Is modern life too artificial?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ค. 2024
- A look at the simulacrum theory of Jean Baudrillard. This video was brought to you by Wondrium. Sign up for your FREE trial here: ow.ly/xnMc30scebT
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I thought about simalcra without knowing the word for it when the starbucks I was working at had a poster advertising a snowman cookie. And I was thought how absurd I was looking at a simulation of a simulation of a simulation of a simulation of a man
Poster>Snowman cookie>snowman>man. What layer am I missing?
@@vechzdavion Photo of cookie > poster > cookie > snowman > man
@@amandahammond2691 But there is no photo of a cookie, there is the poster of the cookie. You're adding a layer which doesn't exist.
@@dannyhightower911 I’m not the one who claimed there was five layers, I was just hazarding a guess 🤷🏼♀️ Take it up with andie if you want somebody to bitch at lol
@@amandahammond2691 Lol chill I wasn't criticizing you I was just trying to figure it out myself. You're cool Amanda don't worry about it.
I appreciate that JJ made a joke about having a wife and within 45 seconds his fictional marriage fell apart, that was quite funny to me
I realize the joke is not for everyone but it’s just a simulation.
at first I almost didn't think twice about it, and then after a few seconds I was like "hold up, hasn't he mentioned on multiple occasions that he was homosexual?"
"Me and my um...wife." 😄
@@JJMcCullough can I pet you
@@FairyCRat She's his beard.
Or it's some weird polyamorous love triangle.
Waluigi is in a way a good example of this.
Mario is an Italian plumber wearing red and blue who saves a princess from an evil lizard. Pretty simple, stock hero, working man, good guy.
Than luigi, who is basically mario, but different enough to be distinguished, green and lean, sometime more naive, but hes still attached to mario. You can go to a costume party as mario alone, you can go together with a friend or partner dressed as mario and luigi, but you cant be luigi alone.
Than you have wario, the inversion of mario, where mario is good, wario is evil, one wears red, the other yellow, one is a hardworking plumber and a hero, the other is a greedy thief
Than comes waluigi who has no real connection to mario whatsoever
Mario is an even more conceptually simple character if you go back far enough. He was originally just supposed to be a generic human man fighting a King Kong expy.
Waluigi was just the evil version of Luigi made specifically for Mario party/mario sports games
Waluigi is so much a simulacra he never appears in his own games, merely as just another option in party games and sports games. He’s not even real enough to be in Smash Bros.
@@JJMcCullough And before that, he was the landlord for a warehouse in Seattle that this video game company called Nintendo was renting.
@@tomifost that’s just where the name came from, he wasn’t based on him
Only JJ is depraved enough to say “hyperreality is good actually” Disgusting!!
Young man yells at cloud
hyperreality is just centrism personified
Yeah thats such a centrist idea!!!
When I was a kid I had a mental crisis for a week over the fact that our modern lives are given a fleeting sense of meaning through our consumption of stories, instead of us trying to live through our own most exciting lives.
we cannot have a life of adventure in the modern world, only a simlation with games :/
@@nathan_408 depends on your imagination, if you like to explore outdoors, and the people your with.
@@nathan_408 I know someone who idolizes Bruce Lee and prefers a nomadic lifestyle with no home and no possessions. I think he is trying to chase that movie-esque adventuring existence.
@@nathan_408 no you can definitely still have some fun
@@njf11- Most of them are simulated even in the real world, if you could give me an example I would appreciate it.
I like how whenever people say “real” they almost always mean “natural.” As if Oreos aren’t also a physical object. They are real. And the claim that human-made, capitalist concepts and materials hold no “meaning,” is very arbitrary and subjective. Oreos have meaning to me, because they were my grandma’s favorite. Star Wars has meaning to me, because that’s how I bonded with my dad. And Coke-Cola has meaning to me, because I like it.
There is no objective “meaning.” Things have meaning because we assign meaning to them. And we can assign meaning to anything, and it is, and ought to be, different for everyone.
Great video as always JJ!
It's just another stage in the evolution of the Universe. How it went from cosmological to physical to planetary to chemical to biological to cultural to technological. Everything is an emergent property of the underlying, more basic state.
really nice take on the topic, didn't think about the whole "meaning" problem. to add to it, Minecraft has a lot of meaning to me cuz it's what i grew up with and were i have a lot of memories with friends lol.
