Featured Image: Technology Abstract by Michal Boubin
Introduction
We live in a socio-economic situation with unique problems exacerbated by social media. For this essay, I describe our current socio-economic situation as The Postmodern Condition. There are a few prominent stances on the postmodern condition, Jean Baudrillard (1981) describes the postmodern condition as where “the map precedes the territory” (Baudrillard, 1981) or as the point where the line between simulacra and reality is blurred and indistinguishable in our understanding of reality which defines “hyperreality”. Fredric Jameson (1991) describes the postmodern condition as having an economic core as the “Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” (Jameson, 1991), or the capitalism that comes after modernist utilitarian Fordist capitalism. In this essay, I build on Aristotle’s (2000) Eudaimonia, which means to live a life of virtue, happiness, flourishing, and joy (Cambridge, 2000), and Abraham Maslow’s (1943) Self-actualization which means achieving ecstatic feelings of joy and a sense of positive empowerment as the best version of ourselves (Maslow, 1943). In this essay, I argue that the postmodern condition hinders our ability to comprehend reality and identity which is essential to achieving authentic eudaimonia and self-actualization.
The current status of postmodern culture has increasingly made it harder for us to achieve authentic self-actualization and eudaimonia. For example, social media is founded on traditional values that hinder our ability to innovate and achieve our utmost positive and enlightened creative potential. For the sake of grounding my thoughts, I use traditional capitalist values as holding ideological imperium over our global cultural and social consciousness; the source of human decision-making on a broad scale, the ideological priority that holds the most power. What we prioritize becomes the quality of our lifestyle. Prioritizing the selfish and manipulative priorities intrinsic to the ideology functionally inherent to late-capitalist social media use hinders our ability to achieve eudaimonia and authentic self-actualization. This anti-eudaimonia experience is present in all postmodern institutions, and therefore, the ideological influences that educate and control our actions and our postmodern experience as a whole; a hyperreal condition.
Due to the postmodern condition’s late-capitalist core, a system that prioritizes overconsumption and benefits the interests of the rich who hold global imperium over our cultural and social logic, the creative potential of human identity has turned into data in commodified spectacle algorithms where appearances supersede our genuine understanding of “reality” and self (identity) exemplified by social media institutions like Facebook and Instagram. This hyperreality is generated by the performative nature of identity exacerbated by the controlling grasp postmodern institutions like social media have over our widespread cultural and socially based decision-making; an ideologically based self-conscious spectacle experience that exacerbates any primordial insecurities or fears we have of being judged or ostracized from the pack. We have become afraid to behave in any way that is less validated by The Other in the power structures intrinsic to postmodern institutions like social media which likely means we are less happy and fulfilled in our lifestyles. These institutions have their priorities messed up, and we unconsciously and deliberately adopt whatever ideological priorities benefit from their control over us. Given that media institutions are important in the information we get and our understanding of reality and self, in the form of news, social media, and television, our behavior acts in favor of their control over our lives in the struggle against our existence, free will, and innovation they are built. The knowledge we gain from these media institutions is essential to our decision-making and analysis of the world and our reality. We adopt these ideological forces as our understanding of reality and self which confuses the potential of our apprehension and self; a hyperreality.
Our behavior and decision-making are confused by what benefits the power and selfish intentions and priorities of these postmodern institutions. The average behavior of our postmodern culture has become an oversaturated mess of performative identity to achieve greater “influencer” engagement which serves the profit and manipulative machiavellian power motives of those in power controlling the structures of such algorithms more so than the creative and enlightened potential of the individual, the individual to make their destiny, to control themselves and their rightful autonomy, allowing everyone’s unique self to be achieved to the best degree with equal opportunity. For example, a child is now more likely to dream of a job as a social media influencer or Youtuber when they grow up than an artist or a writer because their primary apparatus of understanding the world is through social media, living for validation, essentially plugged into their matrix pod at a young age as their parents let them get in the habit of doom scrolling endlessly on Tiktok or YouTube until they mirror and replicate the sense of self and reality projected on the illusion of what is experienced on the screen, a performance that is the the function of the ideology intrinsic to the machine like spirit possession. An experience that confuses their truthful sense of “reality,” believing the reality projected on the screen more so than experiences defining the genuine truthfulness of their human condition as they navigate their authentic feelings and thoughts that make them human.
This problem of postmodern culture’s increasing vacuousness holds humanity back from building more significant, profound, eudaimonious, and deeper cultural pools to swim in. Like any other machine, cultural experience can navigate our lives for good or evil. The world would certainly be a more eudaimonious and enlightened place if we had youthful potential actualized into magnificent, brilliant, and sublime writers, poets, artists, scientists, engineers, responsible business people, competent District Attorneys, philosophers, and musicians than if we do of young people dreaming of becoming social media influencers. These more profound and ecstatic cultural experiences would navigate our lives into higher states of fulfillment, ecstasy, enlightenment, and joy—a place where awareness defines the power of blissful, joyful enlightenment and wisdom. Becoming a social media influencer only perpetuates vapid spectacle significance where profound insights are distorted by the surface of appearances in our hyperreal postmodern culture. On the other hand, becoming an artist or a writer promotes profound insights and cultural significance in the quality of our thoughts and aesthetic experience supported by maximized potential of human creativity and joyous experiences of enlightened Eudaimonia and self-actualization.
Generation Alpha career moves like wanting to become a social media influencer are a great example of the postmodern condition, confusing our potential of Eudaimonia with our positive creative potential. We would live more fulfilling and eudaimonious lifestyles if we prioritized deeper levels of cultural significance in the form of art or great literature instead of vapid postmodern spectacle culture, as seen in our prioritization of social media and other postmodern institutions. Our postmodern cultural apparatuses prioritize appearance and validation (spectacle) over a deeper, more profound, and insightful sense of reality, the difference between turning out more social media “creators” than new artists and thinkers.
