Simulacra and Simulation with a dash of hyper-reality.

I’m 18 and on acid again, walking down the middle of a highway in the morning sun. I’m thinking about very cliché things. In the meantime my partner, at the time, is 5 minutes down the line and across the road talking to a tree. Unfortunately the essence of hyper-reality is a bit more rigid than that, I just wanted you to click – and now that you’re here…

Hyper-reality is the theory whereby some believe that our brains and senses are like tools and like tools they can be manipulated, controlled, directed and moulded to serve any purpose one can imagine. At present information passes through an increasingly consolidated number of media conglomerates deciding how and what you see and hear. With close ties to corporatism, consumerism, and industry they play a major role in maintaining ‘the West’s’ unjust economic and political power structure. No matter what is reported, debated, entertained or advertised – media drives the issues to our general conscience creating consumerist desires and favourable values…manipulating what you hear – see or don’t see and directing what you think.

Facebook has become the alter ego for over 500 million members worldwide across the Internet which hosts over 80% of the people in the UK. As our human entities have ‘physical value’ our Facebook profile has our virtual data. Data such as what football club you support, what your favourite TV show is, and for some – what their favourite Lana Del Ray song is. “You so fresh to death & sick as ca-cancer” what? Anyway, both Facebook and our ‘real value’ crisscross over and over between people nearly every day with joyous news feed events like ‘I saw you liked his status’ or ‘Ugh Facebook changed again, I HATE IT’. In the reality – this has no value other than that of conversation; it can’t be measured or bought. This blurs the image of reality as unfounded words become reality. Facebook uses this discourse to allow advertisers to capitalise on your status updates and likes. This allows the consumerist desires of one person to be read by another, usually friends, creating a new wave of consumerism found and driven exclusively through word of mouth and forums. Has this manipulated our consciousness into having more consumerist desires? I guess that depends on how you use Facebook, if like me, you’re a cyberslut that is constantly browsing the web for information on anything then maybe. The Facebook feed is the virtual coffee shop made easy. For example; you like cameras and you didn’t even consider buying a new camera until you saw that your friend has bought a Canon SLR, which they describe as ‘AMAZING’. You have the option to click Canon and follow to the Facebook page

, or Google search it… You Google, then Wiki then E-bay. You have the money for it – great! So you buy it. Now you have a new camera which in 2 years will be outdated as they launch the new specs of the same model. Apple is an even better example. Companies spend millions each year to drive themselves into our general consensus trying to make us believe that the product they have is better than the product you have.

