Musical Matters of Taste: Our Preferences Don’t Have to Divide Us By Katherine Geils
Imagine yourself in Target. After spending half of your day meandering around the most beloved place on Earth, you finally enter the checkout line with two items you weren’t intending to buy in the first place. Just ahead of you, holding a case of beer, Eggo waffles, and sunflower seeds, a man saunters down to the register— Carolina baseball cap, plaid button down, an unnecessarily large belt buckle accompanied by faded jeans, scuffed boots. Nothing unusual in the lowcountry. You both finish scanning your items and leave the store in succession. You walk out to your car to find this man has parked next to you, a big red, mud-caked, 2019 Ford F-150. He starts up the ignition, rolls down the windows, cranks up the volume on the dash loud enough so that his truck vibrates, and out blares.... Beyonce? You probably expected the sappy lyrics of Thomas Rhett and the strum of an acoustic guitar, not the peppy “pro-women” songs of Queen Bey, right?
42 4
Something we’re all familiar with is the concept of stereotyping; as a society, we tend to stereotype people quite frequently and in a scant amount of time. Despite much encouragement to “not judge a book by its cover” and to have an open mind when meeting new people, we still tend to make quick generalizations about others upon first impressions. Such are mainly based on appearance or quick interactions in which we’ve seen them participate. For many, these thoughts are inevitable; we try to dissect one another, picking up on small indicators, like those based upon sex, hair style, apparel, and body language, which allow us to make thousands of generalizations about one another: generalizations about personality, hobbies, and even music taste.
“As a society, we tend to stereotype people quite frequently and in a scant amount of time.”
Based on my own traits, I’ve been told people generally see me as friendly and reserved, yet silly. (While this is all true, some have also told me that I’m “basic,”
