Guilt-Free Joy
Guilty pleasures come in many different forms, from binging "trashy" TV shows to indulging in sweet treats, playing video games, and listening to music we're embarrassed to share. But why do we feel guilty about harmless pleasures that bring us joy? Is the time finally coming to eradicate the term "guilty pleasure" altogether?
via IG @yasly.labs. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
From a very young age, we absorb the opinions and values of people around us, and this heavily impacts how we think about different aspects of life. This is especially prominent during our time at school since we are only starting to form our personalities and take up interests and hobbies that will define us in other people’s eyes, which is, admittedly, a lot of pressure. Even if we don’t immediately realize how important these things are for the social aspects of our childhoods, we quickly get that idea from the reactions of people around us to the things we like and take part in. In this period of life, fitting in and being accepted seems more important than most things, and, if you cared at all about it (which most of us definitely did), you probably changed or hid some aspects of your personality in favor of being well-liked.
However, things usually start to change around the time we enter adulthood. It seems like our generation has recently finally reached the stage of not being embarrassed by most things that bring us joy. Embracing the "cringe" things we like is considerably easier when we’re not in a school environment where social image feels important and one embarrassing detail can haunt us for years. As adults, we usually find people who accept us exactly as we are, with all of our many quirks, and this allows us to let go of learned constraints. Maybe it has something to do with our frontal cortex developing, or maybe it’s something else altogether, but it suddenly feels stupid to restrict yourself from enjoying things for other people’s sake. And many people in their 20s say that they found their way back to interests they had as teenagers, just minus the overwhelming embarrassment they felt before.
Why do we feel guilty about our pleasures in the first place? Most of it comes exactly from the abovementioned social pressure—we desperately yearn to be liked and positively perceived, and we dread judgment. We often unconsciously internalize the opinions of majorities and take them at face value, measuring everything we like by those standards. However, broad societal opinions are very fickle and can change in a matter of seconds. Take Taylor Swift, for example. Liking Taylor’s songs used to be considered the pinnacle of cringe and cheesiness, but in the past couple of years, this has shifted so dramatically that saying you hate Taylor Swift nowadays will more likely provoke a negative response than agreement. So why would we shape our beliefs around opinions that can shift so easily?
There is something to be said about the gendered elements of these judgmental opinions as well, since most of what many people consider embarrassing interests can actually just be described as girly—such as mainstream pop music, boybands, romantic comedies, romance novels, reality shows, et cetera. Society belittles predominantly female interests way more often than male, and this is just the product of the patriarchy. When was the last time you heard men being made fun of for obsessively attending football matches?
Judgment is not the only reason we feel guilty about our interests, though. The capitalist society we live in often makes us believe that anything that doesn’t add productive value or self-improvement to our lives is inherently bad and not worthy of spending time on. But it is actually scientifically proven that indulging in things that relax us and bring us joy just for the sake of it is very beneficial for our mental health. It’s important to embrace our guilty pleasures, especially as adults whose lives are often jam-packed with responsibilities and leave little time for pure fun and entertainment. It’s crucial to take moments we can to do things we like and not worry about other people’s perception of them, since it effectively releases stress and enhances creativity, as well as helps us engage better with people around us.
