The Four Pins Guide To Developing Good Taste

Alright, straight up, right out the gate, good taste is a fucking myth. If you don't have have that shit in the year 2014 of our lord, you suck at technology. That's really your only excuse. Like, I'm pretty sure you don't even know how to turn the emoji keyboard on your iPhone 4s. That or, okay, you're incredibly lazy. Dawgs, there's literally so much cool shit on the Internet we're gonna forfeit our net neutrality over it. I'm perplexed as to how you lack a cogent response to my questions about your thoughts on the latest exhibit at the ICA. How are you not gonna have an opinion about Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg: A World of Glass? NO, NOT EVERYTHING IS A FUCKING MARINA ABRAMOVIC PROJECT. Seriously, you need to develop good taste or you're going to end up sounding like Jay Z, dropping the same tired references since 2006. Walk with me.

Read Exclusive Journals

Yo, if you want good taste you have to own the latest issue of The Paris Review. Or you at least gotta have perused whatever issue was on the newsstand when you went into that Barnes & Noble that one time to take a shit. Fancy magazines and literary journals are how you learn about short fiction writers. The best thing about having hastily and poorly formed opinions about short fiction is that no one else reads short fiction, so they'll be moderately impressed by your reading comprehension skills. That's the only catch with this tip. You actually have to read a few articles. I KNOW, I THOUGHT KINFOLK WAS JUST FOR ROLLING JOINTS AND LOOKING AT PRETTY BRUNETTES IN LACEY DRESSES STANDING IN FIELDS OF RYE HOLDING A CIABATTA TOO.

Internet, Internet, Internet Until You Die

Remember back, like, in 1998 when ordering things online was still kind of a new concept? Remember when Wikipedia didn't exist and you had to troll like fifty AltaVista searches and Geocities websites some nerds in Des Moines made about the Industrial Revolution to mine enough material to plagiarize? NOWADAYS, I CAN BE LIKE, "HEY INTERNET, HOW DO I TIE A TIE? MATTER OF FACT, HOW DO I PICK OUT A TIE?" and, like, fifty billion tie options pop up. You can ask the Internet about alphets and Four Pins will pop up and it's like you just downloaded a lifetime's worth of amazing and unassailable taste like how Neo learned kung fu in the fucking Matrix.

Go To College

Let's be honest, college isn’t ever gonna pay for itself anymore. And you're never gonna pay it off. So, you might as well ride it out until the wheels fall off that motherfucker. Go ahead and study film and minor in a romance language, my guy. She'll still go home with the pharmaceutical rep, but at least you've actually read Ulysses. That peace of mind comes in handy when you're crying while masturbating.

Listen To NPR

Take the dulcet tones of Terry Gross straight to the dome and get you some culture, motherfucker. If you can't answer some of the trivia on Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me, get all the way the fuck out of my 2009 Chevy Blazer forever. I listen to Radiolab and that shit is all about science and whatnot, but do you know how cultured you sound when, in the midst of waiting in line for a complimentary Bud "ight Platinum Artisinal Premium at the #menswear function, you can drop anecdotes like, "Did you know that some scientists believe that the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs may have happened in only a matter of hours?" That sales rep for that new popover company based in North Dakota is gonna only kind of regret letting you take her all the way to the Cloisters just so you could try and hold her hand only to then awkwardly withdraw when you realize she's holding her cellphone.

Read A Lot Of Music Criticism

I would tell you to double down on art and literary criticism, but fuck that noise. I learn everything I need to know about that from conversations I overhear on free Fridays at the DIA. But you need to read music criticism because there's so much—too much—new music coming out every day. And it's changing all the time. Who has time to listen to what is mostly just weird mixtures of noise and feelings? Instead I read other people’s opinions on said noise and feelings. Pitchfork and Complex and Noisey, what's up boos? Catch me forming opinions on shit like Iggy Azalea and Mac Miller without ever having to listen to their music.

Read Four Pins (Hey, Good Job, Motherfucker!)

I MEAN, DUH, THIS IS FUCKING OBVIOUS. We got Scott Storches and Mike the Rulers and that guy that takes photos with tons of guns and surgically enhanced prostitutes for Instagram. We got celebrity home tours and an upcoming spread in Complex Magazine. Our Editor-in-Chief has a show in which he talks about butt-chugging molly water. WE OUT HERE RAISING TASTE LEVELS ONE CLICK AT A MOTHERFUCKING TIME.