Your Guilty Pleasures

[DJ Yung Crunk]

Recently I had a conversation with a group of friends. Given my proclivity to force the subject of music into absolutely every conversation the topic came up about recent albums/tracks we liked. One friend was called upon to list some choices of his. With nary a moments thought he blazed through rock albums like he was on a timer, his breathless enthusiasm clung to his every word. His momentum came to a grinding halt, however, as he sheepishly began offering up milquetoast disclaimers about his next choice. "This is really more of a guilty pleasure" he said before mentioning Taylor Swift's "1984".

The rest of the group, myself included, felt a bit let down by this revelation. Why had he felt the need to pre-emptively pad himself against retaliation for a good album? But as these queries were being put, the picture broadened for me. Wait! Why had he felt the need to clarify it as a "guilty pleasure" at all? Why that one and not the cavalcade of embarrassing hair rock he had felt downright pride in mentioning.

I'm genuinely confused as to what authority dictates whether or not something is "hip". But perhaps even more than that, why we're all so freaking afraid of its ire that we have qualify and undermine our own preferences. Indeed there's a bit of a bizarre and, frankly, arbitrary trend of shaming certain things while lionising others en masse. There's widespread cultural elitism, without which terms like "guilty pleasure" wouldn't exist, that afflicts conversation more and more, these days. It's getting harder and harder to have any objective discussion without a council of invisible taste-makers carefully and subtly guiding everyone's idle word and thought.

I don't buy into it. If I like something it's probably for a reason. I don't concede to the notion that top 40 pop music is an inherently lesser form than rock just because that's how it's widely understood. I'm not going to concede to that notion until someone can give me an impartial and universal reason why this should be so. If they have time to do that they probably also have time to sprout wings and fly me over to the Bahamas for a little vacay, because that sounds just as likely of happening.

That was just an example, though, I've got thousands of these. I'll offhandedly mention how I liked the "Speed Racer" movie to a chorus of bewilderment and shock, as if a laser sight is being trained on my forehead as we speak. I reject your notions of "guilty pleasures". To me the term "guilty pleasure" defines 'something I feel unhappy about enjoying' like a video of a child getting clubbed in the face by a tyre swing, or the satisfaction of grabbing the last seat on the bus. It is not a catch-all to ward off the cabal of faceless old men wielding their gavels and ever-constantly changing list of "cools" and "squares". They don't even exist. They're just other dudes, like you. Dudes who don't want to be left out or ostracised. Dudes who are unaware that with each concession and each implication that some things deserve more guilt than others they add to the echo chamber.

So you know what? Toss to the whole thing. Soulja Boy's got some really good singles! "Lulu" was Metallica's finest album! "Beyond the Black Rainbow" is on par with Kubrick! If you disagree, great! Let's have an honest and earnest discussion about it motivated only by our own experiences and opinions. I encourage you all to stand on your desk, rip off your ties and express your most controversial opinions with all the pride and moxie they deserve.

Do it because you're not a cog in some cultural machine or some demographic to be monitored and exploited. You're a complex person with complex opinions and preferences. Own it. Own it because you're worth it.


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[Drascin]

Well, I can probably chime in a little about what you think is "weird" about your friend's choice in guilty pleasure denomination. Sometimes it's just a bit about self-image and projected image.

Sometimes people, especially within certain brackets, have an image of themselves as fitting a certain mold, and they regard things they do or enjoy but which don't fit that mold as "uncharacteristic" and therefore somewhat guilty. For example, when I was in highschool, I would never, ever admit to anyone that I sometimes exercised a bit. Yes, socially speaking exercising is good and so on, so it might seem weird, but I had built a public and personal image about being a lazy ****er, and sometimes dropping and doing situps because I felt like a I had a surplus of energy and needed to tire myself out a bit to stop skittering was against that image I had built for myself and therefore wrong and uncharacteristic.

So if your friend's self image includes being a lover of rock, even the cheesiest hair rock isn't going to make him blush, because it doesn't go against what he wants to be. But poppiest of pops Taylor Swift definitely does. Sometimes it's not about societal judgement, but your own, no matter how weird :smalltongue:

[Pex]

I like ABBA, thank you very much.

Along with Blondie, Billy Joel, and The Carpenters.

