Emergence of Hyperreality

The researcher will lay down the foundation for understanding hyperreality in this chapter.

Moreover, a brief background of Jean Baudrillard will also be presented to help readers better

grasp his concept of hyperreality. Hence, the Order of Simulacra would be imperative to arrive at

the discussion of hyperreality. Upon delving into hyperreality, mechanisms that make the latter

possible would also be considered here. Overall, this chapter offers a firm ground to establish a

more profound understanding of hyperreality that steers toward a glimpse of the consumer

culture’s totality in the advanced industrial society.

1. The Foundations of Hyperreality

a. Jean Baudrillard: A Short Biography

Jean Baudrillard, born in Reims in 1929, is a French postmodern thinker, cultural theorist,

sociologist, and photographer. He was influenced by Karl Marx but ended up strongly rejecting

him in his book The Mirror of Production (1973). For this reason, he wrote a book, Symbolic

Exchange and Death (1976), that analyses the processes within the capitalistic society. He

proposes that to understand modern capitalism, the focal point must be from the code that

appears to be the structural law of value.1 Moreover, Baudrillard criticizes Marx for leaving out

an untouched avenue of value, the sign value. The latter has been the new standard of the

consumer society that perpetuates and contributes to the bifurcation of identity. Overall,

Baudrillard’s interests centered on advancing critical theory through his radical claims on reality.
1
Jean Baudrillard puts it as a “code”. Nevertheless, he never intensively wrote a concrete definition of such
code. He implies such a system of signs and symbols that shapes the way we see and understand the world. More
will be discussed in the following chapters.
He attests that capitalism has reproduced so many goods that even meaning is no longer a

concern.

b. Order of Simulacra

In understanding hyperreality, it is imperative first to consider the Order of Simulacra. 2

Jean Baudrillard recognized the contemporary problem of reality and representation. In this

Order of Simulacra, he demonstrated the pervasive factors of the orders and traced how the

proliferation of signs commenced. There are four phases of the image. Three are part of the

Order of Simulacra (from the third to the fourth phases).

Different stages of simulacra represent, if not challenge, reality. The image's first phase

represents an actual thing—a picture taken during a basketball game. If the picture is accurate as

that moment is, the closer it is to the real. Moreover, before the Renaissance began, paintings or

drawings had already been made to represent reality. While it compartmentalizes the real, this

first phase aims to represent it directly.

Baudrillard traces the first Order of Simulacra, the counterfeit, marking its birth from the

Renaissance and was the dominant mode of representation until the outset of the Industrial

Revolution. During the Renaissance, a direct model was prevalent. 3 However, there has come a

point where representations have become more constructed and mediated. This is because

competitive democracy follows the internal reproduction of signs inherent in orders based on

2
Simulacra means an image, sign, or symbol that represents reality. The Order of Simulacra expresses the
stages to which it presents an immersive or fascinating quality of representation. Of which hyperreality is a critical
point of discussion.
3
This first order, the second phase, is where the reality challenge subtly intensifies. The copy of the real has
become more perfect and idealized. It can be argued that it is geared away from the conditions of reality. For
instance, when one uses her smartphone to take a photo of herself today, it produces an idealized copy of her. After
she uses a photo filter, the result is a more idealized and maybe more appealing image of her.
status.4 This suggests that obligatory signs, having fixed meanings like a knight’s armor and the

king’s crown, shifted to emancipated signs in a more unrestricted, allowing more classes to

engage in sign creation.5 As a result, the proliferation of signs and the evident counterfeiting

became dominant. This proliferation permitted the beginning of the Industrial Revolution’s shift

to mass production.

