“David Riesman considers it to be practically the essence of the means of mass entertainment that it raises consumers, beginning in childhood and constantly accompanying the grown-ups: ‘Today the future occupation of all moppets is to be skilled consumers.’”— Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, trans. Thomas Burger, 192. (The Riesman citation is from The Lonely Crowd, p. 81.)
Part of the reason I hesitate to actually write "Notes on Twee" is that I would like there to be more to it than a Frankfurt-style condemnation of consumer culture's infilitration into us ordinary US citizens' hearts and minds. That kind of stuff makes me cringe — it seems so 1950s. But I actually think it might be the best explanation.