This cultural apparatus generates a loop of spectacle and superficiality being worshiped in the power structures of these postmodern institutions, such as social media, then more vapid spectacle is created because we are taught such spectacle is the most valuable cultural job that succeeds within these institutions that hold power in our world – generating late-capitalist hyperreal capitalist culture. This hyperreality can be seen in musicians becoming successful because of bots inflating their plays on music streaming platforms to the point where their genuine audience believes they have earned their success authentically. Their audience has lost any ability to distinguish the difference between profound and intelligent cultural output and the simulated version of such output. This hyperreal cultural function is exactly why a new “artist” can fake their way to success and still be treated as if their music is just as worthy as someone who has earned success through hard work and talent like Mozart or The Beatles. In our hyperreal postmodern culture, social media and the like, have hindered our ability to tell the difference between profound and useful cultural output and the appearance of genuine artistic value.
The Generation Alpha vapid spectacle self-generated by the Hyperreal Postmodern Condition does not prioritize what is best for the individual but instead prioritizes the interests of those in power, such as those who fake their success as an artist with bots to make money rather than provide genuine cultural enlightenment through their art, which is insidious and corrupt. Given that these media institutions are central to their understanding of reality and self at such a young age, in their experience with social media and other postmodern media institutions like television, by the time these kids do possibly sober up and want to pursue something more significant and fulfilling with their life as a cultural influencer, like becoming an actual songwriter or novelist knowing that is the best way they can achieve eudaimonia for themselves and the betterment of all, their formative years have developed with hyperreal social media and television culture at the center of their experience and whom they grow up to be.
Therefore, the interests of these media institutions are still fundamental to who they are and these interests actively work to distract them and make it harder for them to be the self-actualized eudaimonious version of themselves. Even if they do pursue deeper more ecstatic and self-actualized experiences of eudaimonia after growing up, the spectacle culture is still central to their understanding of reality and creative significance. These traditional values, such as what is seen in postmodern late-capitalism, actively work to hinder the self-actualized mystical significance of their creative output. We can best beat this cultural corruption by consciously choosing to fight against our cultural spectacle brainwashing by creating deeper more ecstatic and self-actualized cultural experiences in the difference between creating great and profound art and thirst traps on an Instagram feed.
On the other hand, some people might experience eudaimonia while pursuing these social media influencer careers. Some examples of social media influencers might describe experiencing eudaimonia in their jobs, and examples of social media influencers I gain enlightening “content.” However, when our sense of self is limited to a spectacle, a hyperreal, we are controlled in favor of the powers that be. Even these positive examples still have to run ads to make money, take on sponsorships for brands they honestly do not care about distracting their audience from making their ideas, and follow an upload schedule to make sure they are catering to their audience – all traditionally American capitalist values that keep the rich in favor, that keep those who have historically been in power, in power. Even these positive examples of influencers still have to play the game that benefits those in power. These positive examples are still stuck in the hyperreal.
Of course, these issues of self-consciousness, hindering our potential for empowered authentic identity, have gone back as far as unfair power structures and bullying have existed since the dawn of humanity. However, the postmodern condition, social media in particular, has amplified and exacerbated the corrupting nature of these power struggles regarding our ability to achieve eudaimonia and self-actualization. What we experience in the postmodern condition is simply a reaction to a long chain of historically dominant ideologies and values that have caused the development of our postmodern cultures and societies. Now we live in an age where those values are more likely to be deconstructed, heterogenous, and globalized but they are still fundamental to the historical development of the societies and cultures we live in as postmodern humans, we have not overcome the corrupting effects of these power structures entirely.
While someone can achieve eudaimonia and self-actualization using social media, the goal is not to make an anti-social-media paper here. This thesis suggests the priority of use inherent to the philosophy of these media institutions, as they are central to our understanding of self, society, and reality, hindering our ability to achieve eudaimonia. This paper is not anti-social-media because these issues are not necessarily the fault of technology, modernization, or innovation. The ideological and historical roots of these technological and cultural advancements are rooted in selfish manipulation and corruption. Because of late capitalism, unfair power struggles, and traditional values like those of capitalism as the dominant ideological force in our culture, the technology and culture we interact with are mystified by the ideological cause they have generated.
For example, there is a significant difference between social media built on the interest of billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, the formidable intellect behind Facebook, and the interest of philanthropists who understand the destructive effects of income and wealth inequality. If billionaires did not exist, we could have a much fairer society where the average class experience is more equal and healing for the troubles and disparities created by late capitalism. These troubles include affordable housing being an issue because of the superfluous housing interests of the rich living in their mansions and indulging in their luxury culture such as designer clothing brands and luxury cars which actively pulls us away from equal-opportunity eudaimonia. As Maslow argues, we can only achieve self-actualization if our lower needs are met. For example, if our security needs are not being met, we do not have the privilege to focus on self-actualization (Maslow, 1941). One cannot achieve eudaimonia and struggle to survive or pay the bills. These anti-self-actualization forces prove that our postmodern society actively holds us back from achieving self-actualization because of late-capitalist issues like income and wealth inequality.
These anti-eudaimonia priorities include the conformity that comes from institutions built on validation and approval (such as likes, comments, and general engagement on social media posts) which are not the same as prioritizing happiness or eudaimonia and are only further exacerbated by the ideological backbone these institutions are built. Chasing validation is a never-ending cycle of disappointment. Whether validation is good or bad we will live in a never-ending cycle of comparison and fear-of-being-judged self-consciousness. We are more likely to be satisfied with ourselves if our priorities are to be satisfied with ourselves. We are more likely to achieve eudaimonia and self-actualization if our priorities are to achieve eudaimonia and self-actualization. In other words, the function of social media can be ok (the function of validation) even if our sense of self and reality is distorted by the nature of these institutions and our experience with them, we can achieve eudaimonia and self-actualization by accident.