The second Order of Simulacra prevailed during the Industrial Revolution primarily

because there were no more hierarchical restrictions with signs. 6 For this reason, idealized copies

cannot be distinguished as counterfeits but as products. 7 With mass production, copies are just

products with no inherent meaning — no question of the original. Products are no longer

identified with men but with the machines that produce them. It has lost any sense of equivalence

of an original; it is all a question of production. Baudrillard, commending Walter Benjamin and

McLuhan for their much clearer perspective, argues that “they saw that the real message, the real

ultimatum, lay in reproduction itself. The production has no meaning: its social finality is lost in

the series. Simulacra prevail over history.” 8 With no restrictions whatsoever, it only triggered a

free enterprise of competition. This suggests that there is an inevitable proliferation of signs. The

latter has yet to evolve, paving the way to transition to simulation and third-order simulacra.

4
Jean Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, trans. Iain Hamilton Grant (London: SAGE, 1993), 51.
Hereafter, this will be cited: Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death.
5
Baudrillard observed that signs were first hierarchical. It paves the way for a stricter appropriation of
meaning, unlike the emancipated sign, which, as its name suggests, is democratic, leading to a varying meaning.
6
The second order, the third phase, masks the absence of basic reality. When a thing is reproduced,
products are not counterfeit but just subtly indistinguishable from the original. It is problematic that the copy cannot
be distinguished (note that the attempt no longer matters in production). Take the painting Mona Lisa as an example.
If another painter painted it so perfectly, from the minute details to the complicated ones, side by side with the
original, the original somehow is confused with its “equivalent.”
7
Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, 55.
8
Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, 56.
 Jean Baudrillard asserts that we are in the third Order of Simulacra, “which is the order

no longer of the real, but of the hyperreal. It is only here that theories and practices, themselves

floating and indeterminate, can reach the real and beat it to death.” 9 The predominant

hyperrealism pervades the mundanity of life, including social, political, cultural, economic, and

aesthetic dimensions. Its effectiveness is rooted in meticulously reproducing the real, inducing

simulation, thereby crossing out all traditional perspectives. 10 As such, it aims to perpetuate itself

within the system through the code embedded in everything, like DNA.11

c. Hyperreality: The Collapse of Meaning and Reality

The grand narratives instituted by science, the advancement of technology, cultures,

conflicts, and traditions shaped our history. Beyond any doubt, these factors constantly shape our

reality. But with these grand narratives, it seems that reality is dependent on these powers that be.

These challenge the authenticity of the truth we know of. Operating with a subtle, effective, and

deceptive manifestation, these narratives are often enjoyed rather than scrutinized. Amidst the

convergence of these factors, a singular concern arises — the quest to understand what is real.12

9
Jean Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, 24.
10
The social interactions now are simulated in online platforms, creating a simulated version of oneself.
The political dimension covers vested interests instead of the well-being of the people. The election results, for
instance, are determined by popularity, not by genuine service. Economic concerns drive the consumer culture
where false needs are consumed for the sake of its sign-value. In art, songs are more about the beat and profit and
not about meaning.
11
Jean Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, 94.
12
Baudrillard defined the real as that of which it is possible to provide an equivalent reproduction. The
point here is to question the reality the individual is exposed to.
 In this pursuit, Jean Baudrillard observes that society is bombarded with signs, images,

symbols, and information, asserting that “the world betrays itself by appearances.” 13 These

appearances, or simulacra, become the powers that shape reality, creating a model and its

reference.14 Baudrillard does not outright deny reality; he questions the reality we are exposed to.

This leads him to conclude that there is a proliferation of information to which the question of

meaning, of imaginary, of real, cannot be asserted. 15 This results in the prevailing concept of

hyperreality within simulation.

Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept.
Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the
generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal.16

In other words, hyperreality is the inability of the consciousness to recognize the real

from the artifice. This gimmick, the simulacrum, being a copy of a copy, is the new real. In this

same light, maps, which serve as a guide to know the territory, now become the determinant to

confirm the territory. Without the map, there is no territory. Hence, simulacrum now reigns

supreme.

