Prolefeed

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Prolefeed is a Newspeak term in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It was used to describe the heaps of useless literature, movies and music which were produced by Prolesec, a section of the Ministry of Truth, to keep the "proles" (i.e., proletariat) content. A quote from the novel illustrates it:

   
Prolefeed

And the Ministry had not only to supply the multifarious needs of the party, but also to repeat the whole operation at a lower level for the benefit of the proletariat. There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian literature, music, drama, and entertainment generally. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator. There was even a whole sub-section -- Pornosec, it was called in Newspeak -- engaged in producing the lowest kind of pornography, which was sent out in sealed packets and which no Party member, other than those who worked on it, was permitted to look at.

   
Prolefeed

The term prolefeed has been used in recent years by critics to describe news about famous celebrities (or the tabloids and magazines which publish them) or excessive sports coverage.

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Nineteen Eighty-Four v  d  e 
By George Orwell
Characters Winston Smith | Julia | O'Brien | Big Brother | Emmanuel Goldstein
Places Oceania | Eastasia | Eurasia | Airstrip One | Room 101
Classes Inner Party | Outer Party | Proles
Ministries Ministry of Love | Ministry of Peace | Ministry of Plenty | Ministry of Truth
Concepts Ingsoc | Newspeak | Doublethink | Goodthink | Crimestop
Two plus two | Thoughtcrime | Prolefeed | Prolesec
Miscellaneous Thought Police | Telescreen | Memory hole | The Book
Newspeak words | Two Minutes Hate | Hate week
Adaptations 1956 film | 1984 film | 1953 TV programme | 1954 TV programme
Opera
Parody Me and the Big Guy


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