I'll even give a listen to The Captain & Tennille and John Denver.

Hmmph!

[Avilan the Grey]

Well I like "Safety Dance".
For starters.

[Lethologica]

This comes up for me in two ways.

First, there are 'guilty pleasures' that violate my sense of what I should be reading, or should want to be reading (e.g. my fifteenth Jack Reacher novel, which is the same as the last fourteen, and I get on Dan Brown's case for plagiarizing himself so why am I still reading these aaargh). This is the media equivalent of just wanting a Big Mac.

Second, there are 'guilty pleasures' that violate my sense of what would be socially acceptable (e.g. Kushiel series, Sunstone comic, pretty much any fanservice-y anime). This is the media equivalent of not advertising one's past consumption of dog meat.

[JoshL]

I am against the concept of guilty pleasure. If you enjoy a thing, enjoy a thing. Quality and taste are different; you can think something is great and not like it, and you can love something you think is terrible. Accepting that makes your life better, because you can focus on what you like.

Absolutely listening to Samantha Fox records right now.

[Zyzzyva]

Well I like "Safety Dance".
For starters.

Hey, you can like the safety dance if you want to. We can leave the standard opinions on songs behind. Cause the standard opinions on songs don't like the safety dance and if they don't like the safety dance then they ain't no opinions of mine. :smalltongue:

I like it too. Lots of 80s pop, and also disco: yes, they both get a bad rap, and yes, a lot of it is pretty terrible, but it's also so catchy. I'm humming that stupid song as we speak!


I am against the concept of guilty pleasure. If you enjoy a thing, enjoy a thing. Quality and taste are different; you can think something is great and not like it, and you can love something you think is terrible. Accepting that makes your life better, because you can focus on what you like.

I'd agree with that as far as it goes, but I like, for example, Indiana Jones while at the same time recognizing that the gender politics in that range between icky and "no, seriously, what". Calling that particular series a "guilty pleasure" is definitely too strong - it's way too well-made for the conventional use of the term - but there's lots of media I like that are also problematic in a lot of ways, and it helps to be able to disentangle "I like this" and "this is pretty bad representation".

It's good to like things you like! But it's also good to be able to look at things critically, even if you like them.

[DJ Yung Crunk]

Well, I can probably chime in a little about what you think is "weird" about your friend's choice in guilty pleasure denomination. Sometimes it's just a bit about self-image and projected image.

That's possibly true. But I'm sure it's no coincidence that rock has far more people propagating it than top 40 does. I'm not doubting your premise, I just don't know how relevant it is to this particular case.


I like it too. Lots of 80s pop, and also disco: yes, they both get a bad rap

Going off topic here

I have to ask why this is the case. This isn't a matter of exaggerating the cliches, the public perception of 80s pop is basically the exact opposite of how it actually was. The notion of an image obsessed and vapid culture of pop music seems more accurate to describe the 1970's and 1990's, to me. 80's pop is a ceaseless list of standout albums gifted with thematic and creative depth that few movements in music ever get to experience. And yes, I'm aware of the naffe singles. But are they any worse than the dreck that was going on in the 70's? It seems totally arbitrary to single out the 80's for this, not to mention inaccurate.

[Traab]

Admitting you like nickelback tends to be a risky thing to do online. There is this strange amorphous hatred of the band that makes little sense on any investigation, but its there. They are the taco bell of bands, an easy target for mockery. And yet virtually everyone I know irl likes at LEAST a few specific songs, if not a few albums (dark horse, all the right reasons, in case you wanted my favorites) I blame the echo chamber effect myself. These people dont like the band, they talk with people who dont like the band, so they assume noone could possibly like the band. So when you point out they have been making money for 20 years now, so clearly a large number of people DO like them, they get all silent.

Oh, and taco bell is good too. :smalltongue: The food is cheap, its filling, and I personally like the taste of several items (cheesy potato burrito for LIFE man!) What else do you want from fast food? A Michelin star?

[Winter_Wolf]

Admitting you like nickelback tends to be a risky thing to do online. There is this strange amorphous hatred of the band that makes little sense on any investigation, but its there. They are the taco bell of bands, an easy target for mockery. And yet virtually everyone I know irl likes at LEAST a few specific songs, if not a few albums (dark horse, all the right reasons, in case you wanted my favorites) I blame the echo chamber effect myself. These people dont like the band, they talk with people who dont like the band, so they assume noone could possibly like the band. So when you point out they have been making money for 20 years now, so clearly a large number of people DO like them, they get all silent.