What I notice is that wrapped in these conversations about the implicit value and realness of an object is a pretty cynical critique of the industrial age and industrial manufacturing. Like you said, Oreos are a very real thing, but they are seemingly regarded as less real or less important because they were created through a capitalist system and industrial production. But, if we criticize industrial production as unnatural, shouldn't we criticize all products of human creation? It's pretty arbitrary. Were the ancients abstracting wheat when they baked bread? Are houses an abstraction of the caves we used to live in? It can become a pretty absurd and pointless exercise to look at things this way, honestly.
But I don’t think humans are really evolved to drink poison, I have to stop drinking so much cheer wine :(
@edaurien my exact thought lmao. Like he’s not really wrong but bro gave the worst example with Oreos and cocoa cola
I love JJ because he doesn't want to burn down modern civilization
Stage 1: a book on post-modernist theory
Stage 2: a simple step by step guide on how concepts and objects lose meaning and become hyper real
Stage 3: using the 4 step guide as a meme template
Stage 4: a video about a meme template
Too meta???
My head hurts
a comment on a video about a meme of a guide from a book about a theory attempting to describe reality. woah.
The padawan has become the jedi.
@@JJMcCullough your head hurts because you tried to wrap your brain around post modernist thought.
@@n_crowe a reply(me) to a reply(you) to a comment on a video about a meme of a guide from a book about a theory attempting to describe reality.
If your head hurt before, it's gonna fucking explode now
I’ve noticed a general disconnection between myself and the world, and it always centers around my phone or computer. I never feel that way when I’m in nature or with friends, but when I’m “connected” everything feels fake and, ironically, the opposite of actually being connected. I think simalcra is on of the branches of how we have invented a second world for ourselves to live in outside of each other and the world as it naturally exists
I agree. It's like we're quickly approaching a singularity of simulacra.
Exactly. And we never wonder why most of us feel depressed or lonely...
1)Vaquero culture in northern mexico
2)American cowboy culture in the late 1800's
3)Spaguetti western movies
4)Child cowboy clothes
5)Woody from Toy Story
0)Spanish horse culture
I think y’all are confusing influences with simulation
@@micahwright5901 the first two yeah, but the rest are a progression
I feel like the fundamental flaw of Baudrillard's work - and of a lot of modern philosophy in general - is the refusal to acknowledge the past when describing the failures of modernity. Is modern Culture War stuff any further outside of the "normal" role of politicians than gunfire duels? Is Homer any more of an abstraction than Beowulf? If anything modernity has shed A TON of weird abstractions that persisted because of cultural tradition - foot-binding, dowrys, and the term Emperor are all extreme abstractions that are now no longer with us.
Philosophers by definition do an examination of history because they work off the entire history and tradition of philosophy.
If you have questions, read the book. They’re answered there
My thoughts exactly. I don't like the way the world works. I also don't think that it was ever better, at least in a general sense, at any point in history.
I agree. For all this philosophy, it comes off as a extremely conservative fear of change and evolution.
@@cinderheart2720 literally read the first few pages of the book and see Baudrillard’s critique of conservative ideologies
This is a coherent point. I still take issue with modern life and our inability to be honest, but it's good to have examples of progress to point towards.
i feel that a lot of contemporary meme culture *could* be described as a collection of hyperreälisations in and of itself
for example, when sabrina of answer in progress made some deep fried "counterfeit memes" a few months ago, they were (or at least were about to be) pure simulacra of cultural objects and concepts i knew being so detached from their original context that i can't help but momentarily exhale out of my nose
First time I’ve seen a trema over the a in real.
Here is 1 for Nintendo
1: They made Hamofugshi playing cards and stayed like that
2: They partnered with Disney to make cards with Mickey and friends on them in the 60's, cards but with Disney
3: They made Pokemon cards, still cards but lost what they were
4: An ingame card, its not a real card anymore
Yes
I find it interesting how hyperrealism is so inextricably linked to modern life. Of course, modern technologies and industrial processes have made simulacra omnipresent and perhaps easier to recognize and create, and Baudrillard himself formulated his theory fairly recently, but it is not like ancient civilizations didn't already carve wooden figures to represent humans or more abstract things such as spirituality and emotions. You can lament the fact that hyperrealism is becoming more and more ubiquitous due to technology such as AI and VR, but simulacra have always been a part of human society and there's no reason to become a nihilist over that.
