Mass culture flatters readers with power they lack while commanding conformity to external rules

Evidence

The image of social conformity is promoted by the column’s implicit and ubiquitous rule that one must adjust oneself to the commands of the stars at given times. The column appeals to the narcissism of the reader by portraying her as someone in an unspecified position of power at work, who generally is able to alter circumstances through her activity. Adorno hazards that the column creates the image of its addressee as a ‘vice-president’, while in fact addressing an average lower-middle-class reader. Operating a ‘bi-phasic’ approach, the column carefully separates pleasure from work, making pleasure a reward for work, and prevents itself from falling into overt contradiction in offering conflicting advice by spacing the advice as appropriate at differing times. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 36

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘vice-president’ flattery tactic maps onto modern feed algorithms that reassure users of their agency; connects to the reader’s broad interest in administered culture. — connects to: Fiction remains the only medium for values the administered society suppresses — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 861