It was 1964. The Partisan Review published something that shouldn't have worked. A series of 58 jotted-down observations, numbered but disjointed, trying to pin down a ghost. That ghost was "Camp." When we talk about Susan Sontag Notes on Camp essay, we aren't just talking about a piece of mid-century art criticism. We’re talking about the DNA of modern irony.
Camp is hard to nail. Sontag knew this. She called it a "fugitive" sensibility. It’s that weird, shimmering space where something is so bad it’s actually good, but only if it’s being dead serious about itself. You see it in the over-the-top costumes at the Met Gala—which literally themed an entire year around this essay—and you see it in the way we use "aesthetic" on TikTok today.
What Sontag actually meant by Camp
Most people think Camp is just being "extra." It's not. Or at least, not according to Sontag. She argued that Camp is a way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon. It’s not about beauty; it’s about degree of artifice. It's the love of the exaggerated. The "off-beat."
Think about a Tiffany lamp. Or Swan Lake. To Sontag, these things represent a kind of grandiosity that tips over into something else. She famously wrote that "the hallmark of Camp is the spirit of extravagance." But here’s the kicker: it has to be innocent.
Pure Camp doesn't know it's being funny.
Take the old Batman TV show from the 60s. That’s intentional Camp, which is actually less "pure" than something like a 1950s instructional video on how to have a tea party that takes itself with life-or-death seriousness. When the creator is in on the joke, the Camp loses its edge. It becomes a gimmick. Sontag was obsessed with the "failed seriousness" of objects and people. She saw the tragedy in the attempt to be grand and the comedy in the failure.
The 58 Notes: A chaotic structure that worked
Sontag didn't write a standard essay. She wrote notes. Why? Because the subject was too slippery for a formal thesis. She needed a format that felt as fragmented as the sensibility she was describing.
She jumps from Art Nouveau to Greta Garbo to King Ludwig II of Bavaria. It’s a dizzying list. She argues that Camp is the "detached, unpolitical" sensibility of the dandy in the age of mass culture. This is where it gets controversial. Some critics, then and now, felt she stripped the "queer" out of Camp to make it palatable for the straight, intellectual elite of the 1960s.
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Honestly, she kind of did. Camp has deep roots in gay culture—it was a survival mechanism, a code, a way of mocking a world that didn't have a place for you. Sontag acknowledged the link, noting that the "aristocracy of taste" was largely populated by homosexuals, but she tried to frame Camp as a universal aesthetic tool.
Why the Met Gala brought it back
In 2019, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute dedicated its exhibition to Sontag’s essay. Suddenly, everyone was an expert. You had celebrities showing up in literal chandeliers (Katy Perry) or carrying their own prosthetic heads (Jared Leto).
But were they actually Camp?
Some were. Most were just "costume-y." Sontag would have likely argued that many of those outfits were too self-aware. If you're trying to be Camp, you might be missing the point. True Camp is The Valley of the Dolls. It’s a movie that wants to be a gritty drama about addiction but ends up being a hilarious masterpiece of melodrama because the acting is so pitched and the dialogue is so bizarrely formal.
The "So Bad It's Good" Paradox
You’ve probably sat through a movie like The Room or Showgirls. That’s the modern evolution of Sontag’s thought. We live in an era of "hate-watching," but Camp is more affectionate than that.
Sontag says: "Camp is a tender feeling."
It’s not about mocking something from a distance. It’s about enjoying the ambition of the failure. You aren't laughing at the person; you are reveling in the glorious, theatrical scale of their mistake. It’s the difference between a mean-spirited roast and a drag show. In a drag show, the artifice is the point. The exaggeration is a celebration.
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Style over Content
This is the big takeaway from the Susan Sontag Notes on Camp essay. She argued that we spend too much time looking for "meaning" in art. We want to know what the message is. Camp says: "Forget the message. Look at the feathers. Look at the sequins."
It prioritizes style over content. It’s a victory of "pure" aestheticism.
In the 60s, this was radical. High-brow critics were busy looking for moral depth in literature. Sontag came along and said that a flashy, over-the-top musical or a gaudy piece of furniture deserved the same intellectual scrutiny as a Dostoevsky novel. She broke the barrier between "high" and "low" culture.
Is Camp dead in the age of irony?
It’s a valid question. We are so ironic now. We post things with six layers of sarcasm. Can "innocent" Camp even exist when everyone is constantly performing for a camera?
Probably not in the way Sontag saw it.
Today, we have "Post-Camp." It’s a world where we know we’re being ridiculous, and we lean into it. Think of the "Barbie" movie. It’s incredibly stylish, heavily artificial, and intentionally exaggerated. But it’s also deeply aware of its own themes. It doesn't have the "failed seriousness" Sontag looked for.
However, you can still find it in the wild. You find it in local news broadcasts where the anchors take small-town drama way too seriously. You find it in the architecture of Las Vegas. You find it in the sheer, unbridled earnestness of certain subcultures on the internet that haven't yet realized they are being watched.
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Reading Sontag today: What you need to know
If you’re picking up the essay for the first time, don't expect a smooth ride. It’s dense. It’s pretentious in parts. Sontag was, after all, a New York intellectual. But it’s also incredibly fun.
- Note 1: Everything in the world has a name, but some things don't. That's why we need Camp.
- Note 25: The hallmark of Camp is the spirit of extravagance.
- Note 41: The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious.
She wasn't trying to write a dictionary definition. She was trying to capture a vibe. And she succeeded so well that sixty years later, we are still using her vocabulary to describe why we love things that are "too much."
Moving forward with a Camp lens
To really understand the Susan Sontag Notes on Camp essay, you have to stop trying to define it perfectly and start feeling it. It’s an exercise in taste.
If you want to apply this to your own life or your own consumption of media, try these steps:
Look for the earnest failure. Find a piece of media—a movie, a book, an outfit—that tried so hard to be serious and ended up being something else entirely. Don't mock it. Appreciate the effort.
Distinguish between kitsch and camp. Kitsch is just tacky. It's cheap and mass-produced. Camp has an edge. It has a grandiosity to it. A plastic lawn flamingo is kitsch. A woman wearing a dress made of live goldfish to a funeral is Camp.
Embrace the artifice. Stop looking for the "authentic" all the time. Sometimes the mask is more interesting than the face. Sontag teaches us that the surface level isn't shallow; it's where the most interesting things happen.
Read the full 58 notes. You can find them in her collection Against Interpretation. It’s a short read, but it will change the way you look at your Netflix queue.
By understanding Sontag, you understand why we are obsessed with the "aesthetic." You see the strings behind the performance. And more importantly, you learn to love the performance itself, feathers and all.