Not just expensive stores, you know what I mean?
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Again, there are a lot of very wealthy people with very good taste.
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I mean, it s not necessarily, but I have noticed also that there does seem to be something interesting happening there.
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So how do we develop our taste?
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How do we hopefully develop good taste?
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Although I m going back and forth on whether or not I believe good taste is a real thing.
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It s really bothering me.
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Like I don t know.
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I don t know.
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And no one does.
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People much smarter than me have not decided whether or not good taste or taste at all exists.
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And that s something that we have to deal with.
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That s something that we have to remember when we re falling asleep tonight.
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I think what it really comes down to is exposing yourself to as much as you can.
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The more that you expose yourself to aesthetic things, the more your taste develops.
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It s that simple.
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You just have to go out there and experience.
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That s it.
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And through those experiences, your taste will develop.
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And I would recommend to look everywhere.
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Listen to pop music.
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Listen to random music that has no streams.
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Listen to everything that you can find.
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Go down weird rabbit holes on Pinterest and find cool fashion stuff.
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Buy vintage magazines, fashion magazines.
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Look through those.
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Watch a fuck ton of movies.
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Ones that have good ratings, ones that have bad ratings.
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Ones that have 10,000 views, ones that have 50 million views.
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If you want to develop your taste in a category, just consume as much of it as you can.
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I also think it s important to remember that it doesn t cost money necessarily to develop your taste.
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And in fact, I think taste develops much more organically and genuinely when money is not involved.
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Going into a thrift store and putting together a tasteful outfit can cost 10 bucks, but it develops your taste.
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You can expose yourself to these things using books, using the internet.
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It s never been easier to develop your taste, if that s something you want to do.
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It s never been easier and more accessible, I d argue.
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because of the internet.
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I think as long as your taste is unbiased, genuine, and based on a good amount of exposure and knowledge and experience, chances are you probably have good taste, or at least you have developed taste.
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And I m starting to feel like there s no such thing as good or bad taste, but rather developed and underdeveloped taste.
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Because I feel like saying something s good or bad that s subjective is, I don t know, it doesn t, it doesn t feel right to me.
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It feels kind of wrong.
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It feels mean.
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Like you re always hurting somebody s feelings.
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I mean, I think you can still hurt somebody s feelings by calling their taste underdeveloped, but it s less insulting to me because it s like, I will admit the areas that I have underdeveloped taste, like movies being a great example.
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That is less hard to say for me.
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It feels much less good to say I have bad taste in movies.
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because I don t know if I do.
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Like, bad?
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Like, really?
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Wow.
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Ouch.
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You know what I mean?
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That hurts.
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Underdeveloped, I think, is more accurate.
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I don t have a lot of knowledge there, simply put.
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I feel like people s interests tend to be consistent.
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Like, if you listen to this type of music, you probably like this type of movie.
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And if you like that type of movie, you probably like this type of interior design.
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And if you like this type of interior design, you ll probably like this type of clothing.
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I feel like these things all go hand in hand weirdly.
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And most people fit into some sort of aesthetic category, like based on their taste.
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And that makes the plot thicken.
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That thickens the plot for me.
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Because we do seem to be sort of broken up based on our aesthetic preferences.
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I don t know, most people sort of fit into a category.
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I don t know.
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What is good taste?
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My conclusion is I don t fucking know.
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And that s actually sort of a relief in a way, because I know I have put pressure on myself throughout my life to have good taste in things.
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And at the end of the day, it doesn t really exist.
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And I just need to like the things that I like because I fucking like them.
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And I need to make those decisions based on what is beautiful and exciting and intriguing to me.
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And there s really no right answer.
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And all I can do is work on developing my taste if that s something I want to do.
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And what I end up liking and disliking seems to be not up to me.
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It s like what my brain just chooses to enjoy.
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And I think when you honor the things that you enjoy, then your life becomes more gorgeous.
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So I don t know.
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That was a really challenging topic.
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And
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If you re curious about something, try to teach yourself about it.
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And you might end up even more confused than when you started looking into it, but it s always good to try.
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And you ll learn something about yourself, if nothing else, along the way.
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I hope that you enjoyed this episode.
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If you hated it, totally cool with me.
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Just wait until next episode.
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Maybe you ll like that one better.
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And there s new episodes every Thursday and Sunday.
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So come and hang out if that s something that you want to do.
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And you can follow anything goes on Instagram and anything goes.
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You can stream anything goes anywhere you get podcasts, but videos exclusive on Spotify.
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You can follow me at Emma Chamberlain on Instagram.
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You can check out my coffee company, Chamberlain Coffee on chamberlaincoffee.com or chamberlaincoffee on Instagram.
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You can order our stuff online or use the store locator and see if we re in a store near you.
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Go pick something up.
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Coffee, matcha, cute accessories.
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The sky s the limit really.
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I really appreciate you all and I m just so grateful that you decided to come hang out with me today and I hope that you had fun and I really hope to see you soon and I just love and appreciate you.
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I just do.
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I ll talk to you later.
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Bye.