Abstract
Chapter 9, David McAvoy’s “Guilty Pleasures, or Nobrow Treasures? Popular Judgment and the Affective Economy of Taste,” moves on from surfwear to the surfers of the Internet, trumpeting their lowbrow pleasures at the speed of light all over today’s digitally supercharged landscape. In the age of nobrow, if the pleasure gained from pure consumption justifies that consumption, where is the guilt in guilty pleasure? The nobrow map of our guilty pleasures includes the affective economies of snorting coke in nightclub restrooms, watching glorified karaoke competition, or posting unbelievably popular YouTube videos of unboxing purchases (way north of a billion views and counting).
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Notes
- 1.
carlsonmandude, 2006. This chapter will be quoting extensively from online sources, and quotations will preserve errors in the original writing.
- 2.
For instance, another user inaccurately defines the term with an amusingly confessional specificity: “that guilty but oddly pleasurable feeling you get when you stick your finger a little bit too far up your anus in the shower.” IIID-I, 2011.
- 3.
Robinson, 2011.
- 4.
See Chapter 3 in this collection.
- 5.
Hutcheon, 1998.
- 6.
- 7.
Collins, 2010, p. 32, italics in original.
- 8.
Klosterman, 2004.
- 9.
- 10.
Fisher, 2010.
- 11.
Alex, 2008.
- 12.
- 13.
“Guilty Pleasures,” 2007.
- 14.
Robson, 2014.
- 15.
Bourdieu, 1984.
- 16.
Levine, 1988.
- 17.
See Chapter 3 in this collection.
- 18.
Berlatsky, 2015.
- 19.
- 20.
Ebert, 2010.
- 21.
Sloterdijk as quoted in Žižek, 1989, p. 33.
- 22.
Wilson 2007, pp. 51–61.
- 23.
SirGrant 2007.
- 24.
John K. in response to Kelly, 2007.
- 25.
Newman, 2008.
- 26.
Levine, 1988.
- 27.
Herring, 2007, p. 2.
- 28.
Szalai, 2013.
- 29.
- 30.
- 31.
Jenkins, 2006, p. 4.
- 32.
Liquor.com 2011; following reference to Sachs, 2010.
- 33.
Johnny H. responding to MoneyNing, n.d.
- 34.
AOLstaff, n.d.
- 35.
AOLstaff, n.d.
- 36.
Brewer, 2007.
- 37.
Jenkins, 2006.
- 38.
Collins, 2010, p. 12.
- 39.
Just_Sayin’, 2008.
- 40.
Berlatsky, 2015.
- 41.
Berlatsky, 2015.
- 42.
- 43.
Prince, 2014.
- 44.
- 45.
Eakin, 2016.
- 46.
Timberg, 2008.
- 47.
Petersen, 2013.
- 48.
Jenkins, 2006, p. 18.
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McAvoy, D. (2017). Guilty Pleasures, or Nobrow Treasures?. In: Swirski, P., Vanhanen, T. (eds) When Highbrow Meets Lowbrow. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95168-0_9
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