Tasteslop ft. Polyester (bonus)

Taylor and Travis got married, alert alert. This is old news now, but I think you guys still want to hear us talk about it, because one patron asked about it. And so obviously that means all of e. They represent you all. Oh, Street Sweeper. It's them, the storm in here. I mist thunderstorms so much. We don't get them. Oh, and now someone is the fuck is that? Okay, I'm gonna just close the window. I'll probably close the window anyways, because it's raining and it's raining. It's a fan on it. And now the fan is wet. See that's thunderstorms. My air conditioner has a big gap in it. So it actually like soaks my entire room in all the wires when it's thunderstorms. In London, we rain. But I think maybe it's because it's more north, there's not as much thunder and like like yeah, I think usually guys, again, not women and STEM, I think it has to get to a certain temperature roads. I think it has to get extremely hot for the thunderstorm. Like there's some sort of chemical thing that happens in the atmosphere. In the heat wave, we had a couple of thunderstorms and it was like so loud that it woke people up. Everyone was like, did you catch that thunderstorm? And everyone was like, yeah, it woke me up at 4 am. The window next to me was like the sky was white. And I first heard it. I thought there was an explosion. My scientific theory has been proven correct. I guess so. Don't Google it. Just had to explain to me yesterday moving the decimal, because I forgot about that. I was trying to calculate the tip and he was like, oh, you just moved the decimal over and I was like, stop talking. And he was like, it's really easy. And I was like, stop it. Stop talking. Don't try and teach me this. Don't man's blame. Don't man's blame. Math to me. Don't man's blame. Math. Yeah, my brother's girlfriend was trying to explain how people get blue eyes and the traits and dominant genes and stuff. And she had to pull up five different diagrams to illustrate how it works to me and I still don't think I fully get it. It's a marvel. Anyone listens to what we have to say, because we are really stupid. I hate solid. My math trauma is a such that like if you talk to me about it, I will immediately blackout. So don't even try. Don't even try. Basic math doesn't know me. But she's so pretty and smart in other ways and well read. And yes, so Taylor Swift got married. To be honest, I've kind of fallen off as the Taylor Swift correspondent of this show, because I find, if we want to talk about Slop, like I don't know, I feel like she's become Slop. I, when someone mentioned the Madison Square Garden, like the rumors that they were getting married, that's obviously a decoy. That's obviously fake. That's insane. What lunatic would do that? You know, do I think the highest of her, not necessarily, but think higher of her than that? And no, it was real. They like did that. It, um, yeah, she's tacky. It's like not even that it's tacky. It's just it's like the public spec. I like she, someone who was like throughout her career, like commented on her own kind of role as like a celebrity and had this like kind of self awareness about what it means to be on public display. But I feel like has like spoken a lot about whatever like the damage that that's done to her and like criticize it to an extent, but then I, then like, what is this? Like what is getting married? You know, she loves self awareness. I think she, she loves it. It's, but there's like something so meta about it. She fuels the parasociality of her fans in such an insane way. Like she likes it. I just, I don't know. And speaking of taste, as Taylor Swift have tasted her no taste, I would argue no taste because what is that comb over bang hairstyle? She has been rocking for a few years now. I don't understand. So like really deep, strange like bowl cut side bang she's been doing. What is that? I mean, famously no taste. Famously one of the worst dress celebrities on the planet consistently. I don't know if it's like she's just so rich that she's so out of touch and like so powerful that she doesn't have to like try and stage hip or if she just is so beloved by like the type of people that would respond to that lack of taste that it. And so well, and then I would daint I would venture on my end that I'm not venturing and I'm just saying it, but I have kind of reclaimed Taylor Swift as bad taste because I have started to like her more as she has come out as the basic aspects that she has always been and I have always said she is, but that people tried to deny for so long in calling her some sort of musical genius in saying that she is like artful. I was like, no, she has never been and when she got together with Travis Kelsey, I was like, this is her in her at her roots. I prefer her like this and I actually so I'm going to come out and say I thought the wedding was hilarious. I enjoyed it. Okay. What are your highlights of the Taylor Swift? We AT&T logo. It was that way. I need to confirm that I did not just like dream this up or this wasn't AI, but like. No, they're TNT. Try up Taylor and Travis. No, I know, but they worked with AT&T for the wedding. I'm pretty sure. Let me let. Who, why do they need sponsors for this wedding? She's a rich lady in the world. Okay, wait, wait. I might be wrong. I can't find anything supporting this thing. That might have been like a joke. That's a bad joke and it's ugly. They are like, you're talking. People like one prizes because they was like a circus thing with like games and prizes, like luxury prizes for wedding guests who are all rich. Why do rich people need to win prizes? They don't need to win things. Oh, they put it on a jumbo tron that said just TNT, like just and T married. It is just like the tackiest affair I've ever held. I, okay, yeah, someone made a TikTok being like a genuinely thought AT&T sponsored this me too girl because that's how ugly, ugly it was. I just can't