Kitsch is a style of mass-produced art or design using
cultural icons. The word is a loan word from the German word meaning
"worthless."
The term is generally reserved for unsubstantial or gaudy
works, or works that are calculated to have popular appeal.
The tastelessness of the kitsch style is produced by a verbal
or graphical pompous rhetoric presented as a special knowledge of unsubstantial
things or events. I think that an excellent illustration of kitsch Ufology is the
graphic expositions of different extraterrestrial beings. Here we see bad taste
and nonsense in action.
Different kinds of pseudo-science and new age mysticism are
composed by recycled clichés, which are some vivid depictions of abstractions
and images that rely upon analogy or exaggeration for effect.
Classic ufological kitsch are the handsome Venusians of
Adamski or the auto-proclamation of Richard Boylan as Councilor of Earth. Of
course in this definition we cannot forget the Flying Saucers hanging from a string
tied in the branches of a tree.
Of course, there are kitsch definitions and one of these is the
so called Exopolitics defined as the study of the key
individuals, political institutions and processes associated with
extraterrestrial life. Since we have no evidence about any extraterrestrial
life, Exopolitics is a kitsch pseudo-science belonging to the pompous rhetoric
of the ET=UFO fantasists.
By the way, in this short article we cannot
forget a champion of modern kitsch talk: Andy Basiago and his jumps back in
time and his adventures in Mars.
Billy Meier "extraterrestrial craft"
The hoax.
