masscult
The modern industrial equivalent of culture, mass-produced and anonymously consumed, without specialization or connoisseurship.
uncountable
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.
Where it comes from
From mass + cult, coined by Dwight Macdonald in the essay Masscult and Midcult (1960).
Adapted from the Wiktionary entry masscult (CC BY-SA 4.0).