even believe it. I think there is something to be said like in the era of celebrities getting married at like Hackney City Hall, like Charlie XCX or like the really low key celebrity wedding that someone would then do something so unbelievably ostentatious. There's something charming about that. Yeah, like I'm kind of fuck with it. I don't know. I think Taylor's in her basic era and it's what she was always meant to evolve towards and I'm happy about it because I'm like, ha ha. Finally the world sees her for what I have always seen and I think it's funny. I don't know and Travis Kelsey makes me laugh. Like, no, I am, Travis Kelsey makes me laugh. I'm like, this isn't her. You see, this is like, you're like this isn't her and like, this is her all along and we will never get to the crux of what Taylor's with really is. The last, these last few albums she put out were so bad and I know she can do better. She's done better. See, I don't think she can. She is literally that. All of her music sounds like the last album, whatever. It was like, what are these lyrics? I was like, to me, that is what her music has always sounded like. I'm like, it has always sounded this infantile and nursery rhyme-ish. Folklore and ever more. It was really good album. I simply will have to create a disagree here. But like, I completely love it respect your feelings and I'm really sad for you that it has taken this turn. Like, I don't want this for my girl. I am actually fine with it. I am so embarrassed that there is like a recorded proof of me on the internet. Be like, oh my god, I didn't get Taylor Swift to kiss. I actually feel horrible. Like, I'm like, I can't believe that exists. See, in this episode, I'd say the controversial take that I think animation end up for middle school in terms of like being outwardly an anime fan if you live in the West. But, which obviously don't fully even necessarily agree with. I was being a contrarian, but here I will also say I think Taylor Swift should end up for the age of 16 and I think Millennial women have taken it too far into adulthood. And she has taken it. She's in like a rest of adolescence. Like this, this wedding is so like baby, baby. Like she's like, I'm a baby. This is like her like living out her like prom queen fantasy or something. Yeah, I think that's exactly what it is. And again, baby mode, I think she has always been baby mode to me. She's been one big baby and I'm happy for this. Also guys, you can like animate as an adult. But can you like Taylor Swift as an adult? No, I'm not kidding about that. I'm dead asked. And the thing is it's safe to say now because everyone just so much, so hates her. She is a little bit getting womaned. I agree that the private jet should is crazy, but I am like, there are actually so many male CEOs out there. Like really terrible people who we just don't know about and we're too lazy to seek out and get mad at that are doing the same thing. I think like, and I think they should all be arrested, including Taylor Swift. Yeah, you know, I don't think that she's a bad person. Well, I don't think that though that is the behavior of a good person. But like in other ways, I don't think that she's necessarily a bad person. She's a victim of lifestyle creep. She's like a crazy famous person. I just said like, oh, you're so cringe and yet so powerful. Like Katy Perry entertains me because I'm like, what is this? Her and Justin Trudeau, I'm like, what is that? But like also she has zero cultural capital anymore. Like she's sort of a joke. She's a cringe lord for sure. Cringe lord for sure. But Taylor Swift has still so much cultural capital. I guess I just think that like she's become too powerful to try or be challenged. I think she needs to do some self in a reflection. I'm actually totally fine with people stepping away from the line line and I'm totally fine with her career not really moving forward because I don't need her to keep. I just, that's okay. Like you can work, I think she should go focus on something else. I don't need her to keep making music. I never thought it was good in the first place. I haven't thought she made a good song since that one song she made in the Hannah Montana movie where she performs it in the movie I thought that was a beautiful song ever since I've been like what? Duh-hell. Phone did in from there. I think yeah, back it up girl. I heard her, she is one, she and Selena Gomez are these baffling people, her a little less than Selena, who like their presence in the public eye and like, but why? Like I don't think that's should have persisted. Selena even more because I'm like girl what have you done? But- She made the blush I wear every day. She made that with her own two hands. I think it's crazy to have your wedding at Madison's fucking square garden in the middle of one of the densest cities in North America and then to be like and have the most intense like NDA type, you cannot take photos of this wedding thing where it's like, oh now you're being secretive, you literally just shut down the fucking city for your wedding. I want to know like, did anyone do anything crazy? What were people doing? Was the part was it a good party? That's what I want to know. I'm like, if you owe it to the public, if you're gonna be like so, I mean the financial, the financial diet called us, it was like this is a sign that we're all medieval peasants, like we're living a medieval peasant era that we're like cheering on these people for having their like, billion or wedding, but it's like if you're gonna do that and you're gonna shut down the city, at least step out onto the balcony and wave at your fucking peasants. Like, shouldn't even do that. It's like you don't let the peasants even see you, but you're gonna like ruin my whole day because you decided to get married to this film. Give us, give us your privacy as we get married on the most famous stage of the world. Literally, you want me