Younger self: "I don't listen to mainstream radio. All pop music is mass-market dreck."
Current self: "Holy hell, Mariah Carey was actually good?"
You, early in college: "I only read Pynchon and The New Republic. Cartoons are for babies."
You, late in college: watches cartoons all day, is a smelly baby.
Younger self: eager to show off everything you know.
Older self: picks nose while eating Cheetos at work.
Your teen snob self: thinks that your wit exempts you from the duty of being kind.
Your older self: horridly embarrassed you were ever like that.
Snobby high school self: "80% of the art/movies/games/novels/companies out there are OVERRATED GARBAGE. I can totally do better."
Older self: realize that making things is much, much harder than talking shit and throwing bricks.
Your young self's idea of fancy writing: novel characters sighing down some Parisian avenue, ruing the lyrical names of trees while saying, "Ah, quite touché, mon frere."
Your old self's idea of fancy writing: anything but a cellist in Paris sniffing flowers, please.
Younger self: "My parents have LAME taste in music!"
Older self: secretly torrents all of parents' music.
Your young self: angry that your favorite things became popular among the wrong people.
Your older self: glad that the hard-working talents behind your favorite things finally got the recognition they deserve.
Younger self: easily cowed by celebs, people with fancy titles and degrees.
Older self: knows there are geniuses and frauds from every walk of life.
Younger self: calls every show a "guilty pleasure." Can't watch anything without making fun of it.
Older secure self: no such thing as a guilty pleasure. Pleasure is pleasure.
Younger self:
Older self:
