Guilty Pleasures
By Nick Quagliara of the Panoply Academy

In this era of post-modern overkill, it is difficult to be embarrassed about anything. I wasn’t embarrassed to write this article revealing my guilty pleasures. It seems like nowadays it is a badge to be worn, declaring that you too understand the tragically funny. How unhip would it be to not understand? Well, not at all really. It seems that youth culture has so embraced the notion that kitsch is cool, that it has lost meaning. Let’s face it, it has become cliché. Retro is not something for just the American subcultures. The Old Navy store at your mall is just as likely to embrace it and cash in. I don’t intend to dismiss kitsch altogether. I just don’t see how you could say playing Atari or owning a collection of He-Man cartoons are guilty pleasures. Maybe my guilty pleasure is hating Atari, which in my mind is rather boring. Maybe we need to redefine what kitsch is.

I think that kitsch describes something that is so ostentatiously bad that it becomes humorous. Maybe some things are horrid enough to be beyond the grip of camp, but this is doubtful. Even the mullet is kitsch these days. Come on already, it’s a god-awful hairstyle. Somehow the mullet has become enough of a pop icon to be worn proudly and at the same time mocked openly. I think we need to brainstorm here and find ways to thwart the post-modern whores. You are the ones that are ruining my childhood memories.