Taste and Identity

We live in an age of universal access. With just a few clicks, we can procure, buy, and access anything from our phones. This democratisation, fuelled by digital platforms and voracious marketing, promised an utopian taste: a world where everyone can partake in everything. But a creeping shallowness follows this feast. When we notice this, it isn’t liberation or progress; it’s a sophisticated trap that trades genuine cultural capital for the anxious performance of belonging.

This performance is what the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre termed 'mauvaise foi', or 'bad faith'. It is the act of clinging to a ready-made identity to escape the terrifying freedom of defining oneself. Chasing the latest ‘must-have’ accessory or queueing for hours at an overhyped pop-up isn’t a pursuit of genuine value; it’s an escape from the question of who we are when the logos and titles are removed. We adopt the signifiers of superficiality to mask our insecurities and mediocrity, hoping the shine of purchased exclusivity will convince others, and ultimately ourselves, that we possess an essence of taste we have not built.


In opposition to this stands a more Nietzschean ideal: the call to create one’s own values. True exclusivity, in a world saturated with the counterfeit, becomes a contrarian act. It is found not in consuming what is presented as rare but in the deliberate, often solitary, curation of one’s world. It is the individual who seeks out the handmade, not because it is trending, but because they value the story of its craft and the visible trace of human effort and intention. This is an act of self-overcoming, a rejection of the herd’s hunger for validation in favour of a personal connection and an aesthetic justification for one’s life.

This friction is the engine of contemporary marketing, which operates perfectly within what sociologist Zygmunt Bauman called ‘liquid modernity’. In this fluid social order, solid, long-term identities have melted away. Status is no longer a fixed state but a constant, anxious performance maintained through consumption and performances. Marketing, the high priests of this liquidity, have become masters of creating false scarcity, limited editions, drop culture, and VIP access, creating the illusion of exclusivity while its sole barrier remains financial, not intellectual or cultural. To maximise reach and gain, they inevitably lower standards, diluting complexity to appease the widest possible denominator.

Perhaps most cynically, marketing has learned to weaponise the language of inclusivity and identity. Barriers are lowered not out of principle but for profit, appeasing fragile egos willing to spend money for prestige. The result is a shallow, ‘accessible conformity’ where the meaning of both exclusivity and inclusivity is drained for commercial gain.

To navigate this, we might look east, to the Japanese concept of Ichi-go ichi-e. Literally “one time, one meeting", it speaks to a profound cultural exclusivity born of transience and mindfulness. It is the moment, the tea ceremony, the conversation, the experience, the moment that can never be replicated. Its value is not in its price tag or its broad recognition, but in its unique, fleeting context and the sincere, undivided attention paid to it. This stands in stark contrast to contemporary life, the marketed version of exclusivity, which is about mass-produced rarity and permanent possession. Ichi-go ichi-e is exclusive by its very nature, not by design; its value is unlocked by the participant’s depth of engagement, not their wealth.

This path of depth over breadth, of craft over hype, is not without its cost. It aligns with what the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer termed “the loneliness of the genius among the crowd". To reject the common taste, to find satisfaction in niches unknown to the masses, is to opt out of the communal rituals that bind society. It is a solitary road for the most part. One may find profound authenticity in a hand-thrown ceramic cup but will lack the shared camaraderie of those who waited in line for the latest branded tumbler.

Yet, this loneliness may be the necessary price of a self-authored life. In a world intent on selling us prefabricated identities, the most radical and truly exclusive act is to retreat, to refine our taste away from the spotlight, and to build a personal culture based on effort, understanding, and a mindful appreciation for the unique. It is important to understand that the most valuable things in life, true knowledge, authentic experience, and personal taste, cannot be bought; they can only be built, and that is an exclusivity that endures.