A dense academic book (accordingly, a fairly slow read) nonetheless it might be interesting for the casual reader as it focuses on three things we're culturally, irresistibly drawn to: things that are cute, things that are interesting, and things that are zany. Why these three and not, say, the most familiar aesthetic category: beauty? Because Ngai believes a focus on these three will help us understand much more generally "what hits" in our current era, the postmodern era*—cute is a "claymation"/dollhouse Airbnb commercial, interesting is an ongoing Wendy's "staffers" campaign, and zany is Flo's ever-shifting role in Progressive ads—you see these three "hooks" pop up again and again and again, and in combination, in any commercial break or, for that matter, in any social media post (YouTube video essays commonly, strenuously aim for all three at once.) Now, I'm not going to claim I've read enough books on philosophical aesthetics to confidently say exactly where Ngai is or isn't off-base with her arguments (cuteness=commodity, interestingness=information, zaniness=performance), or whether her focus on these three aesthetic categories is even justified, though I certainly have some thoughts (tying zaniness to the ever-consuming demands of capitalism on femininity kind of makes sense, but still feels somewhat shoehorned in—I don't think that explains why I enjoy watching "I Think You Should Leave.") I sure don't want to drag this out too long, so what I'll say is: there must be a reason why people in, say, advertising or social media reliably turn to these three things in order to nab our attention/affection in a crazily overstuffed field, and there must be a reason why these three things are often relied upon by ourselves to procure our own likes. And in a very extensively, very diversely sourced book that gets you to pause on and consider these seemingly disposable aesthetics—things we encounter every day that actively and powerfully and somewhat silently influence our behavior, things we barely give a second thought to—any serious examination is welcome, even if inevitably at times it feels "off," even if it's naggingly dominated by Marxist ideas. There's more than enough "on" there to encourage eyeing the world through an askance view: Ever notice that tech companies overwhelmingly embrace a cute visual style? Ever notice that whenever you're drawn to something cute, they're usually "little" and "submissive" and "weaker," which implies a power differential between you and the cute object? Ever notice that that power differential, much like with a newborn baby, inspires a kind of protectiveness, which means that the cute object is now making demands off of you? So who exactly is the powerful one here?—Ngai makes you think about stuff like that. Four stars.
*"The zany, the cute, and the interesting are not really 'minor' in the sense of being unimportant or marginal. The specific social transformations and/or aesthetic problems to which they intimately speak—the convergence of art and information; the loss of tension between art and the commodity form; the rise of an increasingly intimate public sphere and of an increasingly exchange-based private one; the proliferation and intensification of activity in both public/private domains that cannot easily be dichotomized into play or work—are ones that significantly affect the making, dissemination, and reception of all culture. These three particular categories thus help us totalize the contemporary repertoire of 'aesthetic categories'; indeed, they help us understand the meaningfulness of this very concept for doing aesthetic theory in general."