The Mount Rushmore format demands that we take four things and declare them the greatest representatives of a category. We are using this format to identify the four faces of overrated experiences — the activities and things that a significant portion of society performs enthusiasm for in public while privately finding them fine at best.
This is not about bad things. Overrated is different from bad. These things are fine. Some are even good. But the gap between how they're described and how they're experienced is where the overrating lives.
“FACE ONE: Brunch. Brunch is breakfast food at lunch prices with a 45-minute wait and an obligation to drink before noon. The food itself is not special. Eggs are eggs. The pancakes...”
FACE ONE: Brunch. Brunch is breakfast food at lunch prices with a 45-minute wait and an obligation to drink before noon. The food itself is not special. Eggs are eggs. The pancakes are the same pancakes available at 7am with no wait. What brunch actually is: a social ritual disguised as a meal. People don't go to brunch because they can't eat breakfast or lunch. They go because brunch provides a two-hour social structure. This is fine and valid. It is not necessary to also pretend the food is exceptional.
FACE TWO: Wine. Humans have been convinced through a sophisticated and long-running cultural campaign that wine appreciation is a skill worth developing. That some people can distinguish notes of tobacco and cherry and minerals in a glass. That the difference between a $15 bottle and an $80 bottle is detectable by a trained palate. Multiple studies have shown that wine experts cannot reliably identify bottles in blind tastings. The most consistent finding: people prefer wine when they're told it's expensive. The product is status, not flavor. The flavor is fine.
FACE THREE: Hiking. At some point it was collectively decided that walking outside in difficult terrain was a recreational activity worth driving two hours each way to experience. People buy specific boots, specific socks, specific pants, a specific kind of backpack. They describe the physical discomfort as the reward. Here is what hiking is: walking, but harder, and farther from where you parked. For some people this is genuinely enjoyable and good for them. For a significant percentage of people who do it and post about it, it is performed outdoorsmanship. The mountain will be there whether you go up it or not.
FACE FOUR: Live music at bars where you cannot hear anything. The band is playing at a volume that prevents conversation. You are standing. There are no seats or you cannot get to them. The drink line is long. You are paying bar prices for the privilege of experiencing all of this. The music sounds worse in the venue than it does recorded because live venue acoustics are extremely variable. People go to this because declining to go reads as not being a music person. Being a music person is good. There are better venues for actually hearing music. The bar show exists for the story, not the song.
We are not telling you to stop doing any of these things. We are telling you it's fine to admit that brunch is just eggs, wine is just wine, hiking is just walking, and the bar show was too loud.