to read it in a stadium? I know, it's also like, it's just so cool, it's so on the nose, I just hate it. Get married at a palace, like do that, like it'd be like, but this the stadium to me, I'm like, is the tachyous part. No taste mama, well her husband is a football player, so stadium. Why, exactly, it's so tacky. I'm here for it, it's no taste, but to me it's bad taste and you will all understand what I'm saying when you listen to this episode. Listen to this episode, which we recorded with the help of our lovely friends, Ioni Campbell and Gina Tonic, who are the editors of Polyester Magazine and who have put out a great new book called The Polyester Book of Bad Taste. And so we're going to be joined by them in just a minute, but in the meantime, this is rehash, a podcast about the internet phenomenal that strike a nerve in our culture, only to be quickly forgotten, but we think are due for every visiting. And this is a special Patreon bonus episode for our lovely patrons with great taste. So this month's bonus episode is all about taste, where it comes from what it symbolises, and whether or not it can be replicated by the algorithm. And to help us discuss this topic, we have some very special guests. Ioni Campbell and Gina Tonic are the hosts of the Polyester podcast, and their new book The Polyester Book of Bad Taste is out now. Hi guys. Hi. So we're so excited to have you guys on. And as I mentioned, today we're going to be talking about tastes, but in particular we're going to be dissecting this new concept of taste slop. Which was coined by the writer and trend forecaster Emily Siegel, who by the way is also the person who came up with norm core. And just to jump right in, Siegel defines taste slop as the appropriation of the tasteful by the tech world in order to create slop. And she gives a few different examples for how this can like manifest, which include like a corporate mood board full of high end designed fetish items, dinner parties held for AI companies, the sudden explosion in popularity of like a particular item due to the algorithm, such as tabby shoes or those trader Joe's tote bags, you see everywhere. I would also personally add the personalized AI Spotify playlist to that, as well as like short form videos where celebrities showcase their taste like top jaw or those like letterbox top fours. Siegel writes that taste slop emerges when the visible signs of taste are extracted from those relations and redeployed generically. And I just was wondering if there were like any other examples of taste slop that like you guys have observed lately or like any particular items or aesthetics that you've like noticed have been sloppified. I think anything chrome, but anything like pitched in his writing an article for us, so I'm just sealing their idea. But they were talking about how like the new it girl thing isn't have cool clothes, which have a really cool apartment and like a huge part of that that she's writing about is like chrome items, like having a chrome, so for this got a chrome frame or like a really cool chrome coffee table or really cool chrome. Tell me your offer so far that has a chrome frame for free. Yeah. Okay, I nodded along and just bought chrome shelves. Chrome, chrome tape sloped down like it's also it's so like futuristic as well to be like guys you know what the future of taste is? Chrome. That's funny from episode. Yeah exactly. It's like that's fun from episode, but yeah, I thought that was an interesting one where it's like this really like polished metal. Not me with my chrome nails too. Holy shit. They're yellow. I got it a gold chrome, but I don't know if gold chrome is a colour. I don't think gold chrome comes because it's like gold's quite tacky isn't it? Yeah. Because yellow actually buttery yellow. But yellow is a thing. I thought the McDonald's rebrand like the way that they've redesigned their cafes or redesigned to be a cafe in the first place. I was going to take one of its own to cafes. I'm going to go for it. And they basically called themselves cafes now like they don't want to admit that they're diners and then they've also it's kind of it's excuse to create like hostile or like anti homeless architecture. The seats are all separated and they're like these little stools, but then they're kind of designed with the idea of looking like sophisticated. And it's been an excuse to kind of like McDonald's is an expensive place now. Yeah. I find the price is crazy. And it's just funny because it's like McDonald's is fast food but then they're kind of using these taste signifiers. I also find just like a lot of new restaurants use the same kind of mid-century modern interior design to the point that it's like it's so easily replicated that like you're literally seeing a pop up in the AI models that Emily Seagull references. I just think anything that's that easily replicable and can be so replicated that it can be shadowed by AI would be qualified. Have you seen the Coca-Cola just did like curry brand as well and it looks exactly the same but the only difference. So like the actual logos exactly the same. They've like redesigned the counter kind a tiny bit. So now like Coke Zero cans aren't in a black font. They're in the white font and then just say zero underneath. But then I thought like what? That sounds like a trickery. That sounds like a devilish trickery. Well I also thought it was interesting it's like they've introduced a serif font to it. You know like a retro mid-century font that it's kind of like old Coke like when everyone loved Coca-Cola and it was like new and stuff. But then also that really aligns with taste lock I think because I feel like fonts really go through the taste cycle like it used to be sans serif and then all of the fashion houses changed. So I can minimalist font and now it's swinging about the other way. Yeah and those the whole like handwritten font trends like the Jo-Leen font