Fuck your "guilty pleasure"

Find what you love, embrace it, and wear it proudly for the world to see.

Taylor Swift. 90 Day Fiancé, The Bachelor, and Married At First Sight. After and The Kissing Booth. Twilight and now, Midnight Sun. I could go on (and on and on and on), but you get the point – these are the kind of things often referred to as "guilty pleasures." There's often a gendered component at play – many "guilty pleasures" are musicians, TV shows, movies, or books with a mostly female fanbase – though I don't think that's entirely it. These "guilty pleasure" forms of entertainment are low-brow; they're easy to enjoy and understand and don't require a ton of effort to make sense of. You can't actually like watching The Bachelor; you have to watch it as your "guilty pleasure" on Monday nights. Calling it a "guilty pleasure" implies that you think it's "bad" or that enjoying it is bad, and that you aren't so foolish as to assume it's good.

And I'm here to tell you: fuck that. Fuck the entire concept of a "guilty pleasure." Why should you hide or be ashamed of things you ACTIVELY ENJOY? I don't believe in "guilty pleasures" because I think either you like something or you don't, and the only thing that separates a "guilty pleasure" from any other interest is things that you know are "low-brow." But who cares about that? Does it really matter if a record is critically acclaimed, or if a book has rave reviews? Many bestsellers aren't the ones with the best reviews from critics; they're the ones that audiences connect to; why should we feel guilty about that?

I don't have any "guilty pleasures" because I'm not ashamed of anything that I love. I know that authenticity is not always easy; I think there's an element of self-confidence at play. You've got to be confident that your interests are valid because you like them, and don't need to be lessened by being called "trash" or a "guilty pleasure." That's another thing; I'm working on not calling things that I enjoy "trash" because the things that I enjoy aren't bad. I don't enjoy things that I think are "bad," and the fact that a musician, book, TV show, or film doesn't fit some obscure barometer of acceptability or quality doesn't mean my enjoyment of it is any less valid.

So, yes: I like Taylor Swift, and I love how so many of her songs have soundtracked pivotal moments in my life, both big and small. I love getting caught up in the fantastic ideas of romance on The Bachelor and Married at First Sight. The drama on 90 Day Fiancé is impossible not to get sucked in to, and Nev Schulman is both great at solving Catfish mysteries and incredibly compassionate to both catfish and victim. After and The Kissing Booth are love stories that aren't written by famous authors or screenwriters; they were written by young women, the target audience of such films, and they know what other young women like to see. Twilight swept me up the first time I read it, mixing romance with fantasy (vampires!) in a way kept me turning the pages until I'd read it cover to cover.

In filling out my profile on Co-Star, I discovered that in addition to being a Virgo (sun sign), both my moon sign (the inner core of who I am on the inside) and my rising sign (how I present to the world) are Taurus. A friend (who is more well-versed in astrology than I am) told me that the fact that my moon and rising are the same means that I am very authentic, that the way I present to the world is the same as the way I am inside. Say what you will about astrology; I don't know much about it, but I find it a useful tool to learn more about myself and to make sense of the chaos (in my life, in my mind, in the world around me).

Find what you love, embrace it, and wear it proudly for the world to see. If you enjoy something, you don't have to feel "guilty" about it. Your interests are valid because you enjoy them, and you don't need to qualify them by calling them "guilty pleasures."