We should work to stop prioritizing validation, which these media institutions preeminently prioritize for the sake of their selfish intentions to maximize their profits because prioritizing validation perpetuates a hyperreal sense of self and truth which is antithetical to achieving eudaimonia and self-actualization. We should, instead, work to deconstruct the ideological foundation of these hyperreal institutions by choosing to prioritize what they aim to distract us from, eudaimonia and joy which are the highest most mystical states of being (Maslow, 1941). We are more likely to achieve self-actualization and eudaimonia if we act authentically detached from others’ validation and approval and act honestly. If we are constantly checking our actions based on fears of being judged, we are controlled and haunted by the opinions of others which will make us feel miserable and insecure, hindering our road to complete self-actualization (Maslow, 1941). Life is not worth living if we are stuck in a cycle of validation and misery that keeps us in line favoring the selfish interest of the rich and those in power because the rich are the only ones getting what they want and need.
Even those in power, the rich, are drowning in a culture that prioritizes the misery they generate, valuing superfluous material goods that drain the happiness and joy from the world. Essentially, the capitalist root of postmodern culture creates a vortex of manipulative misery we are all stuck in; a hyperreality central to our postmodern experience. Misery that includes a strong desire to live above our means, to buy buy buy, to consume and purchase constantly, but such materialism is not the answer to finding happiness. The entire culture that values and promotes this never-ending consumerism and power is actively making us all miserable, distracting us from prioritizing eudaimonia for its own sake which is the best way to find happiness. One might find happiness by accident in this culture of consumption and power-hungry capitalism, but choosing to prioritize eudaimonia more than anything is a much more reliable route for achieving the highest state of self-actualized mystical and ecstatic being.
This power-hungry culture includes status and validation for being the person with the most to show off in the room, the most impressive intellect, the most impressive hair, the most impressive career, the most impressive bank account, whatever, a vicious cultural cycle of narcissism, comparison, and keeping up with the Joneses. Instead, we should prioritize achieving eudaimonia.
Postmodern media institutions are central to our understanding of reality and self, prioritizing and acting on ideology that favors the selfish intentions of those in power. Postmodern media institutions distort our sense of self and reality because their business model of validation and attention creates a hyperreality based on intentions of conformity and validation. This validation is exemplified in social media, in the way we might change our behavior to get more likes, such as following a funny trend or editing our face to be prettier for a photo we want to post to get the validation of others. In turn, allowing this behavior enacted on by the ideologies inherent to our understanding of reality and self we become mediocre, unfulfilled, and repress our creative potential to be the most well-liked and impressive person in the room. It is difficult to act honestly when one’s sense of reality is self-conscious and based on others’ validation and approval. Any knowledge of self in this spectacle culture becomes hyperreal which is not genuine knowledge.
If you cannot achieve genuine self-knowledge or act honestly you cannot achieve eudaimonia and self-actualization because being honest and having genuine self-awareness and self-knowledge is essential to achieving eudaimonia and self-actualization. If you lie about your honest self, living a hyperreal, you cannot possibly know what is best for your honest self. We should work to break free from the game of these institutions to turn our sense of self into selfish profit motives that distract us from achieving eudaimonia and happiness. To achieve this progress, we must learn to prioritize honesty, genuine self-knowledge, eudaimonia, and self-actualization instead. Furthermore, our right to achieve eudaimonia and enlightenment, or flourishing, on the individual level, is essential to the flourishing of society as a whole.
We should focus our attention and energy on actualizing our unique and individual positive eudaimonious creative potential by breaking the social nature of formulating the potential of our personality priorities away from the selfish manipulative intentions of capitalist exploitation, to maximize profit at the expense of the more enlightened intentions for us all to be the best, most self-actualized, versions of ourselves, and our societies, possible. Instead of allowing the creative positive potential of our personalities to be commodified and manipulated spectacles, as what is exemplified in our hyperreal experience of formulating the potential of our eudaimonious actions and personality through the hyperreal perception of self in social media platforms and other postmodern media institutions such as television and movies, we should focus more of our time and energy on achieving honest self-actualization detached from the schemes of manipulative capitalistic intentions inherent to the institutions that formulate our conception of reality and the potential of self.
These hyperreal spectacle media institutions are at the center of our understanding of self and identity in the postmodern age which destroys our ability to achieve eudaimonia, enlightenment, and self-actualization. We can only achieve ultimate enlightenment, eudaimonia, and self-actualization if we can be honest with ourselves and act honestly unhindered by the self-conscious fear-of-being-judged nature of postmodern media institutions. Furthermore, the influence of postmodern media institutions, such as social media companies like Instagram or Facebook, are preponderant in the function of every other postmodern institution, everything from business, and education, to family life.
We are caught in the web of hyperreality, twitching, desperate for a life of deeper fulfillment. Nevertheless, since we are deceived, the norm is to feel no need for change because the spider’s home keeps us warm and content; we do not know there is a better option, to live outside of the web, because we have been taught it is the only possible way to live. The postmodern hyperreal is an interconnected culture that generates itself and the power of the ideologies that fuel its existence.
It is wise for us to acknowledge the nature of the late-capitalist economy and its role in generating such a manipulative hyperreal culture of spectacle, analyzing and building on the ideas of Jameson (1991) and Baudrillard (1981). Understanding the nature of our hyperreal postmodern condition is essential to breaking free from the control the powers that be have over our potential to achieve ultimate eudaimonia and self-actualization. Building societies that better promote eudaimonious self-actualization means building a world of greater individual flourishing and creative potential that will better serve the eudamonious interests of all equally rather than the insidious effects of the hyperreal culture generated by manipulative capitalist intentions and unfair power struggles exemplified by social media corporations.
Achieving Eudaimonia and Self-Actualization in
The Postmodern Condition’s Late-capitalist Spectacle Economy and Hyperreality
In recent developments of theories regarding postmodern culture, Fredric Jameson is a salient figure. Jameson’s (1991) book “Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of late-capitalism” has warranted much criticism, controversy, and praise over the years for being, on one side of the debate, vague, pseudointellectual, generalizing, subjective observation, and disorganized as much as a brilliant and novel invention of recent theoretical developments on the understanding of human (postmodern) culture (Jameson, 1991). Both sides of the debate hold validity, and the value of Jameson’s theories in their inventiveness, curiosity, importance, and novelty can at least excuse the book’s weaknesses even if his theories are served best as seeds for us readers to develop our own theories. In his own words, Jameson defines postmodernism as “The last few years have been marked by an inverted millenarianism, in which premonitions of the future, catastrophic or redemptive, have been replaced by senses of the end of this or that (the end of ideology, art, or social class; the ‘crisis’ of Leninism, social democracy, or the welfare state, the examples are infinite due to the nature of this infinite-production late-capitalist relevant paradigm, dripping its influence down like honey on every sector of our societies’ institutional function, etc.): taken together, all of these perhaps constitute what is increasingly called postmodernism (Jameson, 1991)”. The theories provided by Jameson might be perceived as subjective, nebulous, unstable, insecure, and malleable as cultural explanations about the ever-evolving theoretical currents of their own time, and thus, cannot realistically serve as the final scientific description of their postmodern age, an age that is currently happening and shifting in its valid description, theoretical, and philosophical base.
