Cultivating Taste in a Trend Mill
When I started traveling at the end of 2023, I was searching for a fun and interesting city. But the more I’ve traveled, the more I’ve noticed how similar all the cool neighborhoods feel. Restaurants, stores, and coffee shops almost become interchangeable from city to city.
This phenomenon has been written about many times before. It’s not new that overtourism, social media, and capitalism contribute to the aesthetic sameness that blankets popular cities. These places thrive on recycling the aesthetics of coolness. It says, hey, here’s something different but not too different, come on in, you’ll like it!
But the phenomenon isn’t unique to travel. That same regurgitated ‘cool’ spills over in other spaces. It proliferates on social media, in books, tv, and music. And with the rise of generative AI, everything has become so easy to polish and perfect that the result has buffed out all the interesting edges from real life. Worse, it’s boring.
In Lisbon, I noticed how several tourists were wearing a scarf tied around their waist and the same kind of flowy white skirt. I have nothing against trends. I, myself, am guilty of the scarf belt look. But all this sameness leaves me desiring more. I want to refine my inner taste. Develop my own compass of discretion. Lately, I find myself gravitating towards people and places with a novel perspective.
Influence vs Simulation
Most of us get our aesthetic cues from the same sources, and it’s resulted in a trend mill. We’re all referencing an image that is referencing an image that’s divorced from reality. I know I’m not the only one who hungers for real taste, not trends.
But how do you develop taste? Or style?
As a writer, honing taste is part of developing your voice. When I was a teenager, I used to write fanfiction. My first foray into public writing was imitating another writer’s voice. Later, as I continued to read and write, I came into my own style and voice. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being influenced. But I’d argue it’s how we take those influences and create something new that defines our taste.
Lisbon is a model of both. The Christo Rei statue was inspired by Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. The 25th of April bridge was built by the same company that designed the Golden Gate Bridge. They’re not hiding where they came from; they’re proudly referential. However, the castles in Sintra alchemized their influences- the neo-Islamic, neo-Gothic, and neo-Renaissance into something whimsical and completely new.
It feels like the challenge of our age is what we do with all these references. How do we transform them into something that reflects our purpose and perspective? That’s what I’m considering now. I’m not tasteless. But so much of what I retreat to and what has become comfortable doesn’t say anything real about me. So how am I cultivating my taste?
I’m slowing down and noticing more. This sounds small, but simply training your eye to notice something is the first step to discovering what you like. Recently, I’ve bought a small Kodak pixpro fz55 to start capturing moments that mean something to me.
Diversifying my inputs. This year, I’ve challenged myself to read new genres like speculative fiction, horror, and more on architecture and design. I’m not cutting out social media, but I’m diversifying my sources and interrogating why something seems cool.
Journaling. Personal writing is a way of thinking and cataloguing your thoughts. I’m also creating more: more blogs, more fiction. And I’ve decided to start a taste journal to keep scraps of things that scratch my brain. For me, taste isn’t just about liking something. I don’t like everything that I admire, but I appreciate it for its art. And even what I don’t like tells me something useful.
Cultivating our personal taste is an invitation to explore our curiosities and inclinations. It gives us a chance to appreciate something not just for whether we like it, but for what it means to us and how it represents us. To go beyond consuming and start shaping what cool means to us.
Thanks for reading! If you liked this update and want to support my travels, consider buying me a coffee.
