ugly is the new pretty

Friends know that if something is truly ugly and hideous, I have to consider having it.  I keep wondering where this reflex comes from, considering that I’m also offended by things that I find to be aesthetically displeasing.  Which made me realise my aesthetic IS “ugly”- or rather the “anti-pretty”.  The trouble with this aesthetic tendency though, is that sometimes even I can’t decide what it is I like.  From a fashion stand point, the anti-pretty is many ways the foundation of “good fashion”- or at the very least, good styling.  It would be why I would argue most people don’t “get” fashion.  To be fashionable is also to some extent to be exclusive, and to remain exclusive you have to confound the philistines.  If a Herve Leger dress is all the rage one month, the very reason it is no longer loved the following month, is because everyone else is “getting it”.  It’s an aesthetic game that gets played out in every kind of contemporary artform- and as stupid as it seems intellectually, it seems to be an involuntary reaction that occurs on a massive scale: who understands how trends work anyhow?  Is it simply over exposure that engenders this falling out of love?  Or is it something else entirely?  What is it about ubiquity and commonness that some of us find so offensive?

I seem to take the whole thing to a new level though- I am drawn to the “anti pretty”, but I’m so drawn, that anything that offends me has to be taken into consideration.  i.e. Is it good because it’s slightly offensive, or am I just offended?  Hence why I own so many randomly ugly, awful things.  Things that are just ugly, but which I couldn’t decifer if they were “good ugly”.

This also follows on into areas like books, music, film.  I’m automatically suspicious of anything that is too pretty, or too easy to like.  I have somewhat gotten over this recently- but it still lurks, rearing it’s head when I come across something beautiful.  It doesn’t mean I won’t eventually come around to prettiness and beauty, but it takes longer for me to attune to it.  The exceptions to this are things that are blatantly obvious about their ‘empty’ intentions, and sometimes, things with nostalgic resonance.  I find “trashy” things easy to accept because I think, perhaps falsley that I don’t have to question their agenda.  Or it could be that excessive commericialisation is within itself an open ugliness that clearly I find sufficiently offensive to be intrigued by.  Faux ugliness however, such as films that employ “gritty realism” with a filtered lens is also an inverse prettiness I don’t trust.  So basically, the problem I have is having too many internal aesthetic rules to even understand what I like/don’t like.  Who buys things because they hate them?  Or, hates things because they’re nice?  It’s a disorder, and I need help.