on hyperreality (with help from an Instagram influencer)
Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Tea Malty Biscuit Brew
15 Oct 22 | Issue 37
I know why you don't read philosophy. Let's face it, it's privileged old white men spouting forth in the most hypercritical manner. (A caveat as always for Eastern thought, which concerns itself with a stilling of the mind.)
Bit harsh? Socrates and Plato. All 'what constitutes a virtuous life'. I'll tell you what, Socrates and Plato, not thinking it's perfectly alright to keep slaves is what. You give your slaves freedom, and then come back and tell me how to be virtuous.1
Diogenes Laertius notes Plato's last will and testament reveals he owned five slaves at the time of his death.
My main man Epicurus welcomes slaves as equals to his garden (not a euphemism), along with the other lesser sort, women. So he's welcome to tell me how to live my life. On that note, how many famous women philosophers can you think of? (Before Simone de Beauvoir 1946).
I might be dissing Socrates, he stayed stum on state-of-slave tweets. Aristotle however was totes pro-slavery.
“Hence whereas the master is merely the slave’s master and does not belong to the slave, the slave is not merely the slave of the master but wholly belongs to the master. These considerations therefore make clear the nature of the slave and his essential quality: one who is a human being belonging by nature not to himself but to another is by nature a slave, and a person is a human being belonging to another if being a man he is an article of property, and an article of property is an instrument for action separable from its owner.”
Politics 1254a, translated by H. Rackham
Marcus Aurelius and all that 'virtue is sufficient for happiness, while living according to nature'? Please explain that to the thousands of men you conscripted serving as legionnaires for sixteen, yes sixteen, years of compulsory service in Roman boot (sandal) camp. Pretty radical idea of nature you have there, Marcus.
Recently, Peter gifted me some Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Tea Malty Biscuit Brew for my birthday. I reached for Baudrillard.
We now live in the world of the One Eyed God, and the Many Headed Beast. Where we are allowed to criticise our deities — television and the internet — without fear of reprise from men in robes arguing about how many angels on pinheads. 2
Our culture, and by inference, our lives, are affected by the forces of media. Presented as benign while controlled by state, media baron, or money. Their propagation has mutated the philosopher to social and media commentator. These technologies are pervasive, invasive, and persuasive. We would do well to step back from the screens and apply a little Baudrillardian critique.
Jean Baudrillard wrote on hyperreality. What he has to say may be pertinent. To biscuit dipped flavoured tea.
What. The. Fuck.
Baudrillard took the ideas of Marshall "The medium is the message" McLuhan, to invoke hyperreality.3
At its simplest, hyperreality is the idea that we can no longer discern between simulations of reality and reality itself.
He said... hold on. He died in 2007. Instagram arrived in 2010. Had Jean lived another three years he could have just pointed his finger at Instagram and said "There. There is all the explanation of hyperreality you need. My work is done". Luckily he died, the reality of Insta would have probably killed him with a vitriol overdose anyway.
Meet Mandy. Mandy is an Instagram influencer. Mandy is paid by brands to include their products in photographs of her life.
The object value system. Baudrillard thought Marx was wrong. Baudrillard proclaimed we should take to the battlements (I resisted doing a Baudriments pun there) and seize the means of consumption. He believed consumption beat production in the top trumps of power and control. A handbag (product) has functional value: it carries shit. It has an Exchange value: you have to swap if for three months salary. A Symbolic value: I don't do manual labour. And Baudrillard's clincher, the Sign value. An object's value within a system of objects. How this handbag signifies class, taste, desirability, against other handbags.
Baudrillard believes through endless media representation the Sign value disrupts the Functional and Exchange values. It has the top score.
Mandy is not photographed in her own kitchen with her handbag, heavens no, she arranges a visit to a hotel lobby. With a stylist, photographer and make-up assistant. Mandy may also have a small dog.
Simulacra and Simulation. Poor Mandy, she just wants to get paid. But now she has to deal with simulacra and simulation. Do we care how much the handbag holds? No, her handbag-sign is not about being able to carry the things she needs to check into the hotel. Mandy is only there for the morning. She is simulating a person checking in. Simulacra is something that looks like the object it represents. It is not a handbag because it contains nothing (that would make ugly bulges, she might even have to give it back to the brand, or sell it on eBay to buy baked beans). It looks like a handbag. Without being a handbag.
We know that Mandy is an influencer and the handbag is most likely not hers, and she probably isn't staying at The Royal Hideaway, but it does not matter because this is her life. The distinction between real and fictional, a copy and an original have dissolved. Mandy has to lie down for a bit now.
We are now fully checked into Hyperreality. Mandy's photos lie between Auntie Joan's cat doing something really amusing, and my mate Baz gurning in the front row of a Coldplay concert. This is Mandy's life. She is in a hotel lobby, but she is not staying at the hotel. The hotel doesn't want her to check in, but they want her to be there. It is a real simulation. It is not an advert. It is Mandy's brand.
The signs connect with other signs. I can follow Mandy (on Instagram, doing so in real life is stalking and considered bad), these images of her not staying at a hotel are contained within my phone, in my hand. I am fashionable because I selected Mandy to be in my life. We don't want the handbag. We desire to be what Mandy represents, but we don't want to be Mandy, who had to go home in the afternoon to check her Ebay offers.
thegreatyorkshireshop.co.uk/products/yorkshire-tea-biscuit-brew
I thought this was bad until I saw dunked biscuit flavoured tea. My brain is now locked in a "can't resolve circular references" loop of malted hyperreal light refreshment.
I read this on www.digitalmarketing.org/blog/what-is-an-instagram-influencer, influencers "...can persuade others to buy something because of their authenticity... consumers trust influencers more than brands".
What am I meant to experience when I dunk an actual malty biscuit into my malty biscuit brew, is it real or hyperreal?
I have an unopened packet on my desk. It is my totem.
Here’s a good introduction the all things Baudrillard
Illustration by Fatima Fletcher
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References
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