Last month, after a short, two-week stint visiting my family in China, it came time to return to Bowdoin, just in time for Lobster Bake. What troubled my mind wasn’t the imminent 30-hour connecting flight—my personal equivalent to being run over by a concrete roller in terms of magnitude of suffering.
Being offered the “aux” is one of those unnecessarily frightening experiences. Sure, it’s an opportunity to share your personal music taste with the world—but that’s not always a boon. You might simultaneously agree with the notions that music being “good” or “bad” is purely subjective, but also that our music taste is a display of identity—so why is one’s personal music taste vulnerable to criticism?