How to Discover Your Own Taste
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/09/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-kyle-chayka.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Rk0.dLWA.Shrzu6bRDm_D&bgrp=a&smid=url-share
I listened to this episode this morning, and, though they talk about personal taste in the age of algorithmic recommendations in general, I thought it had some interesting conversations directly applicable to an online fashion community.
Some bullet points for discussion if you don't want to listen to it:
At some point, the internet moved from curation, where it was about finding people whose taste you enjoyed (and who would go on to shape what you like), to the internet of algorithms, where we are shown whatever is spit out of some black box, losing the individual experience but gaining what you could call the ease of scalability.
Do you think it's harder to develop a personal taste (or "style") today? On one hand, it is easier than ever to be fed hundreds of Tik Tok videos of your chosen aesthetic, on the other, we perhaps lose the context that can be a vital part of developing taste.
Do algorithms tend to flatten taste, driving you to the same viral grwms or whatever, or does it tend to silo us off into our online bubbles?
One point they bring up is that, as algorithmic curation becomes ubiquitous, it could give everyone access to a "lowest common denomiator" of aggregated taste. In this world, is individuality put at more of a premium?
As our internet experience that mediates our relationship with fashion challenges our taste less and less, as the algorithm feeds us what it thinks we want to see, what do you foresee the effects on fashion being? Could there be a bifurcation between what they call "quantified mass appeal" vs "particularistic appeal" (generic fits acceptable to most vs crazy avant garde shit enjoyed by a few)?
How has your own taste shaped by the algorithms that mediate your life? Could be as simple as dressing for WDYWT highlights.
By ‘The Ezra Klein Show’
The New York Times
Opinion | How to Discover Your Own Taste
Kyle Chayka on the art of developing personal style in an age when algorithms loom over aesthetics and culture.
16 Replies
i think a lot of it is people are unable to or unwilling to spend the amount of time needed to figure out a truly personal style
people gravitate to the same or similar options, which guides how ai or algorithms engage with a viewer, which guides what they buy/wear/view; it's a cycle borne from least resistance
i'd be curious as to how this impacts trend forecasting; it seems that the rate of which new or "new" ideas are coming in is slower than people's desire to consume. leaning into how cyclic fashion and style gets can only work for so long if the cycle gets shorter and shorter
One final thought that I couldn’t fit in:
At a time when it’s easier than ever to know what the “right” thing to wear is, how do you value “bad taste vs no taste” in the sense of “a strong-but-misguided point of view vs a good enough path of least resistance.” Is there a greater nobility in bad taste when you can just copy the first Uniqlo U fit that is recommended on YouTube?
the piece about algos is interesting because i started (like a lot of u im sure) looking at shit on forums and shopping thru online secondhand & stockists, so the idea of watching tutorials to build a personal style just... doesnt make sense to me? like i get the appeal on some level but im just not convinced
Yeah, if the computers have learned anything about us, it’s our innate preference for novelty.
i also can't discount the economic value in this sort of "predictable" model of finding style and curating aesthetic, even if it's at the cost of individuation
100% the time im hyping up the person with horrible taste as long as they're chasing what they love tho.
If this interests you, I found the guests nyer essay pretty enjoyable a few weeks ago. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/coming-of-age-at-the-dawn-of-the-social-internet
The New Yorker
Coming of Age at the Dawn of the Social Internet
Online platforms allowed me to cultivate a freer version of myself. Then the digital world began to close off.
a counterpoint - is it inherently bad if people who are disinterested in fashion or personal style get led by algorithms/ai/social pressure onto a narrow track?
it's usually not bad but it is boring
tho it can def be bad when racial & cultural biases built into the AI start to strangle everything not white
that happened independent of ai
I don’t think so. And I think this is the main trap to fall into in this conversation.
oh absolutely lmao but AI tends to add a layer of separation for a lot of ppl so they don't bother interrogating why everything looks so one-note
definitely. the feedback loops that arise online and in life to an extent mean we aren't challenged as much by other styles or given space to question how much value something has
i haven't had the chance to read it yet but "style and culture" by w. david marx seems like a good supplement to this
I'm a bit late but I feel like the current reccomendation software has led to a lot more niche content instead of flattening trends
I was going to say, something you mentioned earlier in this thread reflected the final chapter in the book. Marx argued that with the internet things move too fast to develop a strong cultural identity (say the way 70s vs 80s had a distinct stylistic identity) and as a result it ends up feeling like things are stagnant as a result.
I'm not 100% bought in to the idea. Especially when you look at fashion in the early 2010s vs today within a similar community like MFA, it's clear to me that we're still seeing changes. I think it's more that fashion trends are like seeing the forest through the trees and harder to track live than in hindsight.
There's a difference though between changes within a specific community, and society wide style trends, like the ones we (at least in retrospect) ascribe to the 70s or 80s.