Simply put, any theories about postmodern culture should be taken with a grain of salt as the cultural realities and foundation of such theories shift as we speak. However, the stability of a theory does not eradicate the value of its insights. His ideas can at least serve us to develop greater theories as we achieve a greater understanding of postmodern culture and find more agreement in our theoretical advancements than confusion or voidful ignorance inherent to such theories. The value of Jameson’s theories is found in the theoretical potential of his ideas more than their scientific accuracy.
Jameson’s work does not exist in a vacuum. Theories of postmodernism were prevalent in intellectual circles at the time, and Jameson built his ideas largely on the work of Marx (Gartman, 1998). Jameson’s agenda was to create a more advanced notion of postmodernism than what was half-baked and floating around the verbal constructions and debates of intelligentsia at the time (Gartman, 1998). Jameson’s theories have genuine philosophical potential, even if his agenda was not a conventional treatise on philosophy.
His theories are based on Marx’s theories of capitalism and commodity fetishism, postulating that the cultural logic of late capitalism is one of spectacle, consumerism, and commodity fetishism; dominated by personal taste deconstructing the role of ideology as just another commodity (Dino, 2011). David Gartman (1998) argues that Jameson’s late capitalism is better understood as “post-Fordism” as a reaction to modernist Fordist capitalism “Attempts to solve this crisis (of Fordism) gave rise to a post-Fordist economy, characterized by the flexible production of diversified goods on a new, global scale. This economy produced the new culture of postmodernism, which privileges difference, diversity, and ephemerality” (Gartman, 1998, p. 6). We can see the difference between Fordist and post-Fordist capitalism in the difference between the Fordist cultural reflection of factory workers and their American cultural experiences being a picture of conservative, business casual, white-male dominated, picket-fence-house-in-the-suburbs capitalism in the first half of the 20th century to post-Fordist capitalism being a globalized structure that thrives on companies like Facebook, Amazon, Instagram, or McDonald’s having their influence and production easily duplicated all over the world to maximize their control, profits, and power. In turn, post-Fordist capitalism generates a culture of superficiality and Ephermality. Given that post-Fordist capitalism is central to our experience, our culture replicates the values of the global capitalist power structure. Since social media is a post-Fordist cultural phenomenon, the digital age is a post-Fordist age.
As suggested in the introduction, the post-Fordist spectacle age is an age in which the interests of the companies and the rich who hold preeminent global power and control supersede the interests and the needs of the individual to achieve eudaimonia with equal opportunity. This power struggle can be seen in the difference between the struggle of small business owners making it in our late-capitalist market. Overcoming the dominant influence and control of global corporations like McDonald’s, Nike, or Instagram is almost impossible given that they are the dominant power structures fundamental to our understanding of reality, our experiences, and our decision-making. Our creative eudaimonious potential is squashed by the interest and dominance of these larger global businesses to the point where we cannot even dream of inventing something new, novel, and never-done-before utility. Of course, if their idea is good enough a beginning entrepreneur or inventor can become successful in our late-capitalist economy which implies an example where social media can be a useful tool to allow these more independent creators to market themselves and build a global audience like we have never been able to do before with the likes of social media posts, hashtags, and advertisements that can be easily shared and spread throughout the world. However, this kind of virality and infinite cloud reproduction is still controlled by the ideological power these institutions are based on in the way advertisements benefit the most powerful in our late-capitalist society, the rich social media business owners, and posting on social media, in general, perpetuates the mystification of self through a hyperreal spectacle experience.
When we use these means of promotion, we are still stuck in the technology built on the ideology that favors the power of their creators and their values, another example of the hyperreal loop that favors the dominant ideology staying in control. In promoting ourselves we lose our independence in favor of the powers that be and lose ourselves in the vortex of postmodern hyperreality.
Brands like Mcdonald’s and Instagram have become fundamental to our decision-making. When we go out to buy lunch, we assume the biggest, most globalized, and most popular fast food restaurants are where we should go, we assume their ideological constructs and branding are central to our reality and decision-making, even if deep down we know we should support local businesses or we should eat healthy. When we choose to buy new clothes, we assume the biggest and most popular brands or vendors, from Nike to Patagonia, are our first stop to get fitted up. When we buy groceries we are more likely to rely on trustworthy brands like Pepsi over a new inventive soda we have never heard of before.
We prioritize these global brands because our cultural logic of late capitalism generates these brands as a hyperreal construct we assume to be essential to our existence and experience. Of course, we can still support more low-key and indie brands, or make decisions to alleviate our culture of corrupt, profit-hungry addiction, and many of us do. However, because our globalized culture of late capitalism has become central to our understanding of reality, we are much more likely to assume the most powerful companies are a necessary part of our decision-making, the choices we must make, and in fact much of the time the most powerful companies completely overwhelm the influence of their less popular competition. Because we live in an age of too many choices, our decision-making is more likely to pick the safe option everyone knows about, the difference between McDonald’s and a local burger restaurant struggling to stay afloat.
The most powerful companies essentially become our assumptions about reality and the decisions we need to survive from day to day, everything from our bank account to the food we make. This decision-making inherently benefits the richest and most powerful people and gatekeeps any possibility of allowing equal opportunity to power. The interests of the rich and powerful have become our reality, a hyperreal. Late capitalism is essential to the postmodern experience and our understanding of reality.
