Exoticism

Is this exoticism? Is it we're back in the choky world? But is it exotic? Well, I don't know about that.

No, snakes.

Exoticism, eroticism.

You know, exoticism is baked into kind of really racism and all that stuff.

Because you think, oh, a bit of the Orient, a bit of this, a bit of that.

Packaging matters immensely.

Exoticism grants us a kind of cultural permission to enjoy something we might otherwise view as a guilty pleasure.

Ah, permission.

When a reader on a train is holding a book that was translated from Swedish or Norwegian, they aren't just reading a thriller, they are projecting an image.