I know I will never go hungry in my life. I just need to post about taste on X.com and I will have hundreds of comments teaching me about taste because everyone has an opinion on the topic.

And the sweet Elon bux will follow. Joke, joke, I have not got any Elon bux (yet).

Why?

It is low status to think people don’t have taste.

Funny thing is there is no way to even define taste.

There is no universal consensus on what is good taste. Yet everyone feels qualified to weigh in as if it’s an objective thing.

Asking what is good taste is the same as asking what is good design. What is a good movie. What is having good taste in comedy?

Let’s take one example.

People share “it insists upon itself” memes on Twitter. The origin of the meme is a comment by Peter in Family Guy about The Shawshank Redemption.

I remember in college, having taste meant having watched The Shawshank Redemption. Is it tasteful thinking The Shawshank Redemption is the pinnacle of cinema still? The number 1 rated movie on IMDb.

Is IMDb rating tasteful? Or do people with taste check out movie reviews on Letterboxd now?

Or do people with taste read books on filmmaking by Hitchcock and form their own opinion about movies like Anurag Kashyap?

Now coming back to Family Guy.

Do you, as a person with taste in memes, think “the it insists upon itself” meme is good or not? If yes, and you think it is funny, you probably think that Seth MacFarlane is funny. A person who has taste in comedy.

Do you know that Seth MacFarlane has made far worse jokes on the show than India’s got Latent?

Watch the episode where Chris shows Stewie his private room for example.

So do people with a taste in comedy like Family Guy or not?

People loved Stranger Things. People loved Louis CK. People loved Kanye. JK Rowling. Do people who have taste in TV, Comedy, Books, Music still love these people?

Probably not. Because taste is not just about the object itself, but what it signals about us. You decide what to like, at what time to like, to be part of various groups that signal your identity.

You can’t love JK Rowling today as a left-leaning person. You will be no more in-group.

When you were from a small town and got to an engineering college, watching Friends was what people having taste did. Then people would discover Seinfeld and move on. Seinfeld is what sophisticated people watched.

And yes, the more obscure the books and movies, the more taste you had.

I remember a road trip in Kerala where my best friend from college and I were debating over the best Malayalam movies. Malayalam movies were high taste at that point. And we were just signaling.

Is there a ladder of taste? Is it the same as the status ladder? It’s not just about what you like, but also the signaling around it. The perceived status.

Remember Lex Fridman’s book list? And the criticism around it? Wow, the books are so basic. It is so funny that when I posted the hard copies I had yesterday, I knew people would post Japanese design books.

Why? Because I have posted In Praise of Shadows so many times myself too.

But the problem with wanting to signal with obscure Japanese books is that their hard copies are too expensive.

I like status. Not as much that I smash my book budget with just one purchase.

And hence whether you think I have tasteful design books will also depend on whether you check out my Goodreads shelf or physical bookshelf.

Kanye wore the same homeless people clothes that I used to wear as a kid who has no interest in clothes and just could not bother dressing up. But when Kanye had taste, dressing homeless was tasteful. Acting like you had no money and wore torn clothes was tasteful. Kanye did not shout at Jews on X.com then. Are your Yeezy sneakers still tasteful?