Ever since I have made the switch from Tiktok to Instagram reels, I have noticed my fingers hesitate upon each video I’ve liked. With my likes being so suddenly on display for the whole world to observe, I find myself hesitant. Like so many others, I find myself uncertain to publicly announce what I like. It seems the less I like, the better. So why am I so insistent on hiding my taste?
Like many things, taste has developped into a kind of commodity. The less one’s taste is noticed, the rarer it is. This has developped into creators themselves marketing themselves through appealing to a niche community. It seems everything has become more and more tailored to a specific, niche community. An “you either get it or you don’t” mindset has taken over the digital world, where every aspect of creativity is hyper aware of its specific target.
Even on Substack, essays and thinkpieces market themselves as hitting a specific brand of intellectualism. Many essays go even so far as appealing to a specific range of female intllectual. Understandable, as more than 60% of female users on Substack are women. This platfom seems to offer a unique community, under the illusion of being open and accepting. Yet a number of its users remain cling to an idea of Substack being more elevated than other social media platforms. Of being a community for some kind of literate elite, advertised through the lens of various trends, such as the “thought daughter”.
Yet this marketing of being part of an understated circle is not entirely new. Women are much more online because much like being a woman, being online is a performance. Our understanding of how to adapt our appearance is led entirely by our long understanding of other’s perception of us. We understand that our aesthetic communicates much before we do. Why else would so many of us have over a dozen Pinterest boards?
Women know how to play it up or how to suppress it, in a way many men fail to do, all because it hasn’t impacted their lives in the same way.
If taste is at present the darling idol of the polite world, as Professor Ruby Justice Thélot argues, then it is no wonder women are so conscious of how they choose to communicate it. As a point of social discourse, we all seem to be under the impression that our social media presence is a constant answer to the question “What is Taste?” In our most self-conscious moments, it seems like a simple “like” is at risk of being disected.
In ending his essay on taste with,
When uncreased white sneakers question polished penny loafers, begging “What’s Taste?”, the real question asked is, “What’s Good?”
I wonder whether the question draws curiosity on the interior or the exterior: is it a question of what is good in the world or what is good according to me? While both may have drawn the same answers in a society where taste was a matter of virtue, our digital capitalist age deploys taste as a symbol of class, a symbol of proper consumerism.
In a way, being hesitant towards having likes be made public is less about the realisation that other people can see what I consume, but rather the hyper-awareness that the algorithm and every unknown machine can see what I consume. How can we be sold intimacy and community on platforms that track every second of our online activity?
Privacy is dead, sure, but don’t rub it in my face.
Because that is precisely what we are expected to forget. In the discourse of “I don’t want my high school friends to see the dozen memes me and my brother send each other”, we seem to forget the machine we truly do not wish to track our consumption. Because if we aren’t at the table, we are surely on the menu.
Now there is no need to be entirely pessimistic, but it is important to be aware. I have found myself resisting by refusing to like anything, yet have slowly come to the conclusion that it only harms creatives - creatives I so wish to support. So fuck it, let’s make sure we are loud when we like something. Let us leave a like, leave a comment, post it on our stories. Let us make sure that everyone around us knows exactly where we stand.
Love,
Anastasia
Thank you so much for supporting the time and effort I put into my writing. It truly means the world to have you here <3 If you’d like more day-to-day updates, feel free to follow me on instagram!
In case you missed my last essay, find it right here:
how to bloom this spring
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Mar 2
As the snow has melted and the sky has cleared, there is a small thrill in knowing that spring is approaching. March, like a heavy perfume leaving the room, makes way for us to breathe again. The warm air hangs like a promise of an outdoors ready to be savoured. Soon, pavements will make way for wild flowers and cafe menus for iced teas and lemonades.
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