So much multiplication of this simulacrum creates a simulation. When everything is

simulated, we lose the ability to recognize the real. Baudrillard provides an example of a

hyperreal event. For instance:

13
Jean Baudrillard, The Perfect Crime, trans. Chris Turner (London: Verso, 1996), 1. Hereafter, this will be
cited: Baudrillard, The Perfect Crime.
14
Jean Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulations,” in Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, ed. by Mark
Poster (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988). 170. Hereafter, this will be cited: Baudrillard, Jean Baudrillard:
Selected Writings.
15
Baudrillard, Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, 171.
16
Baudrillard, Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, 167.
 But the difficulty is proportional to the danger. How to feign a violation and put it
to the test? Simulate a robbery in a large store: how to persuade security that it is a
simulated robbery? There is no "objective" difference: the gestures, the signs are
the same as for a real robbery, the signs do not lean to one side or another. To the
established order they are always of the order of the real.17

In distinguishing representation from sign, Baudrillard argues that it “starts from the

principle that the sign and the real are equivalent.” 18 The sign, however, as “the reversion and
19
death sentence of every reference,” becomes a simulacrum when a thing is reduced to a sign.

For instance, a religious sign or image may refer to a particular reference. But in the process of

being referenced, the focus remains on the sign instead. The sign does not merely

compartmentalize the reference but exchanges itself as the real. Therefore, a thing is simulated

when reduced to a sign — a would have been a medium for truth.

The medium severs the relationship between the referent and reality. 20 The medium is

critical for determining reality. As such, as reality is represented by a referent (simulacrum),

reality already loses its meaning. As a result, the medium, now the simulacrum, clearly blocks

the attempt to recognize the real. Identifying the real is impossible simply because there is no

more faithful representation of the real. It must be noted, however, that when something is

represented, parts of the real or the whole reference itself cannot be represented. Without a clear

representation of the real, meaning is jeopardized. Thus, without a precise meaning, the

simulation advances hyperreality.

17
Baudrillard, Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, 178.
18
Baudrillard, Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, 170.
19
Baudrillard, Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, 170.
20
Marshall McLuhan is germane here. He reasoned that “the medium is the message.” The message's
authenticity (simulacrum) is not demonstrated from the hyperreality standpoint. The message (simulacrum) becomes
the medium to know the reality (the reference). Consequently, the message remains questionable with the
interruption and deception. Therefore, it paralyzes the chance to determine the real.
 In the advanced industrial society, the question shifts from illusion to hyperreality.

Baudrillard, in the impossibility of illusion, argues,

[I]t is always a question of proving the real by the imaginary… Every form of
power, every situation speaks of itself by denial, in order to attempt to escape, by
simulation of death, its real agony… the proof of theater through antitheater; the
proof of art through antiart; the proof of pedagogy through antipedagogy; the
proof of psychiatry through antipsychiatry, et Illusion is no longer possible
because the real is no longer possible.21

A boundary between illusion and the real must be existent. If there is a represented reality, the

illusion would be possible since the illusion would be contrasted with the reality. However, the

boundaries are blurred so much so that the foundations of illusions are undermined.

In his article, Jean Baudrillard provided a concrete example that may bridge the gap:

Disneyland. He then contends that it is an attempt at a reality transfusion that intends to

incorporate a synthetic world into the real world “in which it is reality itself which presents itself

as a spectacle.”22 While being a spectacle, a simulated reality, Disneyland guises itself as an

instance to distinguish reality from the imaginary. The problem is that it presents a misleading

intent, concealing a reality that there is none. This suggests that while Disneyland is imaginary,

society is misled to believe that there is no simulation. Hence:

The Disneyland imaginary is neither true nor false: it is a deterrence machine set up
in order to rejuvenate in reverse the fiction of the real. Whence the debility, the
infantile degeneration of this imaginary. It is meant to be an infantile world, in order
to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the “real” world, and to conceal
the fact that real childishness is everywhere, particularly among those adults who go
there to act the child in order to foster illusions of their childishness.23