In Jameson’s view, the relativistic and hyperproductive nature of postmodern culture is rooted in late capitalism. We can understand the meaning of “late capitalism” by looking at the cultural analysis Jameson distinguishes as the difference between Fordism and Post-Fordism. While Fordism is defined as a system that maximizes production and economic growth, Post-Fordism is a postmodern result of Fordism that abandons a modernist Keynesian economic philosophy that prioritizes economic stability and equal income with a neoliberal economic philosophy that prioritizes consumerism and globalism (Gartman, 1998).
“Post-Fordism is a regime of accumulation that goes beyond the Fordist system of production and consumption in order to resolve its crises… While mass producers sought to capture economies of scale with a few standardized products, post-Fordist producers concentrated on economies of scope with their diversity of ever-changing goods… Under post-Fordism, capitalism became a vast, decentralized network, but one that is still dominated by large corporations that subordinate their calculus of exploitation (Gartman, 1998).”
Furthermore, postmodern society, or post-Fordist society, is defined as a kind of aimless and meaningless flux in which substantial production is made irrelevant by the preference for reproduction for the sake of it and aimless consumption. “The modernist sense of time (production) as directional and developmental is replaced by an ahistorical sense of meaningless flux. (Gartman, 1998, p. 7)” Replication and pastiche have become more favored than substantial and meaningful production or identity, creating a certain sense of cultural, social, and personal complacency. “When all the world is modern, nothing seems really new or progressive. Second, the post-Fordist emphasis on the ever-changing cycle of fashions and images to sell goods also undermines historicity. When the material world is changing constantly and arbitrarily, simply for the sake of sales, the value of the new and innovative is a steady stream of variation that goes nowhere” (Gartman, 1998).
An example of this ephemeral and infinitely reproducible socio-economic experience of constant flux can be seen in the post-Fordist business of social media where infinite posts and engagement feed the profit motives of those who control these global businesses like Instagram or Facebook. The nature of this cultural logic holds profound implications regarding our self-concept and ability to self-actualize. Given that our experiences and decision-making reflect the economic ideology our culture is built on, we treat ourselves no differently, turning ourselves into a spectacle commodity, ephemeral infinitely reproduced superficial flux. This commodification of self is exemplified by social media being central to our culture. Since social media is central to our postmodern experience, we assume our decisions must benefit the interest of social media. We assume we must make decisions that maximize engagement and validation rather than decisions that maximize eudaimonia and self-actualization. Once again, when our priority is to maximize the power of these global companies, our priority is not to achieve eudaimonia or self-actualization. Choosing to prioritize eudaimonia and self-actualization would inherently provide a more fulfilling and joyful lifestyle than pursuing the utmost priority of globalized selfish power struggles.
To further analyze and prove the existence of “Hyperreality” in our Postmodern Condition In “Simulacra and Simulation”, Baudrillard opens the book with a quote from Ecclesiastes “The simulacrum is never what hides the truth – it is truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true.” The idea of “simulacra” is essential to Baudrillard, it means “Something that replaces reality with its representation” (Baudrillard, 1981). For example, when we see a bumper sticker on the car in front of us that says “F*ck Donald Trump!” we make a load of assumptions about who that person is. As Americans, we understand the implications of what it means to be a left-wing sycophant, the opinions they hold, the media they watch, and the people they vote for in our elections. We understand the implications of their left-wing identity in relation to the entire political culture in America. We understand the likely assumptions they have about their political opponents which further amplifies any division. The division perpetuated by these assumptions is hyperreal.
The assumptions we hold about this person and their bumper sticker become our understanding of reality and who they are more so than the person themselves and their genuine actions and behavior. Furthermore, the person who puts the bumper sticker on their car knows their sticker is who we understand them to be and deliberately decides to put the sticker there for us to make these assumptions because it gives them a sense of significance and identity in our postmodern age of nihilism. The person behind the sticker has become the sticker, they are proud to be a Trump-hating liberal and the sticker on their car gives them their sense of identity to overcome any fear of missing out. Deep down, we all know identity and truth function as hyperreality in our postmodern age, and we make our decisions to perpetuate this hyperreality, just as we make decisions based on whether or not we will be validated online. To Baudrillard, hyperreality is essential to the postmodern condition, a phenomenon in which the line between simulacra and genuine reality is indistinguishable (Baudrillard, 1981). Baudrillard uses the metaphor of a map becoming so detailed that it covers the real territory to define hyperreality,
“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… The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory – precession of simulacra – that engenders the territory, and if one must return to the fable, today it is the territory whose shreds slowly rot across the extent of the map (Baudrillard, 1981)
Furthermore, Baudrillard explains hyperreality in a prophetic sense as it pertains to social media “The real is produced from miniaturized cells, matrices, and memory banks, models of control – and it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times from these (Baudrillard, 1981)”.
Social media functionally turns our sense of self and identity into spectacles, in the case of posts, which feed on interaction and validation in the form of likes, comments, and replies. Fundamentally based on the capitalist intentions of social media companies, like Instagram and Facebook, this underlying late-capitalist intention proves Jameson’s theories regarding our postmodern culture which has essentially turned our personalities into commodities. We perform for the selfish late-capitalist interest of social media institutions, and all postmodern institutions in general, more so than prioritizing genuine eudaimonia and self-actualization. Remember, late capitalism is only the dominant example of traditional values and ideology hindering our ability to actualize eudaimonia, self-actualization, and our creative potential, free from self-consciousness. However, these traditional values benefit those in power and keep the masses, such as the average social media user, complicit in their selfish and manipulative priorities.
