The first TikTok I made that really popped off began “where to buy art so that everyone who comes to visit you knows you have *taste*”. I didn’t feel particularly good saying it, but figured TikTok isn’t the place for nuance— hook the viewer, speak their language, etc etc. The response was immediate, so I ran with the formula: “gift guide for your friend with taste”, “digital prints with taste”, “a newsletter for people with taste”. Every time I said the T-word, I felt the twinge of a micro self-betrayal. “Taste” was a clickable Trojan Horse: the promise of discernment conveniently packaged in an affiliate link.
As the word became increasingly metallic in my mouth, like the aftertaste of a strong vitamin, I began to see it everywhere, accompanied with images like: woman in boatneck tank top holds ~funky~ martini glass, pewter sardine-shaped catchall on a mahogany dresser, kitten heel thong sandals. You get it. Mood board critical mass. Somehow more unsavory: the barrage of think-pieces dissecting what good taste even is. Listen, I know there’s blood on my hands. I’m here to plead guilty and accept my sentence. By the time you finish this piece, taste will be dead to me.
Taste has become fictitious capital: easy to claim, rarely backed by anything real. Taste has long functioned as a form of cultural capital, as Pierre Bourdieu covers in La Distinction, a means by which individuals signal their social position through supposedly “natural” preferences. Yet in today’s digital economy, taste has been filtered through engagement rates and affiliate links, and is anything but natural. The act of “liking” or “curating” is less about personal discernment and more about participating in a market-driven simulation of distinction. To claim that we’ve “curated” anything on our Pinterest is laughable; we didn’t curate it, the algorithm did. I just clicked “save”! I’m not impressed with your mood board— or mine. What actually impresses me now is vision. Vision is the new taste.
Vision disrupts the echo chamber of “good taste”. Instead of replicating, it reveals latent potential beyond existing frameworks. It rejects the sterilization of aesthetics. In fact, it requires you to get your hands dirty. Vision is at once the genesis of “good taste” and a resistance against its flattening logic. Vision is creation, not curation.
It appears in the form of an appreciation for the typeface on the moving truck, or seeing the glory in the lounge chair on Marketplace ostensibly photographed by a toaster in a fluorescent-lit basement. I don’t know, just spitballing here. Taste, in its current state, is a mirror. Vision is a lens.
I hammered the “taste” thing hard. I was wrong.
All vision and no taste,
Talia
Do smell next
This is such a rich topic. “Taste” is the new way of saying “curation,” which was the 2000’s buzzword for the same thing. And listen, having taste or discernment is good! It means you’re capable (probably) of taking what you want and leaving the rest. Vision is making something that’s never existed before, which is a whole ‘nother thing. It’s why most AI “art” sucks.
Thanks so much for this piece! It’s giving me a lot to chew on.