There's no such thing as a guilty pleasure.
This is Start with this, a podcast featuring Night Vale creators Joseph Fink and me, Jeffrey Cranor.
Each episode we discuss a topic and then give you two assignments.
Something to consume and something to create.
How to like Art is hard.
Starting is hard.
If you want to start somewhere, you can start with this.
You can start with this.
I've always maintained that it's much harder to like something than to dislike something.
Think about deciding on a restaurant to go to.
If you say, let's go to XYZ Cafe, it's my favorite spot in town.
When all your friends join you there, the onus is on you to answer their questions.
What's good here?
What do you normally get?
And if service falters or a chicken is overcooked, or the atmosphere is too loud, then by extension you have also failed in some way.
Your reputation for knowing what's good will take the hit.
But if you go into deciding a restaurant for the group by knowing what you don't like, then you can say, no, not Italian.
Or this diner has only three and a half stars on Google.
Or that place looks sketchy and the pressure is never on you to defend the place you eventually go to.
Best case scenario, someone else finds a great place to eat and you have a wonderful dinner.