everywhere. There's something with the chalkboard like written menu thing that to me kind of feels like weirdly tweey and like weirdly like 20 tens and yet like has come back in like I guess the Tweet revival kind of way. But that's sort of I think a bit of an epidemic. And in restaurants it's like the linen tablecloth, the like silver old cutlery, the chalkboard, the like minimalist restaurant aesthetic. That like looks like Italy that's taste lock. Italy is taste lock. I don't know we have a set of Italian. I take it all back. It's being a tourist in Italy is taste lock. I just remembered because I think this is happening a lot in film. There's a lot of like shorthand for prestige going on where you'll have certain types of shots like really cinematic shots and a lot of it's I wrote an article about a lot of it's derived from like the tree of life by a turnt's malloc with these like really like soft focus visuals that a lot of commercials now use. And I think that also qualifies to me as taste lock. I think anything that can be shorthanded for taste is sloped to me. Commercial directors like using kind of like cinematic language instead of just you know a guy in front of a screen that's like bring back like a guy in a white void talking at you. Oh school style. Yeah. So see go flushed out the idea of taste lock in an article on sub-zack which grapples in part with like whether or not AI can develop taste or if it can simply just mimic it. And she says this is dependent on how you define taste and provides like two different frameworks for doing so. The first comes from the French sociologist Pierre Bordeaux, which argues that taste is a socially constructed set of codes used to signify class and cultural capital. And Bordeaux believes that like taste is not natural but talked to us either in the home or the classroom. And Seagulls' article suggests that that type of taste or like if you define it that way. It could be adopted by AI technically. And the second comes from Susan Sontag's notes on camp, which these taste as like a sensibility, which is which is less systemic and more like esoteric, which Seagull says like acquiring this type of taste requires like more sentience. It's more human. But I'm curious like how do you guys define taste? Is it something innate or is it imposed on to us? Do you know you look like you have something you want to say? I think it's both. Right? It's like somewhere in the middle like I think we are like it would be said to be like oh class doesn't have a point of view within tastes or like has like some saying over how we form our tastes. I feel like as capitalism has got more prevalent in my life as I've gotten older I think like and also online you can see it a lot more vividly. But I also do think there is like an innate feeling inside of you and that's kind of like where the book lands really well for me with the essays that I own these commissions in it. Exploring like that nuance between those two ideas of it like being something that's within ourselves and like so heartfelt and the heart of it being like a societal thing. It's like nature versus nurture where it's kind of like well actually it's both. Nothing's ever versus anything. Yeah I think what's interesting about the idea of like can AI develop taste or can it just mimic it is that like I think one of the arguments that I make in the book is that like a lot of people who have good taste are just mimicking it and are mimicking it because of the way that we like process good taste and like liking the right things and things being intellectual in society as like some sort of hierarchy that establishes worth about whether you're like worthy if you like the right things. Obviously this is like more prevalent in creative industries which we're all in but I think in general through social media that's also exploded and like there's this whole cottage industry now of influencers that tell you oh something will denote that you are like upper class something will denote that you have money something is like quite luxury everyone should want to be quite luxury because everyone wants to be thought of as having money but not to be ostentatious about it because then that's poor taste and I think these are all basically behavioral rules that are learned that draw people away from like that actual taste if that makes sense and I think that becomes more and more obvious the more we kind of zoom into trends whether it's like tabbies or anything basically is like oh do I actually like that or have I just seen it so many times and like seen it in a succession of media that connotes what I'm trying to put out. I think what I really got from your book Jean and Ioni and then also from the Seagull article even though I don't think it was articulated I think they were articulated almost as the inverse of each other but I think I came out of this realizing there's taste and there's no taste and I think bad taste for me still qualifies as some sort of taste and I think going down through like Seagull's points to me like discernment came out as like the major qualifier of taste and I think when it comes to bad taste you're still making a choice to embrace that to me like when I was reading the essays in this book and reading the article no taste came across I think both both of your pieces were arguing against the idea of no taste and the idea of like a top down enforcing of taste from corporate authorities essentially like I think with the example of AI for example or the micro trends that you talk about those are very much instilled again through like influencers who were partnering with brands you know with getting a kickback by telling everyone to buy this one random fetish object right and in a Seagull article it's like these fucking tech people being like I think AI could do it's like they have a they have like a vested interest in telling people to do this versus to me someone having someone loving