Oh, and taco bell is good too. :smalltongue: The food is cheap, its filling, and I personally like the taste of several items (cheesy potato burrito for LIFE man!) What else do you want from fast food? A Michelin star?

I like Nickelback. I don't care who knows it. Not enough to buy an album, but I'm happy enough to listen when it comes on the radio. Don't feel guilty about it either. And 20 years, really? I guess I must have been living under a rock. Can't get behind liking Taco Bell, though. Man I've tried, kind of wish I did; like you said it's cheap and filling. Ain't happenin'.

I'm one of those who doesn't believe in "guilty pleasure." I'm sure that's a thing for people, but I don't subscribe to it. If I like something, I own it. Usually with, "Screw you, I like it" when some tries to belittle my choice. It's like "liking ironically" and "hate watching". Look, the people who make things don't care if you want to pretend your liking something is ironic or you're watching it out of spite. If I made something and I had a hatedom, I'd still be getting people to pay attention to it. Still making money, still getting publicity, still laughing all the way to the bank. Probably laughing harder, even.

[Mauve Shirt]

Some people think I should be guilty about They Might Be Giants and The Dresden Files, but who cares about their opinions those two things are my favorite things.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Some people think I should be guilty about They Might Be Giants and The Dresden Files, but who cares about their opinions those two things are my favorite things.

I'm not much of a music afficionado, but TMBG is my favorite band. I would wonder who even thinks TMBG qualifies as something like a guilty pleasure. Because that's just confusing to me.

My knowledge of TDF comes from people I know who think it's great, and a funny pseudo-review I read once of someone who absolutely loathed it. I can tell it's probably not my kind of thing, but there's nothing inherently wrong with liking it as far as I can tell. It seems to be proficient at accomplishing what it sets out to accomplish.

I always thought the term "guilty pleasure" was meant to apply to artwork you know isn't technically proficient on its own merits (Or purposefully aiming at a target so low that success isn't remarkable), but still provides one with some entertainment value regardless of that.

I don't use the term myself. I make no apologies for liking awful things that I like. Typically I don't know what's supposed to be awful or good by popular judgement until other people tell me later on what my opinion should be. If someone told me that 2012 was supposed to be great, and The Avengers was supposed to be awful, I wouldn't ever have suspected they were wrong. (Just to give one example.)

I find it's easier just to tell people up front that I have horrible taste, so they won't feel obligated to inform me that I like the wrong stuff and dislike all the things I should love. I am by no means any type of professional critic in film, music, games or otherwise, so I think this generally works out okay.

[Legato Endless]

I'm genuinely confused as to what authority dictates whether or not something is "hip". But perhaps even more than that, why we're all so freaking afraid of its ire that we have qualify and undermine our own preferences. Indeed there's a bit of a bizarre and, frankly, arbitrary trend of shaming certain things while lionising others en masse. There's widespread cultural elitism, without which terms like "guilty pleasure" wouldn't exist, that afflicts conversation more and more, these days. It's getting harder and harder to have any objective discussion without a council of invisible taste-makers carefully and subtly guiding everyone's idle word and thought.

I don't buy into it. If I like something it's probably for a reason. I don't concede to the notion that top 40 pop music is an inherently lesser form than rock just because that's how it's widely understood. I'm not going to concede to that notion until someone can give me an impartial and universal reason why this should be so. If they have time to do that they probably also have time to sprout wings and fly me over to the Bahamas for a little vacay, because that sounds just as likely of happening.


Because people have been genuinely wounded by it in the past. Cast out, mocked, or even just 5 minutes a pariah. For a lot of us, that's not an easily forgotten experience. Also, it's hard being the odd person out. There's the classic psych test where people evaluate the length of lines 5 feet from them, and while the average person can stay strong with at least one person in agreement, they tend to crumble if there's absolutely no one there to affirm their opinion. Being shamelessly confident about who you are isn't easy, and it certainly isn't as common as people make it out to be. And of course there's your own judgment, about how you've somehow fallen short of...something by having affection for the unfashionable, the unworthy, or something that destroys the archetype you've carefully constructed.

