The Concept Of "Guilty Pleasures" Is Dumb

I have been thinking about something for a while now.

I don't know if this is a controversial statement or not, but... I don't like calling things "guilty pleasures" and I think we should stop doing that.

When people call a piece of media a guilty pleasure, what they usually mean is that they like it, even though they know other people think it sucks. I am thinking of shows like Riverdale, or games like Sonic The Hedgehog 2006, or the Twilight movies and the books they're based on. The kind of media that's seen by a lot of people as cringey, or trashy, or low-quality. I am not saying that this perception is wrong and I'm not saying that the pieces of media I just brought up are actually good, or that people are wrong to criticise them. I just don't like the term "guilty pleasure" because I think it implies judgment. I think it implies that you should feel bad for liking something that most people think sucks.
​
To some extent, I get where those people are coming from. If the majority of people thinks a piece of media sucks, or if there's parts of it that haven't aged well, or if it's just kind of cheesy, I get why you would want to acknowledge that.

But why do you have to bring shame into it?

Who benefits from that?

I don't think you should feel guilty or ashamed for liking a piece of media that the people around you have decided is bad. That the group has decided is bad. To me, the idea that you should feel bad for that implies that it's wrong to not conform with the group, that the group is always right and if you feel different from the way the group feels, it's because you just don't get it, you just didn't see something that the others can see clearly. And I think that's dumb.

I don't think we should enjoy stuff uncritically. I think we should be open to criticism of the stuff we like, but we can do that without bringing feelings of guilt and shame into it.

I think we shouldn't apologise for enjoying the stuff we like.

Signing out,
-Jules