I was just glancing at a New York Times magazine article by Rob Walker. The teaser reads, “Pandora Internet radio tries to figure out what kind of music you – [...] not your aspirational self – really like.”
What a funny idea, this notion that there’s a “true self” deep inside, one that maybe secretly loves Neil Young or Bon Jovi. But for your friends, you curate an iPhone playlist reaching for that aspirational self that’s out there somewhere. And Pandora’s system can make that distinction!
Tangentially reminds me how 85% of all of the restaurants in the Castro district of San Francisco served meatloaf, as if to say, truly, deep-down, we, also, just really love meatloaf (and that’s OK) even if we have to put on airs the rest of the time.
I don’t really get this aspirational vs real thing in the same way that I’ve never really understood comfort food. You like what you like, then you don’t, or maybe you still do. But is this a common assumption, that people have secret tastes kept hidden? One never does leave high school, I suppose.