21
Baudrillard, Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, 177.
22
Jean Baudrillard, Screened Out, trans. Chris Turner (New York: Verso, 2002), 151.
23
Baudrillard, Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, 172.
 The fascination with the simulacra does not merely overwhelm the individual but makes

him believe that what he encounters is real. The failure to recognize the real endangers reality

that it affects the individual in a much more disturbing content. Many would deem it normal that,

for example, things we encounter in advertising are real or may not be. Standing in such a margin

verifies that hyperreality is prevalent in contemporary society. It is disturbing that it has since

perpetuated itself by merely existing because of its success in economic endeavors. For this

reason, Baudrillard describes the totalizing prevalence of the hyperreal, which cannot be denied

since it is part of the advanced industrial society that perpetuates technological oppression.

The end of the spectacle brings with it the collapse of reality into hyperrealism, the
meticulous reduplication of the real, preferably through another reproductive
medium such as advertising or photography. Through reproduction from one
medium into another the real becomes volatile, it becomes the allegory of death, but
it also draws strength from its own destruction, becoming the real for its own sake, a
fetishism of the lost object which is no longer the object of representation, but the
ecstasy of denegation and its own ritual extermination: the hyperreal.24

The discussion of hyperreality gains prominence, especially considering its oppressive

economic implications. Paradoxically, this oppression leads to more effective and immersive

hyperreal content. The simulation, being charming and seductive, traps individuals in a

successful loop of technological seduction. Advertisements, games, movies, and streaming

platforms expose individuals to fulfill desires, perpetuating hyperreality and impeding critical

thought. Technological progress birthed a curse to society — the lack of avenues to know the

real. Consequently, hyperreality has become hegemonic, lacking opposition due to the problem

of determining what is real.

24
Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, 71.
 Undoubtedly, the advanced industrial society subscribes to its technological advancement

that presides over the mediation of meaning. It experiences a loss of translation that culminates

in hyperreality. Ultimately, everything becomes problematic without a clear sense of meaning.

Society is geared towards profit and conformity and is not in pursuit of meaning and purpose

anymore. Without a doubt, the recovery of the real becomes a daunting challenge. For

Baudrillard, however, the real is murdered by the audacious and hypocritical attempt to represent

reality. He calls this “the perfect crime”.25 Thus, the lingering question is: How can we recover

the real?

2. Mechanisms of Hyperreality

a. Mass media as a deterrent

The primary function of mass media is to transmit information, be it signs, symbols, or

anything related. It presides as the medium of meaning for the same reason that it has the power

to conceal meaning. Such is the case in the prevalence of hyperreality. Television news today, for

instance, commonly records events concentrating on the things the camera is limited to. The

latter attests to the event but somehow narrows the whole picture. It conceals the fact that there is

more. Paradoxically, then, mass media have become the medium for truth.

25
Baudrillard, The Perfect Crime, 25.
 The masses accept everything and redirect everything en bloc into the spectacular,
without requiring any other code, without requiring any meaning, ultimately without
resistance, but making everything slide into an indeterminate sphere which is not
even that of non-sense, but that of overall manipulation/ fascination.26

When everything is presented through the mass media, there is no question-or-answer

relationship between the masses and reality. There is no point of departure to trace the truth

presented in the purview of the individual; nonetheless, the individual was in the place of the

event or withheld a personal piece of information about it, for instance. As such, this is the

absence of confrontation; the media is an apparatus for deterrence. Baudrillard confirms that in

the age of hyperrealism,

[C]ontemplation is impossible; images fragment perception into successive

sequences and stimuli to which the only response is an instantaneous yes or no –
reaction time is maximally reduced. The film no longer allows you to contemplate it,
it interrogates you directly. According to McLuhan, it is in this sense that the modern
media demand greater immediate participation…27

While it appears that mass media is the agent that presides over manipulating the masses,