Moreover, James Morris, a theorist working at City University in London, Great Britain, describes the realities of post-truth in the digital age. Post-truth is a phenomenon of feelings and subjective opinion, and it appeals to emotion that has a greater influence than objective facts, science, and reason when developing our understanding of things (in the postmodern social sphere). Morris draws particular attention to the role media and politics play in the distortion of truth in our post-truth age. Essentially, Morris argues that our postmodern age is defined by our understanding of truth being distorted as a consequence of particular groups desiring power over each other. Morris argues that the political sphere is an apt example of postmodern hyperreality. We confuse sign systems that are detached from objective reality as hyperreality. These sign systems have become their own reality altogether. This distortion of truth emerges from a process of reflection and repeated sign-relationship from the initial representation of reality until the truth becomes a completely different notion of reality altogether. This replication and subsequent distortion of objective truth becomes our only relationship with the truth. This distortion becomes our understanding of reality within the post-truth age. The post-truth distortion of truth is fundamental to our understanding of reality. Morris references this replacement of truth in the post-truth age as hyperreality. In Morris’ view, the post-truth experience is defined as one of hyperreality (Morris, 2020).
Morris corroborates this claim with the political prowess of former U.S. President Donald Trump and his followers believing most of what he says without critical examination. They take his debased claims as truth while there is often obvious evidence that contradicts his claims. The post-truth nature of his power as a president is exemplified by Donald Trump claiming he won the 2020 U.S. election despite obvious credible evidence that proves he lost. Despite this credible evidence, in 2021 roughly 24% of the U.S. population still believes Trump won the 2020 U.S. presidential election (Reuters, 2021). In Morris’ view, it is clear that Trump’s distortion of truth has emerged as a consequence of the president’s desire for power and supreme influence over the political sphere. The reality of Trump’s truth distortion exemplifies the function of hyperreality in our postmodern social landscape. The rise of Donald Trump further illustrates the corruption of power in our late-capitalist age, as a means to distort our understanding of truth and put wealth in power over genuine positive creative potential, self-actualization, and eudaimonia (Morris, 2020).
Morris also showcases Fox News as a post-truth news organization. In Morris’ view, Fox News is less concerned with the objective reality of the news they cover, but rather pushing its right-wing conservative agenda even if that involves truth distortion (Morris, 2020). Post-truth is exemplified by Fox News misrepresenting vaccine information while there is widely available peer-reviewed science that dissociates the truth value of their claims (Washington Post, 2021). The problems of post-truth are exemplified by Morris’ take on Fox News stating, “Fox News ironically described itself as “Fair and Balanced,” in complete contrast to the right-wing pro-Republican stance that the news channel actually promoted…Fox News has diverged from traditional standards of journalistic integrity, the results have fared well with viewing figures.
Fox News had beaten its rivals in this respect for 66 quarters in a row by the second quarter of 2018 influencing other news networks to follow its model of promoting entertainment value and “giving viewers what they want” over presenting information the audience may not wish to hear but is closer to “the truth”” (Morris, 2021). Taking on the post-truth Fox News model of entertainment over correct information is a perfect example of how postmodern media institutions generate deeper Hyperreality that benefits the interest of those in power. Fox News benefits the ideological interest of Donald Trump, who promotes a right-wing, pro-capitalist, anti-immigrant political agenda. In turn, the post-truth of Fox News becomes the cultural norm and everyone replicates the behavior that favors those in power, the media institutions as a profit-hungry business, and an ideology that benefits the dominant power of any other late-capitalist global institutions. In other words, entertainment has become more important than “truth” even when it comes to institutions that are tasked with delivering “the truth”, the news is a ripe example.
Furthermore, we can understand our hyperreal cultural experience sign systems in the brands we observe and consume as representations of inherent meaning even though they are entirely imagined constructs. This phenomenon is noticeable in the Nike swoosh. We understand that the swoosh means something real even though it represents an imagined brand. These brands represent the core of our society’s structural function. Hyperreality has become normalized. The distortion of truth has become normalized.
The brand, the sign, has become our reality (Nicholls, 2017). We understand these brands, such as Nike and their logo, as being fundamental to our reality. What the brands represent is equally as foundational. Assuming those who wear Nike are athletic, trendy, or basic. The sign has become the real and serves as a metaphor for our personalities and understanding of reality. In a world where signs have superseded the real, there is no limit to our understanding of truth and morality. We associate our understanding of truth and morality in an equally hyperreal way. We associate everything with representation and the assumptions every sign represents. Whether it be the clothes we wear, the car we drive, the job we have, or the television shows we watch, everything has become a representation; everything is hyperreal and a superficial spectacle. Furthermore, the performative nature of identity and hyperreality is exacerbated by postmodern institutions like social media, building on Judith Butler’s ideas (1988)
“Judith Butler (1988; 1990) extends (and questions) Goffman’s idea of “performance” by suggesting that we should refer to “performativity” when discussing identity (management). Drawing on post-feminist literature and queer theories, she suggests that performativity does not just imply that a performance occurs, it implies also that reality is enacted through performance. For Butler, performativity does not simply involve communicating an idea (which would be a performance) but rather that performativity is an action which has the ability to construct (or constitute) an identity. Butler (1990, p. 528) further argues that “if gender attributes […] are not expressive but performative, then these attributes effectively constitute the identity they are said to express or reveal…there is no preexisting identity by which an actor or attribute might be measured.” That is, for Butler identity is not a priori given but is practiced… Thus, contexts and scenes are key to performing identity, and represent an extremely helpful anchor point to discuss the role that the materiality of (different) social media platforms play in creating a variety of Performances… knowledge does not reside in minds, but instead, materiality is engaged actively in the enactment of reality (Marabelli et al. 2014)”
This idea explains the performative and constructive nature of identity, and in particular how social media can amplify this performance. Looking at the literature on Butler, we know that our identity is performative, which has both positive and negative implications. However, in the case of social media, and the implications of the postmodern condition, these implications are primarily negative and exacerbated by the nature of social media. A positive example of identity performance would be to prioritize eudaimonia and self-actualization in all of our actions, while a negative example would be to prioritize actions that gain social media validation instead of ultimate creative and intellectual potential; we can either shape ourselves positively or negatively with our attitudes and the intentions behind our decision making. For example, a young person will have their creative potential shaped by social media interests, given that these postmodern institutions are central to our understanding of reality and self. This person will become self-conscious and make decisions out of fear of being judged. This hyperreal experience does not necessarily make people happy, the only way we ensure the achievement of eudaimonia is by prioritizing eudaimonia in all of our actions and behavior. To build on Butler, the performative nature of identity is further manipulated by the interest and function of postmodern media institutions like social media.
