Cute, Quaint, Hungry And Romantic: The Aesthetics Of Consumerism

Abstract

A psychic voyage into the aesthetic unconscious of the consumer, examining the broad principles that govern the appearance of popular culture, from cuteness to quaintness, coolness to cleanness, the natural to the futuristic.. Why has the ring of the telephone become a beep? What ever happened to the bumpers and fenders of cars? Why do food commercials never mention hunger?In this encyclopedia of low-brow aesthetics, Daniel Harris concentrates on the nuances of non-art, the uses of the useless, the politics of product design and advertising. We learn how advertisers exaggerate our sensual responses to eating, how close-up nature photography exaggerates the accessibility of the natural world, and how the mutated physiology of dolls invites our pity and affection.In studying its aesthetics, we find consumerism instills disappointment rather than gratification, convincing us that our lives are deficient and wanting. If we are what we buy, then we must buy in order to be.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 145 citations exist upstream.