Development in taste

Saturday 7 January 2023

Everybody has their own development in taste with regard to [food, clothing, interior design, art, music, etc]. Sometimes this matters hardly at all other times it leads to very different sensibilities and preferences. When I read this back it seems like a trivial hypothesis/observation (ignoring that not everything is relative sure there are universals as well—not going into that now).

In traditional societies there were less striking differences, in modern times capitalism advances paradoxically both mono-culture sometimes spanning many countries continents or even the entire globe and at the same time countless small niche subcultures that often exclude each other. I see both. Interiors that suddenly all have the same old look furniture for example. New musical styles that everybody seems to sing or hum to another example. Clothing fashion is of course beyond obvious everybody even adults wearing those insipid ripped jeans that hurt my eyes all the time is yet another example.

Sometimes I’m bored by the mono-culture, more often I’m amazed by the differences. For example, not one of my coworkers seem to share musical tastes among themselves. Except to some extend we can all agree which songs in the background music are bad, really bad, passable, enjoyable or even good—the reason for this of course that we all have been inescapably indoctrinated by back ground music, even if we don’t listen to it at home simply by being exposed to it for so many hours day in day out.

On rare occasions I even adopt a song I heard in BGM. Latest Burning, by The Whitest Boy Alive.