low culture
Tabloids and television
Low culture refers to popular entertainment and cultural products accessible to the general public, as opposed to the elite or educated appreciation associated with high culture.
The term typically covers mass entertainment—television sitcoms, pulp fiction, pop music, tabloids, video games.
It often carries condescension, implying these forms lack artistic merit: Critics dismissed comic books as low culture.
The distinction has blurred considerably; once-dismissed genres like jazz and film noir are now studied seriously.
- sitcomsHumorous television series
- trash TVSensationalized lowbrow programming
- kitschTasteless, garish art
- memesSelf-propagating cultural units
- camp aestheticsAppreciation of exaggerated artifice
punk rock · reality TV · graffiti · comic books · fan fiction · fast food · airport novels · action movies · soap operas · urban legends · viral videos · stand-up comedy · toilet humor · tabloid journalism · click bait · game shows · pop music · theme parks
- culturessubculture, multicultural, counterculture, underground, bohemian
low culturehigh culture
Society's esteemed artistic traditions
highbrow · high art · elite culture · fine art · cultivated taste
low, lower, lowest, lowly, lowness, culture, cultures, cultural, culturally