Mass-culture enjoyment is imitation of emotion rather than felt emotion

Evidence

People do not dance or listen ‘from sensuality’ and sensuality is certainly not satisfied by listening, but the gestures of the sensual are imitated. An analogue is the representation of particular emotions in the film, where there are physiognomic patterns for anxiety, longing, the erotic look; for smiling; for the atomistic expressivo of debased music. The imitative assimilation to commodity models is intertwined with folkloristic customs of imitation. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 101

Categorization

• XREF: The filmic physiognomic patterns for emotion anticipate today’s cinematic acting shorthand and TikTok affect templates — a strong test case for running Adorno’s analysis. — connects to: Mass amusement reproduces the mechanized work process in leisure — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 107; Prestige seeking replaces genuine enjoyment in cultural consumption; Pleasure historically mediated by apparatus collapses into a single technical object — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 376 (+1 more)