Furthermore, Foucault’s ideas sound similar to Jameson’s description of post-fordism as a system built on difference and replication “Similarly, refers to material-discursive practices, where the notion of discourse refers to an ongoing process involving the creation of meanings through knowledge/power negotiations (Foucault 1977; Foucault 1980). meaning is made possible through specific material practices (Barad 2003; Barad 2007)”. As I mentioned before, power is essential to the manipulation inherent to social media as a postmodern phenomenon, more than simply “capitalism”. The issue in the case of social media goes beyond capitalism and is seen in the power social media has to influence us to believe the dominant ideological assumptions and biases that benefit their selfish profit motives and intentions. Through the material practice of social media, we drink the kool-aid of social media’s meaning, the “knowledge” or pseudo-knowledge it provides. This phenomenon is exemplified in media companies like Prager-U, whose YouTube channel thrives on keeping an echo chamber that promotes their right-wing ideology, infamous for its misinformation, an echo chamber too afraid to go beyond the intellectual prison Prager-U has trapped them in because they do not want to challenge their ideological biases or misinformation. They become emotionally invested in their beliefs, making them more delusional and less likely to open up to challenging perspectives.
Moreover, many Prager-U fans are then made irate when anyone wants to challenge their pseudo-information because they are more attached to the ideological mystification their platform pretends to be “facts” than the truth itself – another example of hyperreality and post-truth in our postmodern condition. This kind of deception represents the inherent mystification of truth and identity in social media. The technological apparatus inherits the dominant ideology which in turn functions as a tool for manipulation and propaganda on behalf of Prager U. When we are incapable of facing the truth of who we are, or the reality of certain historical events like American slavery, we are not able to be honest with our selves and make decisions honestly. Honest self-awareness and self-knowledge are essential to achieving Eudaimonia and Self-actualization (Maslow, 1941).
Furthermore, the theory of “front/backstage” is used to explain the difference between our public life, or in this case what is posted on social media (front stage), and our private life, or the life we do not post about (backstage) “Common to most HCI studies is Goffman’s theory of front/backstage. While the former (front stage) is seen as the “online behavior” – the cyberperformers (Robinson 2007), the latter relates to “what people do but do not post” (Farquhar 2012; Hewitt and Forte 2006; Kaplan and Haenlein 2010; Krämer and Winter 2008).” Moreover, the study provides a theory regarding “agential cuts” in the mystifying experience of social media, which shows that the use of social media results in a lack of agency due to the performative nature of these platforms. Furthermore, “people post less because they are taken too much seriously, avoid being sarcastic once they understand how easily they can be misunderstood, or break into different social media platforms to enact specific identities, as particular affordances or meanings of other platforms seem to be more supportive of their actions (Robinson, 2007).” The study concluded that many people have performative experiences on social media, and they admit that their usage of social media reshapes their self-esteem and behavior. This research shows that our experiences on social media alter our authentic sense of self. We are more likely to perform in a way that perpetuates the power structure of dominant late capitalism behind these postmodern media institutions. This performative behavior can include changing facial expression to look more attractive in a selfie or acting in a way, such as performing a popular dance, because they know it will get more approval and likes. In turn, this loop of validation destroys our agency. We perform on social media to get validation, and the system thrives on our increased engagement and validation, so the intention behind these systems is to get us acting in a way that will fulfill this agenda.
Therefore, when we engage with social media, we are inspired to act in a way that makes us average and the most validated and liked person. In turn, this kind of zombie-hoard conformity takes away our capabilities of independent thought, unique creative expression, or agency in general. This loss of agency and independent thought is seen in the echo chamber culture generated by Postmodern media companies like Prager-U. We live in an age of fear, too afraid to stand out and fulfill our ultimate eudaimonious creative potential just to be disliked because the interest of these late-capitalist institutions is to keep us in line and mediocre; to hinder our creative brilliance and capabilities of independence thought in favor of their hyperreal culture that benefits their selfish profit motives. Furthermore, whatever ideology benefits the capitalist interest of the social media companies to maximize their profits and control the populace as a cog in their selfish machine is more likely to spread on these platforms and go viral.
This kind of ideology is exemplified by Youtubers such as Mr. Beast, one of the biggest on the platform, who partly became famous because he spends outrageous amounts of money in his videos, like buying families as much stuff as they can grab within 30 seconds at a Best Buy, which he knows will get him more views and ad revenue to make more money and repeat the cycle all over again. Moreover, when our self-esteem is disrupted by the issues of these platforms, our ability to achieve self-actualization is hindered because esteem needs are beneath self-actualization needs in Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1941). While these platforms do not inherently make people miserable, the forces and ideology that generate their successful function do disrupt our sense of self-esteem which is directly related to our ability to emotionally self-regulate and achieve estatic and eudaimonious self-actualization.
In our postmodern age, social media perpetuates a sense of inauthenticity. When the performative nature of our identity is shaped by the hyperreal self-consciousness of social media culture, our true selves, our true talents, and genuine needs to be the best version of ourselves out of fear of being judged online are repressed. We perform for the likes and validation we think our online self would get which turns our sense of self into a hyperreal spectacle. A spectacle in which we have no means of understanding the difference between the truth of who we are and our online presence. As we interact with social media and other postmodern spaces, we slowly start to identify more and more with the perception of ourselves as a spectacle “front stage” identity rather than our genuine “backstage” identity, or how we act on social media regardless of others’ validation online. In turn, the front stage identity increasingly becomes our understanding of reality until we cannot understand the difference anymore – hyperreality. For example, we might decide not to pick up painting because we are afraid we will not be good enough to get people to like us on Instagram, or we might decide not to say something out of fear of becoming a meme.