For an example of something that isn't particularly controversial anymore, I just stopped talking about animation when I was in Middle School. I still watched it, but having been dismissed by people repeatedly over the issue, it just wasn't worth delving into until I found not really all that uncommon people who 'still' watched it. Cartoons were for kids, anything kids like must be dreck, because kids are stupid. Incidentally, stereotypes about children are by far the oddest I find, because they relay exclusively on the people who propagate them to gloss over a decade of their lives.



I have to ask why this is the case. This isn't a matter of exaggerating the cliches, the public perception of 80s pop is basically the exact opposite of how it actually was.

I can't explain 80s music. That's a new one to me. I know why 80s film is seen as a decline.


I am against the concept of guilty pleasure. If you enjoy a thing, enjoy a thing. Quality and taste are different; you can think something is great and not like it, and you can love something you think is terrible. Accepting that makes your life better, because you can focus on what you like.


Agreed. Guilt shouldn't enter it, but one's tastes shouldn't be compressed into a monolith either. That's like people who try to equate all forms of affection into the dichotomy of romantic and platonic.


Some people think I should be guilty about They Might Be Giants and The Dresden Files, but who cares about their opinions those two things are my favorite things.

I've never seen any real rebound for Dresden, so that's interesting. It tends to be obscure unless you like fantasy, at which point it's fairly known as one of the big popular Urban series.


Admitting you like nickelback tends to be a risky thing to do online. There is this strange amorphous hatred of the band that makes little sense on any investigation, but its there.

Nickelback is right on schedule for the popularity cycle, so that makes sense. They've gone from appreciation to derision, and we should hit nostalgia in another decade or so.

[Rodin]

I can't explain 80s music. That's a new one to me. I know why 80s film is seen as a decline.



A decline in comparison to what? :smallconfused:

Right now Hollywood is desperately trying to repeat the 80s, particularly Sci-Fi. Terminator, Robocop, Star Trek, Star Wars, Total Recall (technically 1990). Eddie Murphy was at the height of his career also. Indiana Jones movies are all 80s as well. Blade Runner.

Looking at my list I guess those would all be considered "low" art rather than Oscar-bait. Not sure how the 80s compares in those terms, but the effect on pop culture overshadows pretty much everything since.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I don't like Nickelback as a band despite enjoying some of their songs and don't see that as a contradiction.

TMBG (not exclusively) do children's music, so some might hold that against them. Some people also hate anything vaguely electronic sounding which is slightly more justifiable as a complaint.

[holygroundj]

Not that it really matters, but I am a white male over the age of 30.

I enjoy avril levine, kelly clarkson, fiona apple... in addition to alternative music. I used to be embarresed about this, when I was younger and worried about what other people think of me, but that dropped away 10 years ago.

Now I just enjoy whatever I want.

[Legato Endless]

A decline in comparison to what? :smallconfused:

Right now Hollywood is desperately trying to repeat the 80s, particularly Sci-Fi. Terminator, Robocop, Star Trek, Star Wars, Total Recall (technically 1990). Eddie Murphy was at the height of his career also. Indiana Jones movies are all 80s as well. Blade Runner.

Looking at my list I guess those would all be considered "low" art rather than Oscar-bait. Not sure how the 80s compares in those terms, but the effect on pop culture overshadows pretty much everything since.

The decade it followed, which is typically thought as much more groundbreaking. For a short summary, see here (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/3768-Hollywood-History-101-Part-3). While I'm not saying I necessarily agree with it, it's a very popular critical perception. Also, to be a bit nit-picky, listing a few exceptions or outliers doesn't actually dispel an aggregate trend. Furthermore, Star Wars in this line of thought really belongs to the 70s, and Star Trek's power as a franchise has never really been rooted in the films. And hey, where's Back to the Future on your list of 80s quality?

[Avilan the Grey]

I can't explain 80s music. That's a new one to me. I know why 80s film is seen as a decline.

According to whom?

It must be a generational thing (it usually is).

I was born 1972. For me, the 80s is the most amazing movie decade ever.
Ghostbusters.
Indy.
Ferris.
Terminator.
And 1000 more.

Same for the music.

