Abstract

Popular culture, according to my thesis, has offered aesthetic responses to the excessive abundance of commodities and things since its historical emergence in the mid-19th century, particularly in the first half of the 20th century. Accordingly, this article attempts to describe specific qualities of popular things that represent conditions and consequences of mass culture which in turn stem from processes of medialization, individualization, and economization that have been intertwining since the late 19th century, making popular culture possible in the first place. In dealing with commodities in mass culture, as it will be shown exemplarily in a parallel reading of Georg Simmel and Laurel & Hardy, the history of the devaluation of mass culture is always also reflected. However, in the material effects of popular culture, a bodily- and proximity-oriented handling of the abundance of things could thus be observed, constituting the late modern subject rather than threatening it. To put it simply: Ifmass production and mass culture was and still is the challenge for the concept of bourgeoise culture, then popular and pop culture is the marketplace through which abundance turns into entertainment. In this sense, ChatGPT could also be understood as a reaction to and adaptation of the growing abundance, namely of scientific text production among others. As an experiment it will be argued that ChatGPT can be described as a specific answer, which turns quantities into qualities.