Great video!
What would ancient simulacra be like, given they did not have the ability to form worlds at will with computers?
@@iantaakalla8180 Cave drawings, carved figures/statues from various materials, nazca lines, masks, perhaps even hieroglyphs? Zoomorphism was really common as well, not just in art but also in objects meant for daily use.
As a fashion designer, I think the fashion industry is built on various stages of this denaturing of reality.
Stage one is functional garments, often military in origin.
Stage two is sartorial interpretations and adaptations of functional garments (e.g. suits, jeans) which incorporate symbols of function (lapel buttonhole, rivets on jeans).
Stage three could be avant-garde fashion which de- and reconstructs the signifiers of traditional clothes in search of new forms/“self expression”.
Stage four could either be digital fashion, or high street fashion which rips off high end designers. Both of these forms lack the original function, the sartorial refinement and the artistic reinvention of the previous stages. They are purely created as a sign of the concept of fashionability.
stage 4 includes 90% of NFTs
Lapels used to be real, and could be closed-up entirely. Now they are only aesthetic but somehow necessary for a suit to work as a suit. Then there’s the t-shirt printed as a tuxedo, lapels and all.
Well, jeans were originally "Stage 1" workwear for miners.
@@rhebucks_zh
I’d argue NFTs are Stage 5
FAKE POCKETS
I feel this, but in a different way. I feel like we live in a life style our body didn't evolved to live in. There is no more silence 'cuz the huge numbers of cars. So stress and people being overwhelmed is super common. We eat too much industrialized "food" and don't exercise a lot. Most people spend basically all day inside and not only don't interact with people, but neither nature.
Everything is just so far from what our bodies evolved to be, and I think this makes us unconsciously uncomfortable. At least that's how I feel.
That's why we try to find these simulacra to feel closer to what we need to be in, like artificial food pretending to taste like fruit.
I do feel the modern life is indeed too artificial.
Most people don't even see the stars at night anymore.
Move out of the big cities, you don't need to live out in no man's land, but a smaller city or town is so much better for you mentally in my experience
@DarkLordOfSweden Not everyone can do that, in fact 90% of people can't, else small towns become, well, cities. So this is sadly not a solution.
@@DarkLordOfSweden Yea depends on so many factors. Especially when it comes to one's occupation. Cities have more jobs unfortunately and certain people have to move to them.
@@cortster12 while this is not what I am saying we should do (or that it is realistic) but most countries do in fact have enough space to spread out its population to such a extent that there would be no big cities, but again, that never going to happen
I think you definitely missed out in the meta of the meta here: Baudrillard’s ideas themselves have begun going down the path of abstraction in the form of memes. Memes are often actual ideas that have been simplified so that they are more easily consumable to the masses-even if the ideas themselves become distorted or factually wrong along the way. See: CGPGrey’s “This Video Will Make You Angry”
I constantly walk around and am enamored my everyday modern day life. Like the fact that I’m walking on a sidewalk, with shoes wearing socks. Or when I walk in a building and see that it’s lit with lights. It’s crazy to think that something like a plastic cup or a pill bottle would have been an insane achievement back in the day and the fact that we take it for granted
Your depiction of modern politics as being hyperreal reminded me of a video I saw on twitter, from the user “Libs of TikTok”, of a girl being rude to her school teacher.
Even after watching it, I kept on wondering on how a girl being mean to her school teacher was, in any way, indicative of leftism, liberalism, or even politics at all.
