By 1890, balloon imagery had become ubiquitous in popular culture through postcards, prints, advertisements, and illustrations, making aerial flight a familiar visual motif even for those who never witnessed actual balloon flights. This visual saturation embedded ballooning deeply in collective imagination and visual culture.

Proliferation of balloon imagery in popular culture influenced literary references to balloons as instantly recognizable symbols requiring no explanation. The visual familiarity of balloons influenced literary treatments of cliché, convention, and the transformation of once-novel images into shorthand symbols, appearing in modernist works that deliberately invoked or subverted conventional balloon imagery.