Baudrillard believes that it is otherwise. He argues that while it is true that mass media is

confirmed and subscribed to through television, television is a mere instrument for spreading

information. He stressed, "One says mass media is meant to manipulate the masses, but in my

opinion, it’s the masses who manipulate the media.”28

Paradoxical as it can be, this logic portrays the vested interest of the masses, which in this

case is the spectacle (the dominance of images, media, and appearances). As such, Baudrillard

26
Jean Baudrillard, In The Shadow Silent of the Majorities, trans. Paul Foss (New York: Semiotext(e),
1983. 43-4. This will be cited hereafter as Baudrillard, In The Shadow Silent of the Majorities.
27
Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, 84.
28
Jean Baudrillard, Jean Baudrillard: From Hyperreality to Disappearance: Uncollected Interviews, ed.
Richard G. Smith and David B. Clarke (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 145.
attests that their interests do not include meaning despite the proliferation of it. It is all absorbed

but without response, rendering the mass not participative. For this reason, it can be argued that

while masses are taken as a whole, each does not share a ground to confer a unitive interaction.

Thus, it is the “end of the social” where the new perception of society is fabricated, and the

social is alienated.29

b. Manipulation of Desires

In contemporary times, even during the Industrial Revolution, society has become

immersed in the conditions of consumer culture. The advancement of technology has truly

helped our society thrive and arrive at an effective and efficient production of goods and

services. This, in turn, sufficed for progress, from fulfilling vital needs to creating objects to

fulfill desires. Desire is the most critical aspect of the individual. Therefore, concerning

hyperreality, it is essential to reconsider consumption that moves the individual for satisfaction.

Hyperrealism indicates an absence of reality, for things are all mediated. Consider that it

also attests to creating signs of the nonexistent real in the multiplication of objects. Similarly, it

opts to generate models to fulfill the lack of reality. 30 The reproduction of signs must be created

to achieve and perpetuate satisfaction. Therefore, a sign’s pursuit aims to satisfy the individual's

desires.

Baudrillard did not equate consumption as merely consuming objects. Indeed, to fulfill

the individual's desire, there must be a consumption of the sign object. However, the material is

not primarily consumed but the sign attached to the thing. By this logic, he argues that:

29
Jean Baudrillard, In The Shadow of the Silent Majorities, 25.
30
Jean Baudrillard, System of Objects, trans. James Benedict (London: Verso, 1968), 205.
 Consumption is not a material practice, nor is it a phenomenology of affluence. It is
not defined by the nourishment we take in, nor by the clothes we clothe ourselves
with, nor by the car we use, nor by the oral and visual matter of the images and
messages we receive. It is defined, rather, by the organization of all these things into
a signifying fabric: consumption is the virtual totality of objects and messages ready-
constituted as a more or less coherent discourse. If it has any meaning at all,
consumption means an activity consisting of the systematic manipulation of signs.31

In this same light, arguably, a power accrued to the object persuades the individual

to consume it. For instance, buying a luxurious item signifies that the buyer is well-off. In

this case, a power play is attributed to the buyer. The sign, having been possessed by its

owner, shows the sign value. For this reason, the people engaging with the owner might

think he is rich. Therefore, we can argue that signs provide “meaning” for the owner.

Desires are equated with meaning. In fulfillment of the desires of the individual

comes satisfaction through signs. It is like an addictive drug that, without it, the individual

generally could not have a meaning. In this sense, signs are vital to establish social

relationships. Signs have become prerequisites. If society as a whole considerably

subscribes to the signs they are exposed to, then signs bridge the gap between individuals.

However, relationships are only defined by the signs they are akin to.

Therefore, the pervasive influence of consumer culture linked with desires plays a

crucial role in perpetuating and achieving hyperreality in contemporary society. The

latter’s language has now become symbolic, defining meaning and relationships. Desires

perpetuate the frustration of the individual. In his frustration, he has no choice but to

consume signs to have a reason to live. Beyond any doubt, happiness is the hyperreal

excuse.

31
Baudrillard, System of Objects, 200.