Emotional Authenticity or Manufactured Feeling? Tate McRae Through the Frankfurt School

Last week, Tate McRae was viewed through a traditional Marxist lens as a commodified product of the capitalist music industry. With this in mind, the Frankfurt School, especially Adorno and Horkheimer, offers a way to understand how pop culture operates under late capitalism. Rather than economic exploitation, the Frankfurt School looks at mass culture and how it influences consciousness, conformity, and desire. This way, Tate McRae becomes a valuable example for analyzing contemporary popular music.

The Frankfurt School said that mass culture doesn't free people but creates social conformity. Some critics point out that mass culture doesn't free people but creates social conformity. Emotional vulnerability and relatability are often seen as positive traits in McRae’s critics. This, however, is speculated as being a byproduct of the culture industry. Heartbreak, self-doubt, emotional confusion, and insecurities are McRae's themes and are dominant in the majority of today's pop music. McRae's songs often feel personal but are relatable and leave room for mass consumption. It is a perfect example of the culture industry and the demand for mass offerings of a homogeneous product in which the sole difference lies within the self-imposed borders.

Predictability is another defining feature of the culture industry that applies directly to McRae’s work. Many of her songs follow recognizable structures and emotional arcs that listeners can anticipate early on. As Adorno argued, popular music offers pleasure through familiarity rather than challenge. This predictability allows listeners to engage passively rather than critically, reinforcing the idea that mass culture limits imagination and reflection.

Predictability is another feature of the culture industry that relates directly to McRae’s work. Many of her songs share the same structure and emotional highs and lows that listeners can easily recognize. As Adorno stated, popular music gives listeners pleasure by being familiar rather than by being problematic. Because of this, listeners engage as passively as possible, which goes to show that mass culture is largely about limiting the audience's ability to think, reflect, and engage.

In terms of capitalism, the Frankfurt School pointed out that leisure, under capitalism, is just an extension of work. One example is listening to pop music. Pop music capitalizes on the same feelings of anxiety, exhaustion, and resignation. Rather than encouraging political awareness or resistance, pop music 'comforts' the audience, making the system of capitalism easier to endure.

Tate McRae shows us that even vulnerability and self-expression are absorbed by the culture industry. Her music feels personal and is created in a system of standardization and conformity. McRae is not the problem in the system, but a reflection of how pop culture functions today

Discussion question

In an era of streaming algorithms and social media promotion, do audiences actually choose what becomes popular, or are those choices shaped in advance by the culture industry?

Justin Bieber and the Business of Feeling

The video that stood out to me most this week was the video of Justin Bieber fans crying, shaking, and screaming as soon as they see him. On its surface, this video is pure emotion run wild. It’s evidence that popular culture really can hit people where it hurts. However, when thinking about Justin Bieber through this lens of this week’s readings, he becomes less of a singer and more of a shining example of how popular culture is manufactured, distributed, and felt within the parameters of what Adorno and Horkheimer term the “culture industry.” 

Justin Bieber was not randomly discovered singing on the street. He was discovered on YouTube, branded quickly, and has been proliferated ever since through countless media formats. This type of carefully orchestrated manufacturing and mass dissemination of celebrities is exactly what the culture industry is designed to do. Adorno and Horkheimer claim that popular culture is standardized to turn a profit, and few people are more standardized than Justin Bieber. From his song’s cookie-cutter pop sounds to his managed image and “ordinary kid” personality, everything about him is designed for mass consumption. The millions of fans crying when they see him are not just responding to sheer “talent”: they are responding to a constructed product in a manner that the culture industry has conditioned them to react. 

Walter Benjamin’s concept of mechanical reproduction plays a key role in why Bieber can be seen as both inaccessible and yet so intimate. From hearing his songs on the radio to seeing his face on fans’ phones screens, Bieber’s image is constantly being replicated. This kind of replication, Benjamin argues, removes an object’s aura, but it also allows fans to feel close to their stars. They don’t just listen to Bieber’s music; they are surrounded by him. This immersion creates an intimate feeling that makes the viewer’s reaction in the video above feel authentic, despite how many other people are feeling the same thing. 

Though we cannot deny that Bieber is a product of cultural manipulation, I think it would be cynical to stop the analysis there. John Fiske’s notion of popular discrimination reminds us that audiences are not passive when it comes to popular culture; they use it. Fans of Bieber build fan communities, make edits, defend him online, go to his concerts together, and base their social identities on their relationship to him. In short, fans aren’t just consuming Bieber’s image and music, they are interacting with it.

