Kitsch, fandom, and the rise and fall of authenticity: an existential exploration

Abstract This essay presents a philosophical exploration of kitsch. Rather than defining it descriptively and/or normatively as cheap, unsophisticated, and deceptive art, it is approached existentially from the perspective of its experience. It is argued that kitsch is art that evokes inauthenticity. This is to say that kitsch is a modern, Western phenomenon of the age of authenticity. It presupposes the values of originality and individuality and bemoans their absence. To reconstruct the wider intellectual context of the experience of kitsch, the essay presents an overview of the nineteenth century of philosophy of authenticity. Moreover, as a case study on how kitsch is related to differing attitudes toward authenticity, the essay traces the rise and fall of authenticity through an analysis of personal experiences of popular culture and the phenomenon of fandom. It concludes with proposing that kitsch is relatively rarely experienced in contemporary China because authenticity expectations are less prevalent there than in “the West.”