The importance of having good taste
In "Why you should(n't) join the de community," I mentioned that I want to see more people who are "passionate about art" join us:
But I'm not just looking for more JPEG buyers. The goal is to build a community of people with good taste.
When I say "taste," I'm not talking about surface-level preferences for what's trendy at the moment. I'm talking about a deep, intuitive feel for what's truly excellent, meaningful, and worth paying attention to.
Good taste is the driving force behind every groundbreaking innovation and influential work of art. It's what gave us the Sistine Chapel, the iPhone, and every great novel and TV show.
And it will only become more important. While the Industrial Revolution rewarded intensity of labor and the Information Age rewarded clarity of analysis, the AI Age will prioritize aesthetic judgment. As machines master routine tasks, human value will come from our ability to recognize the extraordinary.
People with great taste are never just passive consumers. They're always actively curating and creating. Taste is less about having the right opinions, and more about making a series of decisions - what to notice, what to pursue, and what to contribute.
Developing this kind of taste is a skill that requires curious engagement with the world. The more you immerse yourself in your interests, the more refined your taste will become. You'll start to appreciate details and distinctions that others miss, and develop a richer vocabulary for describing what moves you and why.
Unfortunately, our institutions often discourage this. Schools emphasize conformity over individual exploration. The economics of attention reward immediate engagement over insight. Society often pits creators against each other as if they're competing for a scarce supply of greatness, instead of a team effort to find meaning and beauty amidst the absurdity of life.
So developing taste tends to be messy, tedious, and costly. It requires going against the grain, taking risks, and engaging in lots of trial and error.
That's why I love seeing scrappy, imperfect work. It's a sign that somebody wants to make something, more than they're worried about what people think. Imagine a world where we encourage beginners to keep creating, and value the development of taste over polish and perfection.
This is the ethos I want to cultivate in the de community. A culture of creation, curiosity, and intellectual humility where everyone articulates their tastes without demanding conformity.
That's why we're doing y00ts creator nominations:
And why we launched de[build]:
And why I will always support people who put their work out there:
And why we tip people in the community $DUST for doing cool shit:
When we become a community filled with people with good taste, something magical will happen. Our collective aesthetic intuition will infuse everything we do as a community. The projects we launch, the partnerships we forge, the creators we champion - all will be guided by this hard-earned, ever-evolving sense of what really matters.
This is the long game we're playing. Not to flip NFTs or chase hype, but to establish ourselves as a cultural force known for our taste.
In a world of endless noise, it's the ultimate competitive advantage.