Of course, this phenomenon of self-consciousness and fear of being judged has been around as long as bullying and meanness have been around. However, social media exacerbates this self-consciousness as we increasingly conform more and more to the trends that get the most likes and validation, and we perform for the validation of those trends and general social manipulation, which is more likely to make us miserable than joyful. These forces of judgment engrain themselves in our subconscious as social media, and other media institutions, become the center of our understanding of reality and ourselves; the center of our decision-making and behavior. This phenomenon happens because we are social creatures, and social media is based on the inherent power structure inherent to its selfish late-capitalist core. As we associate social media following and validation with increased power, we become increasingly addicted to the power that increased validation creates. Such validation creates conformity which hinders our ability to actualize our unique and creative potential.
Therefore, such a power-obsessed culture thrives on narcissism and a kind of arrogance. The arrogance that does not realize what is most validated is not necessarily the most brilliant or useful. This narcissism and struggle with authenticity in the form of this insidious performative nature of identity exacerbated by social media hinders our ability to achieve eudaimonia and self-actualization. We all need validation to feel normal and like we are successful animals, but these manipulative forces toy with this instinct and our primordial insecurities and fears to benefit their power and profit motives.
This phenomenon can also be seen in television, which can be thought of as a kind of precursor to the hyperreal nature of social media. Jameson touches on the idea of the postmodern condition being defined by “new forms of media interrelationship” which is defined as “The media constitutes one of the more influential new products of late capitalism (print, internet, television, film) and a new means for the capitalist take-over of our lives. Through the mediatization of culture, we become increasingly reliant on the media’s version of our reality, a version of reality that is filled predominantly with capitalist values. (Dino, 2011)” Our understanding of self and reality is based on the media we engage with in the postmodern condition. The increasingly capitalist nature of our media spectacles can be seen in our relationship to T.V. commercials. With commercials, we assume the capitalist logic they are feeding us, the agendas of the companies behind the commercials which increasingly becomes our basis for understanding our reality because we are taught to assume these capitalist values are essential to our experience, their dominance should be worshipped as they are central to our decision making. David Foster Wallace (1997) makes similar observations in his essay E Unibus Pluram.
In his essay, he acknowledges the nature of television as something that perpetuates a culture of self-consciousness. This self-consciousness emerges from what he classifies as a statistic that claims the average American watches T.V. for 6 hours a day. Moreover, our understanding of reality is based on the acting within the realities of television. To Wallace, television holds a kind of omnipresent power over our actions as we gauge our behavior based on how it will be perceived when we are on television. As he describes it “The most significant feature of human worth is watchable-ness” in our postmodern age (Wallace, 1997). When we assume the behavior we see on television is the normal way humans act, we compare ourselves to these T.V. personalities and think our real-life “backstage” behavior should be like these T.V. stars if we want to feel normal. We assume we should be like these T.V. stars because they have been successful within the dominant capitalist logic of our Postmodern Condition, successful in achieving the values we hold to be central to our reality and decision-making. Anything other than how a T.V. character would act would be seen as weird and “not fit for T.V.”, something to be judged as a failure and ostracized from the inner circle of the dominant ideology. Therefore, we repress these deeper more genuine parts of ourselves, the more creative parts of ourselves, out of fear of being judged by the audience and T.V. relationship central to our understanding of reality.
Of course, the argument here might seem unnecessarily obstinate and redundant, even Wallace seems to imply we can escape the hyperreality of postmodern media, given the power struggle our age of self-consciousness is based on, which implies we can somehow be free from our self-consciousness. As he puts it, we admire and worship those who can at least act like they are above and free from self-consciousness and any fear of being judged.
However, the nature of our spectacle culture is hyperreal and inescapable, a kind of vortex we can only resist the influence of at best. Similar to Guy Debord’s argument in “Society of The Spectacle”, once we become seduced by the spectacle, the spectacle becomes the center of our experience and what we compare our actions to, the spectacle becomes our reality and our understanding of reality. Debord states, “Everything has become a representation” (Debord, 1967).
Given that our media institutions are formulated by the representation of our “real world” experience in the form of spectacle, and these institutions are prodigious in their influence on our behavior and understanding of reality, we naturally compete and compare our authentic self to the spectacle self, or what the spectacle self could be. At the very least, it seems reasonable to believe that once the spectacle has become such an influential force in our experience and understanding of reality, we will base our understanding of self and the actions we choose on these centers of experience. As an example, people perform plastic surgery to fit into the values of our spectacle society, as objects to be watched and glamorized more so than an agents of independent thought and free will. This hyperreality is not necessarily bad, but if the ideological forces generating it are corrupt and manipulative, the vortex is best disillusioned and reformed towards a more positive and equal ideology, such as prioritizing eudaimonia and self-actualization.
Conclusion
To conclude, the problems of this hyperreal nature of self are primarily problematic because of traditional values like what is seen in the dominant ideological power of globalized late capitalism and the power struggles this system perpetuates. In the case of social media, particularly when the self becomes a commodity, our creative potential is hindered, much like capitalism hinders the potential of art. Our esteem needs are disrupted by the hyperreal, which hinders our self-actualization needs (Maslow, 1941). Our security needs are disrupted by late-capitalist problems like income and wealth inequality which hinder our ability to achieve self-actualization (Maslow, 1941). When profit becomes our utmost priority, and the self becomes a commodity, in the case of influencers as the most straightforward example, the positive creative potential of our personalities becomes just another pastiche, just another shallow and superficial hyperproductive replication.
Our self becomes just another gimmick, another cheap, cute, and trendy knick-knack to be bought and sold infinite times on Amazon. Of course, when human personality becomes a shallow spectacle, in the case of social media or television, the depth of human creativity comes tumbling down along with it, making our decisions based on self-consciousness and fear of being judged which disrupts our esteem needs. At best, we can resist and reform this hyperreal and provoke our enlightened and eudaimonious potential, at worst we are stuck in the irrevocable scar tissue of capitalist manipulation, forever lost in a game of compare and competition with our spectacle culture. More than likely, our postmodern condition lies in the grey area for most of us, and it is wise to be hopeful we can live deeper, more fulfilling lives of eudaimonia and positive enlightened potential even if we are trapped in hyperreality for good, reforming the ideological foundation of the manipulative forces that control our world. While we might not be able to escape hyperreality, we can at least learn to get our priorities straight.
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