I Think, Therefore I Tastemake
A thoughtful (maybe idk) critique on tastemaking, influence, and intention in modern content — exploring slow style, social media fatigue, and what's to come.
Before We Start
If you’re new here, you can catch up on some recent work:
New Year, New (Kinda the Same) Me: A year-end reflection on growth, fear, and staying honest — along with the designers and pieces that caught my eye recently.
Basic? (How Japanese brands get labelled “boring” or “expensive,” and the disconnect between passion, content, and algorithm-driven taste)
I’m Not a Hater, But I Am a Hater: The current state of menswear discourse & fashion bros
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Introduction
A few weeks ago, I came across a video Ryan Yip posted arguing that the biggest scam of this generation is tastemaking — that we can simply “tastemake” our way into feeling better about ourselves. It’s now become another kind of “rat race” — one built on comparison, hierarchy, and the constant craving for acknowledgment and recognition.
And when it doesn’t land, you’re left wondering what to do after spending so much time fine-tuning your image, personality, everything in-between.
As someone who’s experienced both sides of this — finding alignment between what I’m interested in and who I am as I’ve gotten older, versus falling into trends purely to fit in when I was younger — I felt compelled to share my perspective on how we can develop taste moving forward.
For me, it’s always come back to intention: what you’re looking for, and how you process what you’re exposed to. Over time, that shift has genuinely improved my quality of life — through discovering artists, designers, music, and places that I truly resonate with. It also meant caring less about tastemaking as a way to cater to an audience, or to chase praise.
I remember being hypnotized by the engagement I received on TikTok — posting tasteful videos of my apartment, receiving comments like “immaculate vibes” on every other post. It boosted my ego, I thought I was doing something right, something fun. In reality, it was feeding the wrong part of me, and eventually led to deactivating my account — overwhelmed by the pressure to stay relevant, to keep posting, to keep performing, to “tastemake” my entire life.
We can take inspiration from anything and anyone; the difference lies in how we choose to adapt it into our daily lives. At the time, I was absorbing everything through the lens of validation — praise, approval, relevance. It wasn’t healthy.
Influence — or tastemaking — is unavoidable, but it evolves as you get older, as your priorities shift and your perspective widens — as you begin focusing on things that matter more than finding the perfect Artek stool replica. As I’ve leaned further into writing, I’ve reduced my overall consumption of online fashion content and narrowed the number of people, or tastemakers, I genuinely look to for inspiration down to a handful.
In doing so, I’ve found myself caring more about the fabrics I wear, the brands I follow, and catering less to a general audience — and more to myself. That’s meant stepping away from archival fashion landscape, ill-fitting silhouettes, and polyester-heavy pieces in favour of natural textiles, considered construction, and more mature brands.
It’s led to a healthier form of tastemaking, both as a creator and a viewer — one rooted in curiosity, honesty, and genuine connection. I share what I truly love, and when engaging with someone else’s work, I take in what resonates and let it evolve into something that feels true to me.
So, do I think tastemaking is the biggest scam of this generation?
Absolutely not.
Nor do I believe it leads you nowhere (as mentioned in his video) — especially when it’s led me to so much.
To be fully transparent, takes like this — as harsh as it may sound — often read less like cultural critique and more like someone losing their grip on their audience. We’re in the midst of a visible shift away from loud luxury and toward smaller, slower, more independent fashion. Less reliance on logomania, or lux fashion (though it’s far from dead), and more emphasis on long-term appeal, substance, and satisfaction over temporary validation.
As a result, creators who’ve built platforms almost entirely around luxury-fashion content — or “taste” if you will — may feel a step behind. Sentiments like “we should put our phones away and live our lives freely” can read less as reflection and more as a quiet “stop the count.” It feels adjacent to fashion bros calling Auralee “boring” and “expensive” then immediately opening twelve tabs trying to find it on sale.
What feels different now is fatigue. We’re exhausted by seeing the same brands, ideas, and references compressed into ten-second videos. What we’re witnessing — uncomfortable term aside — is tastemaking slowing down again: people building real relationships with brands, expanding on their histories, styling pieces thoughtfully, and speaking directly with the designers behind the work.
A kind of world-building.
It’s the original form of influencing, modernized through social media — and, truthfully, it’s what brands want more of. Working with people who can cultivate audiences that genuinely value the work, rather than chasing fleeting attention from those hopping on because a name appeared in a trending creator’s video.
But for those still wondering — what exactly is tastemaking?
