Stop Calling Them Your “Guilty Pleasures”
It’s harder to enjoy yourself when you think it’s guilty to enjoy yourself.
What’s your “guilty pleasure?”
Is it binge-watching reality TV shows about trashy people with British accents desperately trying to have sex with each other? Spending hours upon hours on a Reddit thread for 50 Shades of Gray fan fiction? Celebrity gossip magazines? Not wearing pants? Pumpkin spice lattes? Chocolate?
All of the above?
Guilty pleasures are hobbies or forms of media that most people don’t consider to be held in high regard. It’s a form of communally-recognized lowbrow entertainment. And, it’s also a way of dissuading people from enjoying what they actually love.
For me, I am absolutely obsessed with Eurovision, a song contest held every year in Europe. Most people think it’s silly — which it absolutely is — but I can’t get enough of its camp-soaked premise. I spend hours upon hours checking odds on the winning song, scouring fan sites for tidbits, and learning trivia. I was so enamored that I wrote my final ever college paper on the impact of the contest on European politics.
Every Thursday night, you can catch me watching Rupaul’s Drag Race — the hilarious and silly drag reality competition show. Do I watch it for the artist value of the competitors? Sure. Am I also into the smack-talk between contestants on Untucked? Hell Yes. Can I recite every word of the iconic sugar daddy bitch-fest between Shangela and Mimi Imfurst by heart? Abso-fucking-lutely.
These forms of entertainment are considered lower-brow. Not the fancy-schmancy hobbies that an esteemed tastemaker may enjoy.
But I don’t feel guilty about them.
Pleasure is such a fleeting feeling. To truly relish something, to ignore the passage of time and fall into an activity with depth, is a truly beautiful thing. There is never shame in enjoying yourself. Why let other peoples’ opinions stand in your way of that?
The Difference Between Guilt and a Guilty Pleasure
I want to differentiate between having guilt and having a guilty pleasure.
Because, of course, there are many forms of ‘guilty pleasures’ that aren’t beneficial. Binge-eating a whole tub of ice cream at 1 a.m. is just going to make you feel sick afterward. Throwing away all of your recyclables because it takes less time is going to hurt your community and environment. Watching TV all day long — to the point where it begins affecting your social life and work productivity — harms your livelihood.
These activities should make you feel some form of guilty because they have a negative impact on you or yourself.
But reading fanfiction about Edward Cullen’s early years isn’t hurting anyone. Banging your head in the shower to Katy Perry’s most recent bop isn’t a problem.
If your hobby’s only impact is to make you feel good, then it’s not worthy of guilt. If it’s truly guilty, then it’s not a pleasure.
Guilty Pleasures are Performative
Obviously, people who have ‘guilty pleasures’ aren’t experiencing great shame. The guilty pleasure doesn’t exactly cause us to toss-and-turn in the night or hear a heartbeat beneath the floorboards.
Much of the ‘guilt’ is performative.
When someone asks you what type of movies you like, you may say “Oh, I watch a lot of rom-coms but, you know, I know they’re not very serious or whatever. . .”. You are indicating that you acknowledge that rom-coms are not considered to be well-regarded forms of entertainment.
We indicate to our peers that we don’t actually enjoy this low-brow crap. That our refined tastes are above the silliness of our most recent Netflix binge. We are, whether intentionally or not, affecting the people around us by furthering the mainstream ideals of what is high-brow and what is stupid.
To paraphrase Amy Pleiming, “Don’t yuck someone else’s yum!”
Earnestness is such a truly beautiful quality in a person. When someone is truly enamored with something, when watching reruns of Love is Blind makes you feel happy and lighter, than go all-out in your affection for it. Be earnest.
Don’t signal to other people that you really don’t take it seriously. If it’s serious to you, it’s serious to you.
Why not enjoy what you enjoy?
There are many words we use to label a guilty pleasure: low-brow, basic, campy, pedestrian. And all of these words are toxically pejorative. They prevent us from truly being earnest and in love with something.
If we label certain activities and elements of media as inherently low-brow, we segregate and rank our own interests. We label some forms of media as stupid and silly. We rob ourselves of the joy they can bring us.
The beauty of a hobby is usually individualized and personal. We have this own special little thing that we enjoy.
The notion of a guilty pleasure changes over time. Charles Dickens, now a classic novelist, used to be considered a more lowbrow author. His books were released in short spurts, designed to be enjoyed by the masses, often with insane cliff-hangers to keep readers interested. His contemporaries like Virginia Woolf and Oscar Wilde, considered his work to be foolish blabberings.
A Dickens novel used to be a “guilty pleasure”. Now, it’s studied in AP Lit.
When the definition of what is “elite” and what is “guilty” changes both on who you ask and when you ask it, why are you even asking the question? Decide for yourself.
So what do you call a guilty pleasure instead?
A pleasure.
Ignore the public shame, however small it may be, that comes with a form of media or hobby, and simply enjoy it for what it is.
Take that hour-long bubble bath with lavender-scented suds while you munch on dark chocolate bars. Read those vampire young adult books with glee. Don’t be embarrassed by writing that fanfiction. Buy that sex toy. Go to a mountaintop and howl into the wind “NIC CAGE IS A GREAT ACTOR AND I ACTUALLY REALLY LIKE FACE/OFF!”
And don’t ever be ashamed to do so.