To me, the 90's is an irrelevant decade. The (American) music was whiny and smelled of teen hormones (there is a reason why most Swedes preferd the British music scene of the 90's). The movie scene was better, but yes, if I had to cut out one decade from existence, it would be the 90's.

[Mato]

I don't have a guilty pleasure, because I don't feel guilty for liking the things that I do. I guess that just makes me messed up. :smallconfused:

[Lethologica]

I don't have a guilty pleasure, because I don't feel guilty for liking the things that I do. I guess that just makes me messed up. :smallconfused:
If anything, I'm getting the opposite vibe from this thread--that having guilty pleasures is messed up.

[DJ Yung Crunk]

Because people have been genuinely wounded by it in the past. Cast out, mocked, or even just 5 minutes a pariah. For a lot of us, that's not an easily forgotten experience. Also, it's hard being the odd person out. There's the classic psych test where people evaluate the length of lines 5 feet from them, and while the average person can stay strong with at least one person in agreement, they tend to crumble if there's absolutely no one there to affirm their opinion. Being shamelessly confident about who you are isn't easy, and it certainly isn't as common as people make it out to be. And of course there's your own judgment, about how you've somehow fallen short of...something by having affection for the unfashionable, the unworthy, or something that destroys the archetype you've carefully constructed.

Maybe I'm just a tiny-brained little man but I can't identify with any of this. If I'm on the receiving end of some disagreement I actually get a bit excited. There's a little man in my head with tattoos and leather pants lifting weights to his own reflection and saying "Don't listen to them, man. You're too clever, you should probably go ahead and educate them as to their wrongness. This'll be a breeze. You got this, man" before he starts making puckering noises.


I can't explain 80s music. That's a new one to me. I know why 80s film is seen as a decline.

It's a numbers game. I couldn't give you any overall reason, but the sheer volume of AAA pop albums in that decade is staggering.


If anything, I'm getting the opposite vibe from this thread--that having guilty pleasures is messed up.

Mission accomplished?

[Lethologica]

Mission accomplished?
Frankly, no, because I don't think half the posters in this thread have given due consideration to understanding guilty pleasures or the people who have them before declaring them messed up. In some cases, social pressure is a legitimate reason to consider a pleasure, if not guilty, at least private--which is just code for "embarrassing if made public." In other cases, it is not social pressure that creates those feelings, but rather one's own media consumption utility function, which has more inputs than just pleasure. 'Guilty pleasure' does not always reduce to "feeling guilty for liking things other people think are lowbrow/tasteless/whatever," but that seems to be the only recognized definition in this thread at present.

[Mauve Shirt]

I don't like Nickelback as a band despite enjoying some of their songs and don't see that as a contradiction.

TMBG (not exclusively) do children's music, so some might hold that against them. Some people also hate anything vaguely electronic sounding which is slightly more justifiable as a complaint.

I mean I'm not going to do anything but sound like a hipster with this post, but they've only been doing kids music since the early aughts because that's when Linnell had his kid. :smalltongue: Their best 2 albums since then are The Spine and Join Us, 7 years apart. (Sorry The Else and Nanobots, you have wonderful singles but the ratio of love to don't care is higher IMHO)

The Dresden Files, I have yet to find anyone who could put it down once they'd fought past book 3. But the prose is samey, the stories aren't complex. They're popcorn plain and simple, and what people try to guilt me about is that they're my favorite thing ever.

[t209]

300, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Sam Alexander Nova* (not the one from that stupid show), and Fifth Element.
*I even plan on reading that comic.

[Eldan]

Pornography? There's some stuff out there that I feel weird for being attracted to. Apart from that, nope. I read some stuff that I wouldn't necessarily tell everyone about*, but that's not guilt, that's prudence.


*Who am I kidding. The way people in this country judge anything fantastic, it's not "some stuff", it's everything I read.

[LadyEowyn]

I consider Once Upon A Time a guilty pleasure. It's poorly written, inconsistently plotted, blatant and overbearing in its themes, and generally poorly acted. And yet I keep watching, and on some level enjoy it even while rolling my eyes at its many dumb moments.

[Peebles]

I will try and catch both Peppa Pig and Pocoyo whenever they happen to be on TV, despite them being for toddlers. I'm a secret fan of Fleetwood Mac and most new romantic stuff. I also like Nickleback, enough to have seen them live.

