July 2026
You are what you eat, or so the famous epithet goes.
Shovel in shit or gorge on garbage and you'll reflect these choices in your physique. But this is not a post about health, it is about choice in all areas and how these choices seep into our character and form our identity. Just as fast food has fire hosed food into our mouths, the internet has done the same for content of all types, and our gluttony has desensitised our taste.
Taste is the right word, and in the glorious past (i.e. when I was a young 'un), I hewed my taste through constraint. I consumed TV, books and music at a rate limited by budget. There was no subscription option that gave me access to the world's tunes…I had to buy the CD. The limit forced me to choose. I spent real mental energy choosing between an Eminem CD or an Ibiza mixtape, and my choice reflected who I wanted to be.
Is this the formation of taste or was I just constrained by my own lack of funds? Perhaps that's one and the same question. Constraints forced taste. I had to discern what I liked from what I didn't and make strong decisions based on limitations. I was coerced at times by what my mates were listening to. This was shorthand.
Has that been lost? I watch my daughter listen to music, and most tunes don't last a minute. "Alexa, skip" or swipe left (or right, whichever the bad one is) is her refrain of choice. I cannot make my mind up — is this how she is honing her taste in real time, or is it the decimation of her attention span by too much abundance and no requirement for discernment?
In years gone by, you were defined by your clothes, your music and what you spent your time doing. Different groups had different names, but I struggle to define my daughter's taste in music. She'll listen to most things, including stuff that was in CD form in my car's glovebox, vinyl form in my paltry funky house record collection, or tape form next to my walkman. She's astonished when I know the words. "How do you know this, Dad"….errr it was out 20 years ago and life existed before you were born, so jog on.
Her eclectic taste is a result of exposure. TikTok trends, Spotify playlists and the like all provide access to a plethora of different musical dishes, all served up on demand with zero effort expenditure required. To my mind, this takes away the decision making and almost self reflection required to decide whether you're the type of person who listens to Eminem, Take That or Armand Van Helden. Or all three….
Maybe it has actually forged a stronger voice. I said earlier my mates' taste was shorthand for what I bought, which kinda made me a sheep (although I would vehemently deny this under questioning), but my daughter suffers no such afflictions. She doesn't have to walk up to the counter in Asda gripped by embarrassment clutching a Take That CD as an 18 year old man….she can just skip in privacy and enjoy stuff on her own terms.
And yes. I realise I contradict myself. She has taste, and it is eclectic.
The process of applying your taste to these decisions is not trivial. It is how you form your sense of self. I worry that the dulling of this process results in weaker identities. Is this a good thing? Maybe so! Perhaps it increases openness. There's a phrase I'm not quite grasping about someone who focuses on everything focuses on nothing. Listening to everything means you listen to nothing. You never decide who you are. You're Schrodinger's cat. Existing in all possible states, never collapsing into one.
Perhaps this will have far reaching consequences? Identity is formed through behaviour. Each action you take is a vote for the person you wish to be. Getting up and exercising each day is a vote for an athlete (Read: Atomic Habits). However, with access to everything, you are never forced to choose who you want to be. Something new will come along you can half-identify with for a minute before skipping ahead. Does it teach people that life is easily skipped if something you don't like happens? Buy a bad CD and you're stuck with it. 1 minute of 5ive and you can press skip nowadays.
The consequences of bad choices were greater, so you pawed your way towards making them. A bad search on Spotify can be rectified by a good one. It's cheap. Memories are carved by emotion. Picking a shit CD hurt. So you made damn sure the next choice was better. The cycle time might have been a month until your next pocket money instalment. My daughter has listened to thousands of songs in that timeframe.
Maybe her taste is built on repeated exposure and is better defined? Perhaps the 30 second rendition a new song is allowed is her finely-tuned filter working in real time. I'd find myself giving CDs chance after chance, willing myself to like them. She just skips. Yup, this is dog turd. Next. To use an endurance training analogy, volume is the path to improvement…maybe the current generation has it right.
I might be turning into an old nostalgia merchant, hankering after a past I'm now intellectualising as being superior. Either way, I love the fact my daughter listens to the stuff I blared out in my first car. It's a cornerstone of our relationship. I know my mum likely wanted me to listen to Duran Duran, but, no chance….
And that exposes another thread to pull. Would Lucy like Oasis if I introduced her? Likely not. Maybe her sense of discovery created the ownership. She thinks she found them, and therefore owns them. Perhaps that's how taste is developed. I derived mine from buying the CDs that made me feel belonging to a culture I discovered. Lucy discovers her culture differently, at a greater pace, and without realisation that her culture overlaps with what once was mine.
The only conclusion I am left with is that arts of any form (I use music to drive my thoughts here) are protected corners of our identity. The process of discovery is as important as the listening itself. Feeling ownership over the art you choose and connection creates identity. How you discover your taste, cultivate it and express it is the human condition. Lucy achieves this differently to how I did, likely due to abundance vs scarcity.
I'd be a grumpy bastard to disparage the way she does it.