Justin Bieber becomes a tool that fans can utilize to express themselves and their emotions. The reason why Bieber is the perfect example of this concept is because of this push and pull. To one degree, he is the product of cultural standardization and pushed back into our faces. But to another, he feels very personal. His fans crying may very well be helping to uphold a multi-billion dollar industry, but they are also genuine tears of joy and connection. Justin Bieber is the epitome of how popular culture functions at the convergence of top-down power and human emotion. 

Question for discussion: Is crying over Justin Bieber an authentic emotion or a performance of what we’ve been told to feel? How do we distinguish between feeling and consuming feelings?

Euphoria: Mass Manipulation or Youth Resistance?

 

Euphoria: Mass Manipulation or Youth Resistance?

One of the most talked-about TV series of the last 10 years is HBO's Euphoria, which has received plaudits for its honest Portrayal of identity, puberty, and mental health, before it can be viewed as a place of audience resistance as well as a result of mass media control through the perspectives of the Frankfurt School and Birmingham School. 

 From the standpoint of the Frankfurt School, before you share as many traits as Adorno and Horkheimer referred to as “cultural industry,” trauma, addiction, and Rebellion are packaged into visually stunning, easily binge-worthy episodes of this show.  Although you are portrayed as edgy and can be provocative, some contend that it's actually a way to turn the pain of young people into a commodity for their amusement.

 Instead of inspiring systematic criticism, the show stylizes, Aestheticizes, and soundtrack-drives scenarios and shock value, risking transforming critical social issues into commercially viable content.  In this way, by turning suffering and disobedience into a spectacle, Euphoria can be viewed as supporting capitalist reasoning.

 The cultural studies approach in the Birmingham School, however, presents a more optimistic View.  Although Euphoria may convey dominant meanings about adolescent culture, audiences are not passive recipients, according to Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding approach.  through fan modifications, social media debates, and critical commentary, viewers actively interpret, contest, and even try to recast the show's messages. 

Euphoria is frequently used by Young viewers as a springboard for their discussions on topics such as relationships, addiction, gender identity,y and the stigma associated with mental illness.  The Birmingham schools' view that audiences have agency and can oppose prevailing ideologies is reflected in these negotiated and oppositional readings.

 Furthermore, instead of mindless applauding, the depictions of Euphoria have sparked internet communities that criticize them. Fans frequently argue over whether the program glorifies drug use or highlights its adverse effects. This illustrates how meaning is debated rather than fixed. Social media platforms such as Twitter and TikTok serve as spaces for viewers to reframe scenes, highlight problematic aspects, and even connect the show's themes to their own real-life experiences.

 In the end, Euphoria is a conflict between the two theoretical stances. It is unquestionably influenced by commercial media systems, consistent with the mass culture concerns of the Frankfort School. Simultaneously,y the impact of the presentation is influenced by engaged viewers who reinterpret its meaning in ways that contradict, Broad, or oppose its intended themes for the audience. The contradictions demonstrate how pop culture can be used as ianinstrument of control as well as a catalyst for discussion and change.

The Great Escape of Culture

 

The Great Escape

Of Culture

            Emerging from a period when popular culture increasingly reflected collective anxieties about power and resistance, the 1963 film The Great Escape dramatizes a mass escape by Allied prisoners of war from Stalag Luft III, a German POW camp designed to be escape-proof. Rather than celebrating individual heroism, the film emphasizes collective resistance—highlighting ingenuity, cooperation, and shared sacrifice under oppression. In this way, The Great Escape operates as a metaphor for much of what we have explored this semester, particularly the ways systems of control are challenged through solidarity and communication. Coincidentally, the film’s themes align closely with this week’s readings, making its relevance feel both timely and instructive.

            The Great Escape can be understood as more than a war film; it offers a compelling way to connect key ideas from the Frankfurt School, particularly those surrounding power, resistance, and life under oppressive systems. The film focused on themes, not just plot visions into critical theory, power, and resistance.

          Read through the lens of the Frankfurt School, especially Theodor Adorno, The Great Escape reveals the tension between false freedom and real liberation. The prisoners’ humor and ingenuity offer moments of relief. Still, those moments exist inside a system designed to control them, echoing Adorno’s concern that freedom under oppression is often only symbolic. Even so, their refusal to mentally surrender shows that dignity and meaning can survive, even when escape does not.

                Max Horkheimer warned that instrumental reason- logic focused only on efficiency and control- turns humans into objects. The POW camp is the perfect example of bureaucratic rationality.

            Walter Benjamin argued that history should be read through the lens of the defeated, not the victors. There is a haunting moment in the film with the execution of 50 escapees, signaling that resistance is costly, progress is not guaranteed.