something object that is considered bad taste is still them being able to discern something about it that makes them love it and I think yeah to me that was what taste meant and I think I totally agree I think it's a mixture of something innate because you have to kind of like have this innate desire for a thing to have the taste for it but I also do think it could be like environmentally learned you know you can be tall at how to like discern an essence the essence of something I guess and like I only both you and and Seagull sort of at points like describe that experience of the the lived experiences that inform why like you might like something that might be gent like popular even but because of like your own sort of specific context for it draw you to it which I thought was really interesting I mean I think like her focus on like the esoteric quality she's she's as an example of like property clothing and like two people could come out it very differently because one person had this own personal connection to it and like one person was sort of like fed it as a trend but I also I loved this sort of like emphasis on like the work that goes into discovering things you like you you compare it you talk to it tastes as like a Russian doll of artifacts I really loved that like metaphor because it brought me back to like literally being on my computer and like being like why am I drawn to this image and then like finding the source material for it and then like going further and further down that rabbit hole and do you guys like have I guess like any early moments for you recognize the seeds of your personal taste being planted oh my god lights I felt like Gina Hoynes has really got one's for this as well I think welcome to mine right now is I remember coming to uni and Eden my best friend who I made best friends with in like my first year uni would just spend every like night we'd just smoke weed and watch a new film and it would always be like a film she'd seen but she'd be like you've not seen this and it would be something like so crazy that I hadn't seen now looking back she'd be like you haven't seen lost translation you haven't seen ghost world you haven't seen donny darker like just loads of like films that was just like everyone I think had seen like before me and I don't know how they'd passed me by but I think for me a huge part of my taste was informed by like my friends taste I guess by like what my friends wanted to show me and I think that's kind of like what's also missing in the conversation of taste is the way you introduce each other's to taste I think that's like such like a fun thing that we lose a bit through like social media algorithms that tell you what to like because you're not really listening to like your peers recommendations anymore we're all taking the same recommendations from our algorithms right I think for me it was similar but like so I've written about like a few different things in places before mostly both my books but I felt like one of them was going to charity shops when I was 15 and buying VHSs of stuff and just buying ones that like I thought was interesting or I'd seen online or whatever and that's how I discovered like ghost wild and heathers and like breakfast club and like all of these other films that are obviously not like niche films but like felt new to me but maybe I'd already seen like a screenshot on Tumblr or something which I feel like why is why the internet then when we were teenagers was like so good for that and like why it was this kind of like Russian dollar element not just Tumblr which was like I'll see a lot of screenshots but I feel like even criticism was so much more generous in that it like fashion criticism in particular which is what I was mostly reading was like pointing to who made the soundtrack for the show for example so then you could look them up or like who if a look was inspired by or even just the right of thought it reminded them of like a character in a film that was cross reference so like even reading something like that then kind of just like opened up your world that inch by inch bit more whereas now I saw like a tweet the other day that was like how do people find out who does the soundtrack for fashion shows I always very love them but I never know where to look and it's just like I feel like we the internet has been like end-share-fied to that degree so much that like there's no way of people being able to find the things that interests them because it's all algorithm-led. We've also just exclusive to like influencers or magazines and stuff I think. Yeah I agree I learned a lot of my taste for my mom I think I don't know if it was like being her only kid but I just thought she was such a godness when I was growing up and she I would watch her get ready for work and I thought she was so glamorous I mean she is glamorous. She is glamorous. Yeah, she's very fast. So I just thought I just all I wanted to grow up and be her and like where that kind of clothing and I think my parents really my parents were kind of snobs and they really care about like aesthetic sensibilities in a way that very much informed like the way I've moved through the world since and I completely agree that taste is something that's social. I think Tumblr was a really I haven't for me for discovering taste as well like I think the way that you could kind of customize your own page or like you have to learn how to code your own playlist into it. There was a lot of work being done to cultivate that sensibility and I go through my Tumblr now and I'm like wow I was like 16 and I really like I still really like that kind of stuff and so it was true to who I was even though I've changed so much since I think that to mean no taste as opposed to bad taste is like equivalent to like it's it's like abstraction basically whereas like taste is knowledge and learning and yeah curiosity I think is important. (upbeat music)