Episode 95: Judging Things By Their Covers

   I know you've heard the phrase. "Don't judge a book by its cover" is one of the most well-known sayings known to man. I don't need to tell you what it means, but for the sake of the episode I'm gonna tell you that it means to not judge the whole of something or someone based on the outward appearance. It comes from the fact that a book might be good despite having a boring/unattractive cover. 

   And, of course, I think this is true. There's a reason the saying is so popular. The cover of a book has no bearing on the content of it, but this applies to so much more than just books. Movie posters, album covers, the face/fashion/body of a person, etc..

    But I'm gonna take the controversial side of this thing and talk about why covers do matter. No, you shouldn't let covers dictate your opinion on a thing as a whole, but the cover of something does matter. The purpose of a cover is to try to attract you to it and to describe it to you. There's a reason authors and musical artists pay a lot of money for professional photographers/artists to design their covers - it's because the cover matters. 

   Many books and albums, especially the latter, are remembered in part because of the art that's on the cover. I bet there are several things in your mind where if you think of it you can immediately remember what the cover art is. 

   As for people - what's the cover of a person? Well for one, we literally cover ourselves. We wear clothes because most of us are ashamed of nudity and because, well, we'll get arrested if we start going around naked outside. But there's literally a movement of people who go to beaches and resorts and stuff to not have to worry about that cover. 

   But, we are covering ourselves in many other ways besides our clothes. We decide what clothes we buy and what outfits we wear in concern for what makes us look good and how it makes others perceive us. Some of our covers do matter - you don't wanna show up to your professional job in shorts and a Blink-182 shirt. You don't wanna go to grandma's house wearing one of those edgy shirts with like, Bugs Bunny smoking a blunt and then proceed to drown out grandma with your Air Pods. 

   I was inspired to write this episode because I decided to make a tier list of Green Day albums based exclusively on how good the cover art is. Not that you asked, but my favorites are Insomniac, Nimrod, and, of course, if you know me you knew this was coming, American Idiot.

   So, I guess, in conclusion, I guess I'm trying to say that you shouldn't judge someone or something by the cover, but don't think that the cover doesn't matter. There's a reason covers are made and there's a purpose that they serve.

Anyway, see you next week!