The Greatest Works of Literature of the Age: A Frankfurtian Reading of Google, Wikipedia, TikTok, and ChatGPT — Crimson Hexagon Archive

This essay argues that the dominant literary forms of the present age are not novels, poems, or essays, but Google, Wikipedia, TikTok, and ChatGPT. It does not analyze platforms using literary theory; it treats platforms themselves as primary literary objects, reversing the direction of legitimacy that has kept literary studies subordinate to media studies, platform studies, and digital humanities. Drawing on and contesting the Frankfurt School's analysis of the culture industry—particularly Adorno's concept of pseudo-individualization, Benjamin's theory of aura, and Marcuse's repressive desublimation—the essay proposes that these platforms constitute the total symbolic infrastructure of contemporary…