4 ms·

Art and taste in the age of the Internet

54 points by miraj 10y ago

firasd 10y ago
Interesting. This article and the book it reviews are expansive in their investigation of the determinants of taste, but I’ve been thinking over the last few years that aesthetics are probably more socially determined than I’d thought. Does that mean everyone in the same house will have the same tastes? Not necessarily. But it does mean what you judge as good or bad will be connected, probably inseparably, to some social group’s understanding (‘your people.’) If you connect tastes to groups of people rather than to preferences in the characteristics of something, it follows that taste will have trends (as people have generations), that will tastes differ from one city to another, etc., which is what we observe.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  In a lot of forums and imageboards[1] people definitely always have the "same taste", unless the forum is huge. [1] From what I can remember, 4chan's music board users have their own "accepted" artists, though a smaller group of users go against them and choose to listen to more obscure, random music (I used to fall into this category—I was a silly 17 year old). But in general, you can assume a frequent users know and likes a set of albums. Reddit might be the same, but the general subreddits are too large and the smaller ones are well, focused on a specific genre.
- sixo 10y ago
  A recent reddit thread had a lot of interesting material on taste: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/4oiqvw/dan_brown_donates_300000_euros_to_library_to/d4dczoy https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/4oiqvw/dan_brown_don...
  - firasd 10y ago
    Great comment there. "Taste creates groups, or at the very least polices their boundaries..."
- miraj 10y ago
  somewhat tangential....a contact recently gave a talk on social media echo-chamber, and how that defines/limits preferences :: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11961441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11961441
Animats 10y ago
It's not accidental. See "The Tastemakers"[1], about food trends and how they're manipulated. Then there's the woman who introduced and named kiwi fruit.[2] Also passionfruit, spaghetti squash, starfruit, rambutan, tamarind, cherimoya and sunchokes. She runs a big produce distributor. For fashion, this clip from The Devil Wears Prada says it best.[3] The Color Association of the United States doesn't have the clout it used to, because brands have moved to China, but for years, they orchestrated the consumer electronics cycle from grey to black to white to off-white and back to grey again. [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IHGVS5U https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IHGVS5U [2] https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/248222 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/248222 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5WWy_0VLS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5WWy_0VLS4
- jacobolus 10y ago
  Frieda Caplan did not name all of the fruits you listed. Most of those are names dating from centuries ago. The article you linked says that she marketed them in the US, but I’m not sure how successfully; a lot of those fruits are predominantly sold in various “ethnic” markets, and are not especially well known or relevant in mainstream American culture.
  - Animats 10y ago
    No, she only named "kiwi fruit".
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    "Starfruit" is purely an American name, dating from the 1970's (its known as Carambola elsewhere). So it could be Caplan's doing? This article credits her with the name "Champagne Grapes" for fresh Zante currant grapes: http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-kiwi-queen-frieda-caplan-turns-90-20130809-story.html http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-kiwi-queen-fried...
PeterHorne 10y ago
> That was a waste of our time and, much more important, of the advertiser’s dollars. No, my time is more important. I hope that was supposed to be sarcastic.
Jimmy 10y ago
>Somewhere in America, there is a college professor who will never buy a Prius. The outlier is not extraneous to the type; the outlier is essential to the type. sniff and theez iz the essence of the Hegelian dialectic, and so on and so on...
- clentaminator 10y ago
  Instantly recognisable as the inimitable Slavoj Žižek.

54 points by miraj 10y ago

Interesting. This article and the book it reviews are expansive in their investigation of the determinants of taste, but I’ve been thinking over the last few years that aesthetics are probably more socially determined than I’d thought. Does that mean everyone in the same house will have the same tastes? Not necessarily. But it does mean what you judge as good or bad will be connected, probably inseparably, to some social group’s understanding (‘your people.’) If you connect tastes to groups of people rather than to preferences in the characteristics of something, it follows that taste will have trends (as people have generations), that will tastes differ from one city to another, etc., which is what we observe.

sotojuan 10y ago
In a lot of forums and imageboards[1] people definitely always have the "same taste", unless the forum is huge. [1] From what I can remember, 4chan's music board users have their own "accepted" artists, though a smaller group of users go against them and choose to listen to more obscure, random music (I used to fall into this category—I was a silly 17 year old). But in general, you can assume a frequent users know and likes a set of albums. Reddit might be the same, but the general subreddits are too large and the smaller ones are well, focused on a specific genre.
sixo 10y ago
A recent reddit thread had a lot of interesting material on taste: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/4oiqvw/dan_brown_donates_300000_euros_to_library_to/d4dczoy https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/4oiqvw/dan_brown_don...
- firasd 10y ago
  Great comment there. "Taste creates groups, or at the very least polices their boundaries..."
miraj 10y ago
somewhat tangential....a contact recently gave a talk on social media echo-chamber, and how that defines/limits preferences :: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11961441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11961441

Animats 10y ago

It's not accidental. See "The Tastemakers"[1], about food trends and how they're manipulated. Then there's the woman who introduced and named kiwi fruit.[2] Also passionfruit, spaghetti squash, starfruit, rambutan, tamarind, cherimoya and sunchokes. She runs a big produce distributor. For fashion, this clip from The Devil Wears Prada says it best.[3] The Color Association of the United States doesn't have the clout it used to, because brands have moved to China, but for years, they orchestrated the consumer electronics cycle from grey to black to white to off-white and back to grey again. [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IHGVS5U https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IHGVS5U [2] https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/248222 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/248222 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5WWy_0VLS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5WWy_0VLS4

jacobolus 10y ago
Frieda Caplan did not name all of the fruits you listed. Most of those are names dating from centuries ago. The article you linked says that she marketed them in the US, but I’m not sure how successfully; a lot of those fruits are predominantly sold in various “ethnic” markets, and are not especially well known or relevant in mainstream American culture.
- Animats 10y ago
  No, she only named "kiwi fruit".
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  "Starfruit" is purely an American name, dating from the 1970's (its known as Carambola elsewhere). So it could be Caplan's doing? This article credits her with the name "Champagne Grapes" for fresh Zante currant grapes: http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-kiwi-queen-frieda-caplan-turns-90-20130809-story.html http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-kiwi-queen-fried...

PeterHorne 10y ago

> That was a waste of our time and, much more important, of the advertiser’s dollars. No, my time is more important. I hope that was supposed to be sarcastic.

Jimmy 10y ago

>Somewhere in America, there is a college professor who will never buy a Prius. The outlier is not extraneous to the type; the outlier is essential to the type. sniff and theez iz the essence of the Hegelian dialectic, and so on and so on...

clentaminator 10y ago
Instantly recognisable as the inimitable Slavoj Žižek.