I Never Watched Tiger King (and That Doesn’t Make me Interesting)

Years ago I opened a blank document and typed a sentence like it was a confession.

I Never Watched Tiger King.

Five words, a tiny flag I planted in the soft soil of my own personality, as if not seeing a thing could be a thing. As if absence could be evidence. As if the shape of what I didn’t consume could somehow outline a better self.

I didn’t mean to be smug. I just accidentally made smugness my resting face.

Poser Emo in a Nice Zip Code

In high school I was an emo kid in the way a golden retriever is a wolf—earnest, eager, domesticated to the bone, but dressed for the part.

I had the hair swoop. I had the hoodie. I had lyrics in my status that suggested I’d been harmed by the universe personally. I listened to Death Cab for Cutie and, at some point, began calling them “Death Cab,” like we were friends and I was protecting them from the indignity of their full name.

Meanwhile, the actual facts of my life were aggressively normal. Comfortable suburb. Great public school. Stable home. No cigarettes. No drinking (except when I visited MSU. Sorry, mom and dad. Kathryn’s fault. I turned out fine). No sneaking out.

And, no AP classes either—because apparently I was too cool for school, which is a sentence that feels absurd to type now, and felt even more absurd to my parents at the time.

I loved the aesthetics of damage. Rain on windows. Streetlights in fog. The dramatic pause before a chorus. I wanted the vibe of being haunted without the inconvenience of an actual ghost.

It wasn’t that I was faking what I liked. I loved the music. I meant it. But I also loved the costume. I loved looking like someone who had seen something dark and survived it, even if the darkest thing I’d survived was an awkward lunch period and the slow realization that I was not, in fact, the main character of anything.

I wasn’t a tortured soul. I was a well-fed suburban kid cosplaying intensity.

The Quiet Upgrade From Eyeliner to Essays

Eventually, the haircut changed. The hoodie stayed. The angle stayed, too—only now it wore better shoes.

I grew into “good taste” the way some people grow into a beard: slowly, deliberately, and with a private hope that it would make them look older and more serious than they felt.

I found the stuff that makes you feel like you’re doing something noble just by consuming it. The long essays. The serious novels. The cultural takes that come with a faint implied whisper: yes, yes—this is for smart people.

All of it, for me, was real love. Real gratitude. Real hunger.

Somewhere in the mix, my taste began doing that sneaky thing taste does—it became identity. It became résumé. It became a little velvet rope in my head.

Not a conscious one. Nothing dramatic. Just a soft, constant sorting.

This is trash. That is prestige. And I, of course, am…refined.

God, what an asshole.

The Pandemic and the Tiger I Refused to Ride

Then the pandemic hit, and the world narrowed to screens and fear and sourdough starters. Everyone needed something loud enough to drown out the quiet, and Tiger King arrived like a carnival in an empty parking lot.

Everyone watched it. Everyone quoted it. Everyone had a take.

Except me.

At first it was simple. I was tired. I didn’t want to watch a chaotic documentary about tigers and human bad decisions stacked like Jenga blocks. I didn’t feel like feeding my nervous system another spectacle.

But, then my non-choice grew teeth.

I started saying it like it meant something.

“Yeah, I never watched Tiger King.”

Not as a neutral fact, but as a subtle flex. As if I’d opted out of something corrupting. As if I’d saved my brain from rot through sheer discernment and grit.

As if Netflix was keeping a spreadsheet titled PEOPLE WHO MATTER, and I was determined not to appear in the wrong column.

In reality, I just didn’t watch a popular show and then tried to make that absence into proof of my depth, which is a very complicated way of saying: I am capable of being deeply lame.

Taste Is not a Halo

Around the same time, I’d be reading long pieces in The Atlantic or The New Yorker or whatever serious magazine was offering me a warm bath of “you’re not like the others.”

I’d finish an essay, close the app, and feel that tiny glow.

Not just “that was good,” but “I am good for reading it.”

That’s the trap. It’s subtle, and it’s flattering, and it’s almost always bullshit.

Art is not a morality test. Books are not sacraments. A playlist is not a character reference.

And there’s the painful part: I wasn’t just enjoying what I enjoyed. I was quietly keeping score. I was building a little pedestal out of preferences and then standing on it like it was solid ground.

It wasn’t.

Hipster Energy, Mobility Edition

Now, I’m a parent, and life is crumbs and logistics and the constant low-grade suspense of “what’s that smell.”

I’m in a wheelchair now. My days are full of rolling around the house, trying not to run over toys, trying not to run over my own dignity, trying not to let frustration become the main note of my voice.

My rebellion is small. Staying up twenty minutes too late. Listening to a track all the way through. Taking the long route to the kitchen just because I can.

Still—still—my taste tries to crown itself.

I have an eclectic music brain. Ambient, metal, classical, indie, weird electronic stuff that sounds like a haunted appliance—I’m in. I still indulge in the music I used to listen to, but now I do it with sincerity instead of irony.

No posture, no “guilty pleasure,” no pretending I’m above it. I can put on the old sad kid songs and just let them be what they are: familiar, beloved, and slightly embarrassing in the way everything you loved at sixteen becomes.

Yet, because I am apparently committed to being myself, I still catch that stupid flicker of pride when I find an obscure ambient track with 873 listens on Spotify.

There I am, rolling through the kitchen, doing dishes, thinking: ah, yes—me and twelve other people understand this one.

As if the low play count is a secret handshake. As if rarity is virtue. As if the algorithm is a dragon and I’m some humble knight resisting it with my tasteful headphones.

I’m a dad in leggings. The dragon is my own ego.

Death Cab Won’t Save Me

Here’s the truth I keep circling back to like a tired dog finding the same spot on the carpet:

None of this saves me.

Not the books. Not the playlists. Not the magazines. Not the fact that I didn’t watch a show everyone else watched.

None of it proves I’m kind.

None of it proves I’m patient when my kids are melting down, or gentle when I’m exhausted, or generous when I’m scared.

There’s relief in that, too.

If taste isn’t a halo, then it’s just taste.
If it’s not virtue, then it’s freedom.

I can love the hard stuff and the easy stuff. I can read something “important” and then watch something dumb and shiny. I can listen to a twenty-minute ambient wash and then blast a pop song that makes the dishes go faster.

I could even, if I wanted, finally watch Tiger King.

(There’s still a part of me that refuses out of spite, which is also not a great look.)

Just Liking Things

So here I am, a former suburban poser emo kid, trying to outgrow the need for taste to function as character.

Trying to let “I like this” be enough.

Not “I like this, and therefore I am better.”
Not “I like this, and therefore you are worse.”
Just: I like this.

I Never Watched Tiger King.
It doesn’t make me interesting.
It doesn’t make me wise.
It doesn’t make me anything.

It’s just one small, dumb non-choice I briefly tried to turn into a flag.

These days, I’d rather plant flags in better places.

In presence. In love. In showing up.

Sure, sometimes in an obscure ambient track with 873 plays, because I’m still me, and I’m still ridiculous, and I’m trying to be honest about that too.