“Behind the glitter of spectacular distractions, a tendency toward banalization dominates modern society the world over, even where the more advanced forms of commodity consumption have seemingly multiplied the variety of roles and objects to choose from.”
—Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, 1967banality • noun • somthing that is trite or obvious; common in a boring way, to the point of being predictable ie. devoid of freshness, originality
Originated in the 1800s from the Old French banal, ‘pertaining to compulsory feudal service, used in common by people of the lower classes’. Adjusted through more modern French from ‘open to everyone’ to ‘commonplace, ordinary’ to ‘trite, petty’.
