this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
894 points (98.4% liked)

memes

16518 readers
4867 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/AdsNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.

A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

Sister communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago

That's sort of sidestepping and deliberately misinterpreting the question. Sure, there are the dumbasses who thing "this thing feels good, therefore it must be bad!" But that's not what most people think of when they think of a "guilty pleasure".

A guilty pleasure is like, eg, drinking a beer. Drinking is bad for your health. In moderation, your long term health probably won't be significantly impacted, but presuming you care about your health, you probably also care about other aspects of living a healthy lifestyle. For example, maybe you play pickup soccer in the park, and find you have more fun when you are more in shape, since you can run faster and farther without having to catch your breath. Drinking will lower your aerobic capacity the next day, and will impair your recovery - you know that you are happier in general when you don't drink. But then a friend invites you over, and it's been a stressful day, and they offer you a beer, and you say to yourself "I know that I will be happier in the future if I stay sober. But right now I really want this beer. Fuck it." And then you wake up the next morning with a hangover and say "that was dumb, why did I do that?"

The "guilt" in guilty pleasure doesn't have to be based on arcane moral codes. It can just be guilt about doing something we know is against our own best interests, by the standards we set for ourselves.

Saying you don't feel guilty about your pleasures either means that you never do this (ie, you're a liar), or else it means that you literally put no stock in the future (ie, you're a dumbass), or that you are so insecure that you are trying to sidestep the question because you can't bring yourself to admit you have any flaws.