Now, this website is unlike any other. We consider ourselves whistle-blowers
on the mass media that infiltrates our lives. However, before we begin,
let's hear from some of our sponsors...
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French Philosopher Jean Baudrillard contends that the "very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction." He believes that there is no reality, no appearance, but a sort of hyperreality that consists entirely of simulations.
This website participates in none of that nonsense.
The mass media is a sham. Media is "the heart of deterrance" according to Baudrillard in his text, Simulations, (available in a bookstore near you for $10.00 or less! Try Amazon Online Booksellers). Anyway, as we were saying, deterrance is a real problem. As Disneyland misleads the masses (i.e. "If this place is so fake, the outside world must be reality!") and Watergate led the world to believe that scanalous politicians were a rarity, the media leads us to believe that television, internet, film, radio, and print journalism are less real than the actual living that people do. Baudrillard says that there is no such distinction between the realities and the appearances. (However, this webpage is real. Really.)
Where else in our lives do we encounter deterrence models? DRUGS!!! Hallucinogenic drugs are a great way to uphold the status quo (I'm tripping mushrooms, so I know that pink elephant in the corner is just a hallucination, and hence everything that I experience while not under the influence must be authentic). Baudrillard would argue that drugs only mask the hyperreality of the world -- there really is no distinction between states of consciousness!
In Baudrillard's world, Big Brother
is no longer watching over us. According to Big Baudrillard, in a world
of simulations and hyperreality
we are controlled not by being watched
but by watching. In a sense, the creation of the audience is the death
of the real. We can no longer observe the real simply because the real
cannot be observed -- and because the media allows us to observe everything,
nothing is real.
You have just been a victim of deterrance! Were you as fooled as these people??? Thank you for your time.