[danzibr]

Huh... interesting thread.

I never thought about it so much. I guess... a guilty pleasure is something you feel guilty about enjoying (durr). And why feel guilty? Maybe it's against your morals, or maybe you'd be embarrassed if others knew, or maybe you feel bad about indulging when others can't. I guess this is reminiscent of what Lethologica said.

For me, I don't really do anything that makes me feel guilt, as Mato said. I eat lots of unhealthy food and somehow am not fat, but don't feel bad about that at all. I'm 27, a father, a teacher, yet read manga, watch anime (on the occasion), and play video games. These are things I may (actually, fer sher) have been insecure about admitting to my students ~6 years ago, but now I'm like whatevs.

Reminds me of that quote by C.S. Lewis: When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

[Rodin]

Watched Running Man earlier this week and then followed it up yesterday with Flash Gordon. Both made me think of this thread, because they are both objectively terrible movies...and yet, for some reason I still love watching them.

GORDON'S ALIIIIIIIIVVVVVVEEEEE!!!!!

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Ohhhh boy. Guilty pleasures. Have I got em.

One thing I feel guilty about is that I spend more time reading gaming books for D&D and Pathfinder than I do reading actual literature. I've read Green Ronin's D&D adaptation of Glen Cook's Black Company novels probably twelve times, and have only read the first three books in the actual Black Company series once, and still haven't read the remaning ones in the series. It feels like my ability to just sit down and read a book has atrophied since I started working full-time with a part-time job, plus juggling it with play-by-posts and other stuff. And that makes me feel ashamed of myself, since I have a BA in English Lit. I see my copies of Moby ****, The Princess Bride and Le Morte D'Arthur on my shelf unopened, my copy of The Iliad with the bookmark halfway through taunting me! :smalleek:

I feel INTENSELY guilty for reading various webcomics on HiveWorks (Eerie Cuties and Menage a 3 and their respective spinoffs, for the most part) because I make my distaste for people who have personalities like or behave like a lot of the characters blatantly clear in conversation, and feel like a creepy old man given most of the characters are teenagers and I'm 26, and yet I can't stop checking it for updates to see what happens next in some of the fantastical storylines. Especially since it and all other works by its creators are featured in the Bad Webcomics Wiki. :smallfrown:

Video games are a whole other can of problematic. I like lots of companies like BioWare and The Creative Assembly, but the almost universal opinion of them on the Internet is that they're TERRIBLE PEOPLE because of Mass Effect 3's ending, the large amount of DLC that's coming relatively quickly for Total War: Attila, and other various sins. I still enjoy the games these companies make, and I'm more than happy to pay top-dollar for them because I trust them to make games that I enjoy, but the rest of the world seems to think that's the attitude of a shill or an idiot, and it makes it hard for me to enjoy the game. And then there's the horrific vitriol that other gamers have been spewing all over the web over the past few months. :smallfurious:

Finally I think my biggest guilty pleasure is pleasure at all. I've got a massive backlog of books I wanna read, games I wanna play, movies I wanna watch, etc, and I'm terrified that because of my lifestyle I'm going to die of a heart attack or a stroke before I hit 30, and thus I'll have wasted the thousands of dollars I've spent on these things.

[themaque]

I absolutely LOVE The Speed Racer movie.

I have plenty of guilty pleasures depending on how you classify it. I'm a cinephile and love movies. However, I really enjoy bad movies. There is just something amazing about a film that does EVERYTHING wrong in a spectacular fashion. The best are films where, they may not have talent, but they have HEART. You can still feel the love and can't help but get caught up in it.

That is not why I love Speed Racer however.

[eggynack]

I am against the concept of guilty pleasure. If you enjoy a thing, enjoy a thing. Quality and taste are different; you can think something is great and not like it, and you can love something you think is terrible. Accepting that makes your life better, because you can focus on what you like.

I agree. It's a continuing process, I think, but I've been trying to make sure to accept my tastes as a thing I don't need to be guilty about. For example, I loved, and in a sense continue to love, the show Heroes. And I'm including episodes beyond the first season in that. Yes, the show was deeply troubled, and I could probably make a very detailed list of the show's issues and problems from across the seasons, but I loved it anyway, and that's not a thing to apologize for. It helps that I'm quite good at arguing for the quality of the things I like.