Emphasizing collective action over individual heroism, The Great Escape shows how solidarity, communication, and shared sacrifice can quietly push back against systems of control. Viewed through the lens of the Frankfurt School—especially Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Walter Benjamin—the film made me think differently about what freedom really looks like when it’s constrained. As a piece of popular culture, it has endured because it taps into something we still recognize: the desire to resist being reduced to a number or a role. Is freedom found in escape itself, or in the refusal to surrender one’s humanity? When does efficiency turn into dehumanization? And is resistance still meaningful when the cost is so high? Ultimately, The Great Escape suggests that even when physical freedom is denied, dignity and moral resistance can still endure.

Quiet Luxury: When Wealth Speaks Softly but Still Wants to Be Heard

Every time I scroll through TikTok or Instagram short videos, I notice a change in how luxury is communicated. Obvious designer brand logos, flashy prints, and loud brand names have been noticeably replaced by aesthetic neutral interiors and clean silhouettes, and what it's called "old money" aesthetic. 

 

      

    When this trend started, it sounded like that it's against materialism. However, after seeing more of what it is about you notice that quiet luxury or what it's called "Old Money" is also signaling wealth, but more subtle form of it. 

    Old Money works as a form of symbolic communication. Rather than showing wealth through recognizable logos and obvious designer brand names, it relies on signals that only specific audiences can notice. Knowing which "simple" coat costs thousands of dollars or which neutral handbags signals requires insider knowledge. In this way, old money communicates status at the same time maintains the appearance of effortlessness. 

   Social media made this process clear. Influencers usually show quiet luxury through "Outfit of the day" videos and "day in my life" short reels, or regular home tour posts. These posts present wealth as natural, tasteful and simple rather than excessive. From a communication perspective, this is an example of media framing: luxury is reframed from something loud into something refined and morally superior. The idea implies that real wealth does not need to prove itself, yet it still relies on a specific audience to recognize it.

  Quiet luxury treats boundaries. because the logos and the signs are less obvious, they can exclude those who lack the cultural knowledge to interpret them. This makes this "Old Money" trend both aspirational and alienating. We as viewers may feel forced to adopt the aesthetic, even if it's too expensive for us, reinforcing class distinctions while disguising them as "good taste" or "minimalism". 

    Overall, quiet luxury proves that consumption is not only about objects, it is about communication. Even when wealth looks silent, it is still speaking through carefully curated images and platforms designed for visibility.

What Does The Art You Like Say About You?

    Does the art you enjoy automatically classify you into a category? For example, if you enjoyed Mozart over Taylor Swift, does that make you pretentious? 

     John Fisk wrote, "The challenge of highbrow texts, then, is always offered primarily within the realm of the aesthetic and any social dimension never crosses class barriers and thus never challenges the economic base of society, nor its differential distribution of power." What does Fiske mean? Let dissect what Fiske is saying. Earlier in his essay, he says, "The popular text must align itself with the tastes and concerns of its readers, not its author, if the readers are to choose it from the wide repertoire of other texts available: it must offer inviting access to the pleasures and meanings it may provoke." That is to say that the lower class values something that is practical. Works of art that are purely aesthetic, for social purposes, do not appeal to the lower classes. For instance, quoting Shakespeare is of no value to the lower class unless it can appeal to them practically. So what does Fiske believe the lower class values? Fiske suggests the "proletarian tastes are for artworks that are functional...family histories or help one make sense or....subordination in society." The lower classes want functionality. 

    But why does the lower class want functionality? Why can they not enjoy the high-brow art? Fiske argues, "The ‘difficulty’ of highbrow texts functions less to ensure or measure the ‘quality’ of the text itself and more as a social turnstyle: it works to exclude those who have not the cultural competence." In other words, Fiske is saying that the purpose of highbrow text is to keep the lower class out. For one to enjoy Shakespeare, one is required to be within a system that is conducive to understanding Shakespeare. That system is not built on functionality, but is self-contained. A person does not need to know Shakespeare in order to survive; therefore, it is a luxury that exhibits itself in class divide. Again, Fiske argues that lower-class art "should be functional and thus should be of use in meeting the challenges of which their daily lives are comprised." In short, Fiske believes the lower class does not, or cannot, find enjoyment in certain types of art. 

    What if one were to guide the lower class in understanding highbrow text? Fiske argues against Leavis, who believed that a person could be refined by higher art. Fiske argues, "individuals who were most likely to develop these fine sensibilities were already members of the dominant class." Simply put, those who are refined by high art, through understanding the art, are already in a dominant class. 

    Fiske ends his essay by stating that, "It is the social use of the text rather than their essential qualities that determines their 'brow' level." In other words, how the art is used within social circles is more important in determining the "brow level" than the qualities of the art. One can quote Shakespeare in lower circles, but only if it meets the functional needs of the people. 

So, does the art you enjoy make you pretentious?