Notes about the grotesque and the kitsch (1)

Cute goats in a campaign about diabetes.

The approach we propose to study the images and emotions in different communication strategies takes into account two extremes: the grotesque and the kitsch. We believe that by studying these two polarities of the visual and the passions associated with them, we can analyze the configuration of an economy of emotions and the sensible in the ecosystem of digital media.

We understand by visually grotesque everything that refers to a degraded materiality (deformed, diseased, decadent, dead), especially in relation to the human body or the body of other animal species.

By visually kitsch, we understand everything that appeals the audience from the codes of sentimentality and the oversaturation of the sensible (hence, its association with the cloying).

The grotesque and the kitsch share characteristics. They are based on material and symbolic exuberance or abundance (their iconic features are overloaded or exaggerated), they are "abnormal" (that is, they contradict the norm according to certain criteria of the beautiful or the good), and they can be attractive for a large number of people (precisely because of the repulsion or sentimentality they arouse in the public).

Being extraordinary (in the sense of "out of order"), the grotesque and the kitsch disrupt a certain monotony of the media landscape, and appear as "emerging data", event for a short period of time, managing to stand out in the crowded flow of images, texts, sounds and impressions circulating in the digital ecosystem.

The grotesque and the kitsch contribute to strengthening the strategic features of public communication, either in marketing, propaganda or public relations, because thanks to their affective tones they are able to attract attention, elicit a feeling, provoke reproduction (i.e. " viral effect"), trigger a conversation, and generate a moral assessment.

Both aesthetic expressions mobilize passions (sometimes in a pathetic way) that can lead to cognitive elaboration about the object, situation, person or issue associated with the grotesque or kitschy image. It is because of their shocking or sentimental nature (i.e. corny) that both aesthetic categories break with the distinction between emotion and reason, or body and mind, showing that the sensible and the cognitive form a unity.

The grotesque and the kitsch lead from the aesthetic to the ethical, superimposing the problem of taste (in the sense of sensible appreciation) with that of moral evaluation (in the normative and values spheres).

Because of its "scandalous" or excessive tones, the grotesque and the kitsch can promote extreme moral reactions (impassioned adhesions or rejections). Precisely, the disproportion of both aesthetic forms appears in contrast with the sublime or other representations which produces awe or reverential admiration before a certain measured or balanced order.