There's a certain kind of style that I find instantly off-putting. I see it in the ways that certain writers write, and in the sounds of certain musicians, and in the ways that plenty of people post on social media. It comes up a lot in interior design and architecture, particularly where Airbnbs and influencer-friendly shows and restaurants are concerned. And, unfortunately, it's a style that a whole lot of people wear, infiltrating everything from the way they dress to the way they do their hair to their personality and mannerisms.
Superficially, this style suggests serious refinement. And to be fair, it does take a certain amount of craft, a certain level of commitment, to pull off. But there's something calculated about it—something bloodless. It is so clearly geared to catch the eye. It's written for the algorithm, so to speak. It's striking, because it was designed to strike you. And it has no concerns or cares beyond catching your attention, earning your approval, getting you to superficially like what you see.
I don't find it inherently off-putting to want to attract or impress. What I do struggle with is how frequently this kind of style is taken up by people who have no other interest, no other intention, beyond that first impression. And because this style does take work, I've learned that, the more somebody commits to learning it, the less likely it is that they've committed to figuring out anything else.
It's vacuous. It's empty. It takes up space, in a way that feels almost nihilistic. It's not just that it occupies the world in lieu of things that might actually mean something: it's that it gives off the impression that nothing else is worth caring about, that nothing else is interesting or important, that you shouldn't expect anything more than this, that it's worthless to aspire any higher than empty affectation.
The thing is, I like flashy. I like style. And there's another kind of style, another superficial lure, that I find utterly addictive. Because it's stranger and more unusual. It suggests a personality. And it conveys, more than anything, that its surface is a byproduct of something deeper. The surface was not, is not, the point; it is concerned with more than whether or not it appeals to you specifically. It happens to be the way it is because there are enigmatic depths, slowly sculpting and contorting what's visible to the naked eye into something whose primary allure is that, even on first sight, you can tell that this didn't happen by accident. There's a sense of intention to it, a feeling that there's something here, something too complex and multifaceted to display all of itself at once even if it tried.
See, I love when the world is superficially pretty and interesting and fun. These things have merit in and of themselves! But the thing about the world is, at some point, you have to live in it, not outside of it. You have to dwell on it. You have to devote time and experience and attention and feeling to it. And if the things you fill your life with don't respect what you're committing to them, if they don't value the fact that you're giving yourself to them, you're left feeling like a part of yourself has been wasted. It feels worse than cheap: it feels uncaring, disrespectful.
To pick a particularly trivial example of this, I think this is why people get so furious when a long-running TV series has a terrible ending. People were furious about the final season of How I Met Your Mother. Game of Thrones is still a punchline to this day. Because it doesn't matter how good a series feels while you're working your way through it: on some level, there's an implicit agreement between you and a show's creators that all the time you're spending watching this will end up being for something. And when that end feels careless and cheap, it has a way of devaluing everything that came before it. Because what was the point? What could any of that have meant, if this is where it wound up taking you?
It's the same with a glitzy restaurant whose food looks stunning but tastes terrible. Why would you bother going through all this effort, if the point wasn't to make something delicious? (Rhetorical question: you know why someone would bother, and the answer is reprehensible.) Why bother writing a gripping story if you know you don't actually have a story to tell? Why build a house that looks jaw-dropping but feels terrible to live in? Why diminish the world just to put up a decorative front that lies about the world being wonderful? Doesn't the thing you're pretending to be, and the fact that you think it's worth pretending to be it, tell you exactly why the thing you're actually doing is horrible?
Once you learn to pick up on the cues, though, this style can be enormously valuable to you—it tells you loudly and clearly what to avoid. Ignore books whose first sentences tell you exactly what reading every other sentence of theirs will be like. Avoid "experiences" whose only purpose is to let you take pictures of just what an experience those experiences are. Don't waste your time on so-called "thinkers" whose only ideas are calculated to make you go: Wow, what a thought! And if you see someone who works this way, someone who overtly presents themselves to be looked at and impressed with... skip 'em, and find someone who's really worth being impressed with instead.
Superficially, this style suggests serious refinement. And to be fair, it does take a certain amount of craft, a certain level of commitment, to pull off. But there's something calculated about it—something bloodless. It is so clearly geared to catch the eye. It's written for the algorithm, so to speak. It's striking, because it was designed to strike you. And it has no concerns or cares beyond catching your attention, earning your approval, getting you to superficially like what you see.
I don't find it inherently off-putting to want to attract or impress. What I do struggle with is how frequently this kind of style is taken up by people who have no other interest, no other intention, beyond that first impression. And because this style does take work, I've learned that, the more somebody commits to learning it, the less likely it is that they've committed to figuring out anything else.
It's vacuous. It's empty. It takes up space, in a way that feels almost nihilistic. It's not just that it occupies the world in lieu of things that might actually mean something: it's that it gives off the impression that nothing else is worth caring about, that nothing else is interesting or important, that you shouldn't expect anything more than this, that it's worthless to aspire any higher than empty affectation.
The thing is, I like flashy. I like style. And there's another kind of style, another superficial lure, that I find utterly addictive. Because it's stranger and more unusual. It suggests a personality. And it conveys, more than anything, that its surface is a byproduct of something deeper. The surface was not, is not, the point; it is concerned with more than whether or not it appeals to you specifically. It happens to be the way it is because there are enigmatic depths, slowly sculpting and contorting what's visible to the naked eye into something whose primary allure is that, even on first sight, you can tell that this didn't happen by accident. There's a sense of intention to it, a feeling that there's something here, something too complex and multifaceted to display all of itself at once even if it tried.
See, I love when the world is superficially pretty and interesting and fun. These things have merit in and of themselves! But the thing about the world is, at some point, you have to live in it, not outside of it. You have to dwell on it. You have to devote time and experience and attention and feeling to it. And if the things you fill your life with don't respect what you're committing to them, if they don't value the fact that you're giving yourself to them, you're left feeling like a part of yourself has been wasted. It feels worse than cheap: it feels uncaring, disrespectful.
To pick a particularly trivial example of this, I think this is why people get so furious when a long-running TV series has a terrible ending. People were furious about the final season of How I Met Your Mother. Game of Thrones is still a punchline to this day. Because it doesn't matter how good a series feels while you're working your way through it: on some level, there's an implicit agreement between you and a show's creators that all the time you're spending watching this will end up being for something. And when that end feels careless and cheap, it has a way of devaluing everything that came before it. Because what was the point? What could any of that have meant, if this is where it wound up taking you?
It's the same with a glitzy restaurant whose food looks stunning but tastes terrible. Why would you bother going through all this effort, if the point wasn't to make something delicious? (Rhetorical question: you know why someone would bother, and the answer is reprehensible.) Why bother writing a gripping story if you know you don't actually have a story to tell? Why build a house that looks jaw-dropping but feels terrible to live in? Why diminish the world just to put up a decorative front that lies about the world being wonderful? Doesn't the thing you're pretending to be, and the fact that you think it's worth pretending to be it, tell you exactly why the thing you're actually doing is horrible?
Once you learn to pick up on the cues, though, this style can be enormously valuable to you—it tells you loudly and clearly what to avoid. Ignore books whose first sentences tell you exactly what reading every other sentence of theirs will be like. Avoid "experiences" whose only purpose is to let you take pictures of just what an experience those experiences are. Don't waste your time on so-called "thinkers" whose only ideas are calculated to make you go: Wow, what a thought! And if you see someone who works this way, someone who overtly presents themselves to be looked at and impressed with... skip 'em, and find someone who's really worth being impressed with instead.