The problem with good taste is that everyone has it now

ART FRIED® Contemporary culture, served hot. Read in one shot. Digest later. The problem with good taste is that we all know what it looks like now. The right lamp, the right chair, the art book left open with suspicious precision, slightly muted photography, irregular ceramics, sneakers expensive enough to look effortless. Instagram, Pinterest, hotels, concept stores, fashion and interiors have done something remarkable: they turned codes that once required time, access and a certain visual education into a permanent global tutorial. Millions of people can now construct sophisticated images with astonishing accuracy. But once everyone learns the same references, taste begins to lose one of its oldest functions. It was supposed to distinguish you. Now it can make you look remarkably similar to everyone else who also has excellent taste. Maybe that is why the genuinely interesting things are starting to look slightly wrong again. A room with too much in it. A colour with terrible manners. An artwork that refuses to coordinate with the sofa. An object no mood board would ever recommend. The best taste is not always about knowing every rule; sometimes it is knowing exactly which one to break without looking accidentally lost. Because once an aesthetic has been shared, saved, photographed and reproduced enough times, it stops operating as a cultural signal and starts becoming furniture. The worst taste today might simply be having impeccable taste exactly like everyone else. Art. Culture. No cold takes.