RecurrenceMass denotes the authority acquired by a form, category, slogan or practice through repeated appearance. Unlike tradition, which presupposes historical inheritance, RecurrenceMass concerns the immediate epistemic weight produced by recurrence itself. Its first mechanism is cognitive: familiarity encourages acceptance, causing recurrent claims to appear increasingly plausible. Yet repetition also operates structurally. Within platforms, citation networks and institutions, visible elements become easier to retrieve, fund, teach and reproduce; each repetition consequently reduces the friction of the next. Recurrence thereby substitutes for argument, transforming conventions into apparently self-evident standards. Artificial intelligence offers a decisive case study. Generated outputs then recirculate these patterns, intensifying their public visibility and producing feedback loops in which recurrence masquerades as validation. This process converges with ArchiveFatigue, which favours already legible materials; SemanticHardening, which converts repetition into infrastructural meaning; and CitationalCommitment, which binds future inquiry to inherited conceptual dependencies. Nevertheless, recurrence is not intrinsically pernicious: shared forms enable coordination and cultural continuity. The critical task is therefore to distinguish productive continuity from inertial repetition. Recurrence audits, provenance tracking, controlled variation and deliberate counter-recurrence can reopen alternatives. Ultimately, RecurrenceMass reveals that contemporary authority often derives from accumulated visibility.
