A Matter of Taste

The one thing that everyone should know is that there is no such thing as good taste and bad taste in terms of music, TV, Films or Books. Taste is personal. We often can’t explain how or why a particular form of entertainment appeals to us, we just know it does. If someone else likes a particular artist or a particular writer that you can’t abide, they don’t have ‘bad taste’ and if they like the same artist or writer that you do, they don’t have ‘good taste’.

It really is the height of arrogance for a person to accuse someone of having ‘no taste’ because they are saying they are a better human being than that other person.

There is a lot of popular entertainment that I don’t like, but I know that it exists because it brings pleasure to people. Who are we to say that it should not exist? If we don’t like it, we don’t have to engage with it. Turn off the TV or radio, don’t continue watching that film, don’t continue reading that book.

I love telling people about what I enjoy but if they don’t enjoy it, then they have different taste not ‘bad taste’ or ‘no taste’. One thing I know from my personal interest in Popular Culture is that those in positions of power have tried to dictate what people should watch across the centuries in order to separate them from the lower classes. It’s frustrating in the extreme to see their job being done for them by the arrogant arbiters of taste that now dominate online discourse. Live and let live. If you don’t like something move on and don’t use it to show an imagined superiority!