You start out by saying that you always thought the word tacky was your mother's word.

Why'd you feel that way and how did she use it?

I'd specifically heard her saying it about my father's mother, her mother-in-law.

She was always wearing like super heavy jewelry, fur coats in July, like that kind of a glam person.

My kind of lady.

My kind of lady too. That's me now.

But I would always hear my mom calling her stuff tacky and calling her taste tacky

and feeling these early twinges of shame about it because all the stuff that I was hearing

described as tacky was stuff I really liked.

You're listening to It's Been A Minute from NPR. I'm Sam Sanders.

And today we are talking all things tacky.

I didn't know what the word tacky meant, but I knew it was bad.

And to this day, my relationship with the word is largely on the level of connotation.

And that's my guess. The writer Raxx came.

And that word tacky. It is a name of Raxx's essay collection.

All about things that are considered not in good taste.

But Raxx argues that just because something is deemed tacky,

it doesn't mean that we can't enjoy it, loudly and proudly.

If you experience a piece of art and have an immediate joyful reaction to it,

and then you find yourself trying to backtrack and walk back your own reaction

because it's not in line with what other people are saying about this piece of art,

that's where I think we make a lot of mistakes.

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