Spend Time With the Ugly Stuff

Everyone in creative circles is talking about good taste. I keep waiting for someone to talk about bad taste.

There's a John Waters line from his book Shock Value that's been burned into my brain for years: "To understand bad taste one must have very good taste." He made Pink Flamingos before that and it's still one of the most deliberately revolting movies ever made—but so so good—and every bad choice in it is a choice (if you've seen the ending you’ll know what I mean).

What's a bit disheartening to me is that a lot of people can "recognize" good taste now but don't actually understand why it's good. They've seen it a thousand times in their feeds—the same palettes and type and moodboards pinned one after another just so they can reproduce it. But more alarmingly they can't tell you when it's the wrong call. And they can't tell you when something loud or awkward or ugly is exactly right for a brand or a campaign because they never spent time with the ugly stuff to figure out what it does. The algorithm doesn't teach you why—it just shows you more of the same.

You see it in design all the time. When an experienced designer scoffs at Comic Sans, that's honestly a bit of a red flag for me. It has a juvenile, goofy quality that's exactly right for some things and Inter or Helvetica would just flatten them.

Same thing on photo shoots. Everyone pushes for the perfect light and the perfect composition, and sometimes the best frame ends up being the one where the light's a little off or somebody wasn't quite ready—because it looks like something that actually happened instead of something staged to sell you a thing. Customers can feel that difference even if they couldn't tell you why.

Honestly I don't think you can separate the two and we really shouldn't be trying to do that. Good taste and bad taste go hand in hand—exposing yourself to just the good things that are in your Recommended feed is only half of the story. I hope more creatives intentionally spend some time on the other side and develop a deeper appreciation for the highest of highs and lowest of lows and everything in between.

So anyway. If you want homework, go watch Showgirls. (Versayce!)

An earlier version of this piece appeared on LinkedIn in 2026.