Meanings
- uncountableThe modern industrial equivalent of culture, mass-produced and anonymously consumed, without specialization or connoisseurship.
2 more examples
In a famous 1960 essay, Macdonald identified three sorts of cultures: High Culture (think Cezanne and Eliot), which articulates an artist's idiosyncratic and often demanding vision; Masscult (Norman Rockwell and Erle Stanley Gardner), which tries “to please the crowd by any means,” and Midcult (Pearl Buck and Thornton Wilder), which disguises Masscult's reliance on formula with pretentious allusions.
1996 September 22, Michiko Kakutani, “The Trickle-Down Theory”, in The New York Times, →ISSN★ THE BAD PLUS (Tomorrow) With its fifth studio album, “Prog” (Do the Math), this trio ventures further along a distinctive and adventurous path; the bassist Reid Anderson, the pianist Ethan Iverson and the drummer David King sound as committed as ever, and their alchemy of masscult allusions and highbrow inventions still has the power to overwhelm.
2007 June 29, The New York Times, “Jazz Listings”, in New York Times
Origin
From mass + cult, coined by Dwight Macdonald in the essay Masscult and Midcult (1960).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
masscult. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/masscult
“masscult.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/masscult. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “masscult,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/masscult.
Source: masscult on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.