ISSUE 04: On Hating Crocs and Loving Cy Twombly

Not everything that’s popular is redeemable. And not everything that’s scribbled is meaningless.

Let’s start here: I know that Crocs are comfortable. I know they’ve been reclaimed, restyled, and meme-ified into oblivion. I know that people “ironically” wear them and then slowly, tragically, stop being ironic about it. I know there are collaborations with Miu Miu, and I know that—God help us—there are high-heeled Crocs.

But I don’t care. I hate them. I cannot bring myself to like them, not even a little bit.

It’s not just about looks. I simply can’t get behind the idea of bulbous plastic as a design statement. There’s this idea floating around that if something is ugly enough, it becomes interesting (see also: pugs, linoleum tile, a toaster lamp). But I’m sorry…Crocs are not interesting. They’re just hideous.

Taste is subjective, sure. But that doesn’t mean it’s meaningless.

Walk into a contemporary art museum, stop in front of a Cy Twombly painting, and listen for the inevitable: “My kid could do that.”

It’s the most common insult hurled at abstract or gestural art. And on the surface, I get it. Twombly’s paintings do look wild and scribbly and unhinged. He draws like he’s possessed. He writes in chalk like a haunted professor.

But here’s the thing: Twombly could paint photorealism.

He had classical training. He chose to work this way. And that choice—that rejection of polish, precision, and perfection—is exactly what makes the work emotional.

There’s something deeply moving to me about someone who can do the expected, but doesn’t. Who uses their skill to undo skill.

A controlled unraveling.

A practiced chaos.

A gesture that says, I know the rules. I just don’t care to follow them.

I don’t believe good taste is about liking the “right” things. But I do believe it’s about being able to articulate what moves you—and what doesn’t.

I’m not judging people who love Crocs (okay, maybe a little), I just genuinely can’t understand it. They feel like the footwear version of giving up. They’re anti-silhouette and anti-story.

Twombly, to me, is the opposite. His paintings don’t try to be likable. They’re full of restraint and chaos and longing and scribbled myth. They don’t ask for approval. In Twombly’s own words: “I paint in order to see.”

There’s something there that feels honest. And that’s what taste often comes down to: honesty. Not what’s trendy, not what everyone else is pinning, but what actually resonates, even when no one else gets it.

One of the laziest critiques of abstract work is that it doesn’t show “talent.” That unless something is detailed, realistic, or time-consuming, it’s not “real” art. But that mindset completely misses the point of vision.

Photorealism shows skill. Twombly, for example, shows feeling— and sometimes, feeling is harder to get to with a visual medium.

There’s something brave about making work that you know will be misunderstood. That will make people uncomfortable. That will be ridiculed or dismissed…and doing it anyway. Twombly’s paintings don’t try to win anyone over. They just exist—with their scratches, their storms, their scrawled fragments of poetry—and if you’re open to it, they pull something out of you.

Let’s return to the crime scene: high-heeled Crocs. I don’t know who these are for. I can’t imagine the outfit that would make them make sense. They feel like the physical manifestation of sarcasm, like design lost a drunken bet.

And listen—ugly can be good. Ugly can be transcendent, even! I love a weird lamp. I adore “misshapen” objects. I could be convinced to wear a jacket that makes me look like a stylish sea creature. But this isn’t that, this is lazy ugly. Manufactured eccentricity.

And maybe that’s the line for me: Twombly’s work feels unfiltered. Crocs feel unearned. One is a raw decision. The other is a mass-produced shrug.

This isn’t really about Crocs or Cy Twombly. (Okay, maybe a little.)

It’s about being honest about what you like—and what you just can’t get behind. It’s about resisting the pressure to pretend you love something because everyone else does. It’s about taste as something that’s personal, not performative. Loving Twombly doesn’t make me deep. Hating Crocs doesn’t make me snobby. It just makes me someone with an opinion—and a lens.

Good taste isn’t about everyone liking the same things, it’s about choosing, noticing, caring; even if what you care about looks like a scribble.

This week’s goodies: weird, wonderful, stubbornly soulful pieces that refuse to behave.

Next week: where food, design, and beauty all blur together.