Concept interpretation
The term culture industry was coined by the critical theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer , and was presented as critical vocabulary in the chapter “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”, of the book Dialectic of Enlightenment , wherein they proposed that popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods—films, radio programmes, magazines, etc.—that are used to manipulate mass society into passivity. Consumption of the easy pleasures of popular culture, made available by the mass communications media, renders people docile and content, no matter how difficult their economic circumstances. The inherent danger of the culture industry is the cultivation of false psychological needs that can only be met and satisfied by the products of capitalism; thus Adorno and Horkheimer perceived mass-produced culture as especially dangerous compared to the more technically and intellectually difficult high arts.
How to connect the culture industry with star power?
When a person has a certain social influence, it will inevitably produce a great cultural innovation with economic influence.In the following, I will use the Kardashian family and their own strong social influence to illustrate four common points when culture industry and star power intersect.
The name of the Kardashians
The Kardashians are a family of famous New York socialites. The Kardashian family enjoys a high reputation and status in the American sports and entertainment circles and is known as the Kennedy family of entertainment. The Kardashians’ reality TV show has strong ratings in the United States, with “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” alone averaging 3.5 million views per week. According to media statistics, the Kardashian family raked in $65 million in 2010. Us media summed up the “Kardashian effect”, saying that as long as a player finds a Kardashian girl to be his girlfriend, his team will win the championship.
Building a celebrity family
Kim Kardashian’s name has been on the Internet since she used a scandalous sex tape with the help of her mother to generate huge publicity for herself. In 2007, Kim Kardashian and nine members of her family capitalized on her popularity to create Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
Standardization of stars
Keeping Up with the Kardashians has been widely discussed in the United States since it aired, and all 10 members of the family have come out strong in their own right. Among them are famous supermodel Kendall Jenner and her youngest daughter Kylie Jenner, 25, who is on the Forbes rich list. The family not only has an industry in beauty, skin care, modeling, and even what Kim Kardashian wears is the current fashion vane. The range of the family’s involvement is so vast that the famous saying comes true: “If you haven’t heard of a Kardashian in America, then you don’t know anything about influencers.”
The Kardashian family uses its strong influence not only to change the aesthetics of young Americans at a certain moment to a certain extent, but also to develop a set of aesthetic standardization in a subtle way.Therefore, the Kardashian family’s beauty industry and clothing brand have entered the public eye strongly and successfully converted traffic into industrial income.
Personal summary
It is clear from the example of the Kardashian family that the traffic influencer wants to turn their traffic into their own business empire, in addition to the unusual family composition also needs unique business acumen. While enjoying popular aesthetics, it also abandons certain authenticity just like the culture industry, overpackaging its external appearance and abandoning social authenticity.
Kim Kardashian’s nine-member family is crazy💀 Apart from that Kardashian is a great example for culture industry as she holds so much power in the industry. As you said, even her dressing is a vane in the fashion industry. It’s overall a good article linking the topic with a vivid example, but remember to add a tag and featured image for your posts.