The concept of hyper-reality based on a simulation world is Baudrillard’s view that the world as we see it in technologically advanced States such as ours is merely a fake representation of the original reality it was founded upon to a point where that reality has been replaced. The theoretical Katie Price to Jordan scenario if you will. His assertion is that this replacement becomes the new reality in which we live in and has just as much truth as the one before it, potentially inducing a spiral whereby the original reality (despite the identification of that itself being somewhat subjective) is so far diluted that it loses all value and recognition. This new reality seems to have begun with the end of the Cold War and the birth of consumerism. It is the explanation of the old man fable of why ‘the world speeded up’ and is a cultural explanation to the cause and effect of the dominance of the neo-liberal ideology.
There are other more obvious examples of the hyper-real in our society such as McDonalds existing as a huge corporation able to standardise the look and taste of a cheeseburger in places as far apart as Qatar and London – and propagate the notion that food is available in endless amounts, which is, of course not the case. France for romance. ‘Photoshopped’ and otherwise ‘re-touched’ pictures of people in magazines making them look more beautiful than they are, leading us to believe that with a little tinkering we can look like that – which again (sorry folks) is not the case. The example of reality TV is an interesting one as any chance of it being at all real is completely undermined first by the construction of the scenario and secondly by extensive and selective editing process utilised by the show’s producers to gear us into viewing stereotypes and false beliefs about these people depicted on the screen when in fact a healthy amount of people will happily sit around reading a book peacefully.
I find the media a very interesting machine to assess in terms of manufactured reality and the ‘good and evil’ dichotomy that underpins the narrative of a significant portion of publicly accessible media is one that looks to manipulate our emotions whilst sustaining their profits and the West’s intentions through categorising things as good or bad. Aljazeera’s (bad) main news on the website today is that Iran is advancing on nuclear enrichment. And the BBC’s (good) stance on Iran at the moment is that ‘Iranians still celebrate Valentine’s Day despite ban.’ Both negative aspects of Iran with different connotations. Firstly, Aljazeera’s article is a political broadcast informing the dangers of nuclear energy in a dangerous State. It is dangerous for Iran to have nuclear energy because of the tensions both within the Middle East and Internationally. To have nuclear weapons in an overtly anti-western state is basically inviting that ADD friend over to show him how tall you’ve built your card pyramid. The BBC is conversely gearing us to be ready to justify an intervention into Iran to free its people from a very different political system. I’m not saying the BBC doesn’t report on the nuclear facilities, I’m just suggesting that Valentine’s Day being banned in Iran is probably not the chief concern in the area at present and the reporting of such merely serves a rather transparent desire to make the Iranian government look like bastards. Aljazeera is not overtly pro-Iran and the BBC claim to be politically independent, the issue is more that Iran is now in our general consensus. We read more and more about how the USA and UK fucked Iran over leading to this anti-Western sentiment we just can’t stop thinking about the poor mother who didn’t receive a Valentine’s card. Slowly but surely the media shapes our minds as Government policy continues to punish Iran so that if we were to go to war, it would be justified for the greater good. And maybe it will, but we don’t live there – I’m sure they consider our overt display of aggression against Muslims somewhat negatively e.g. France banning the burka or that Nick Griffin has a seat on the European Parliament. We are reading about how the politics of Iran is becoming more evil and that the people need liberated. All it potentially takes is a few statements from Iranians saying they need saved, a few years to stir up hatred or uncertainty for Iran and we can walk right in ignoring the fact that America is bombing Pakistan illegally, that Afghanistan will probably turn back into an anti-Western state when we leave and that China and Russia are political allies of Iran. The media does it to protect our interests and to bring the opposition number down. War makes money, brings down unemployment and spreads the pro-western ideology and if it can spin it in a way that sugar-coats all that, then we have ourselves a war against terror.
This reality of Iran has been replaced by the projection of its nuclear politics and ban on Valentine’s Day. Manipulating millions of people’s general consensus into believing that the Iranian government are tyrants and that the sad people within Iran need liberation from them when ten years ago it was a similar story about Iraq which turned to be completely sour. Sadly I am one of these pessimistic people when it comes to nuclear armament. Believing that the real reason we don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons is not because of the emotional hardship people will go through if we were bombed, more that the global markets will be in turmoil and all that we have built will be destroyed in an instant.

I read somewhere that the only way to attack our hyper-real world is through terrorism. The erratic nature of bombing places is like a virus that slowly eats away at the Western world, but then I began to wonder. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a movie about a family who went through 9/11. The romanticised movie tells the tale of a son who lost his father in 9/11 and traces clues that he left around the city that he follows because he feels that if he doesn’t his father’s legacy will be in vain. The story is completely false; creating a fake representation of the real hardship people went through to make profit and to prop up the belief that one boy’s hardship in the West is worth more than the hardship of those that have lost their families to wars based on macro-economics and the status quo. It is hyper-real because it is distracting from the truths of its reasoning, cause and effect of 9/11 with a sad story that has an easily understandable beginning middle and end.

So the world of the hyper-real simulacra and simulation stretches from the advertising on Facebook to the tragic event of 9/11. Since the birth of consumerism in the western world and the huge technological developments that have taken place since I guess the only real worthy questions worth asking ourselves is – does the way in which we live our lives need protecting or changed?