Brainfeel

Charlotte Shane, in an article dissecting the audio memes prevalent on Tiktok:

If mouthfeel” is used to indicate the visceral experience of consuming food and drink, brainfeel” might be a decent descriptor for what makes a sound compelling beyond musical qualities or linguistic meaning — though the sensation hits within music and language, too.

Shane assigns a new term to an old mechanism—the satisfaction of spotting repetition—, but her observation is nontheless valid: That satisfaction has gained a wholly new significance in the age of endless memes, where repetition and reinterpretation drives culture.



Date
September 18, 2022