Yeah, that's been the trend for a long time now with what I'd call the politics adjacent "cringe" channels, it's been this way for probably as long as they've existed
they'll take something that looks bad (or something that actually isn't bad when you listen to the details but that they can twist to make look bad) and has little context about the thing they are blaming it on if any relation at all, and put it up with some title blaming it on that, and then just let that pretense go to work on the viewers, no need for any actual reason to hate it just a bit of social trickery can do all the work
these channels usually get seen by people who don't actually know much about what they're hating, it's much easier to rile people up against an imaginary threat if they don't know enough about it to know the threat is imaginary, and unfortunately they are quite successful, they've ruined peoples lives by turning them into an objectification of an imaginary threat, and they've made the lives of many many more much worse
Personally, my general rule is to avoid anything that says words like "cringe" "sjw" or "libs" like the plague, they are never worth it, they're always just hatefests against words that have long lost any meaning
At best it has relation to the thing but is in the middle of an awkward moment (such as someone having lost their temper) and is missing a lot of context and is spun as a bad thing even if it was justified in context (or is something taken entirely out of context to make it look worse than it really is)
At worst it's something that has nothing at all to do with the thing, and is just being blamed on the thing to attach an imaginary threat to it to rile people up against it, because they want people to hate the thing even if there is no reason to hate it
@@dustinm2717 Leftist channels are just as worse
This was definitely one of the best TH-cam videos I've ever watched. The way you balanced the explanation postmodern philosophy's value while adding nuance in contrast to it was extremely compelling. Keep up the good work, and every person that watches this video is lucky to have witnessed your unfiltered and well-thought perspective.
You are too kind my friend
also for a hyperrealist progression:
1. vaquero traditions in northern Mexico
2. late 1800s Texas Cowboy culture
3. cowboy characters in movies
4. the Dallas Cowboys
5. Dallas Cowboys star logo
The nuance being “capitalism good”
Funnily enough, Baudrillard argued that class struggle was no longer the dominant conflict of the 20-21 centuries
@@danielrutstein2316 also cowboy movies started with Italians imagining how the Wild West was in the 1800s and creating this movie genre. They became so popular in Italy that Hollywood used their version of Wild West in movies to their own productions
@@andrurosales5750 Yeah, it's disingenuous to imply that postmodern philosophy doesn't have nuance. It wasn't until the last 15 years or so that the culture wars zeroed in on postmodern philosophers as the "culprits" behind "cultural marxism"
There are stacks upon stacks of academic papers that add plenty of nuance. Just because a right-winger (no offense to JJ) comes along and actually engages with the ideas rather than dismiss them as leftist propaganda doesn't mean that they lacked nuance
This guys hair game (and videos) are always on point.
Yeah I'm jealous, no matter his hair style he looks good in it
JJ's hair is bouncier than he is.
I actually thought my hair looked terrible in this video so thank you
@@JJMcCullough I also thought the hair looked great today. (and the video) lol
Stage one: the roman senators use tunics to represent their status in the republic as representatives.
Stage two: statues of senators use the tunic.
Stage three: Despite being all but emperor, Julius Cesar still uses the tunic despite the republic being exentialy ruled directly by him.
Stage four: succesive emperors use the tunic despite the republic being long dead when their rule started.
I have one:
Stage One: Ancient Roman architecture
Stage Two: Byzantium constructed church
Stage Three: Ottoman architecture designs based off of converted church
Stage Four: Mosque built in Sydney based of off Turkish architecture(Yet not really representing traditional Islam/ancient Turkish culture).
I am not sure If I did this right but I find it funny how contemporary Turkish style mosque designs actually represent 2000 years of evolution and is based upon anction Roman/Byzantium church designs. Perhaps, this is more cultural appropriation.
Stage one: Functional Archaic Greek Temples made of wood
Stage two: An Ancient Greek temple made of marble that is representation of the original wooden temple. The Romans start copying them and
Stage three: Europeans start admiring the ancient Roman temples and build new ones in a similar style in the renaissance, albeit without color that has detoriated due to time passing, in order for them to look as ancient as them.
Stage four: Using the Roman temple as a symbols and icons for academic learning, jurisdiction etc. due to long standing associations with those thing in European society
@@tj-co9go Nice, that is probably a better example.
What about college toga parties?
The entire segment with JJ creating a fake wife, pasting his face over stock photos, and ultimately culminating in his own fictional wife fearing him over the course of 40 seconds was brilliant and I rewatched it at least 5 times now just to feel alive again
I think certain stories in history get “hyper-realed” to where the meaning today is totally removed from the actual event. Like Pompeii or the Titanic. World War 2 takes up TOO MUCH dialogue space in history discourse and the hyperreal discussions about WW2 show this.
Philip K. Dick’s “Man in the high castle” and other alternative histories are just a simulacra of actual historical events.
I definitely feel like WW2 is crossing into a hyperreal phase… as no one with living memory of the war survives, all this alternative fiction stuff and ironic Hitler memes etc fill the memory void.
@@JJMcCullough Absolutely, you can especially see this in the current russo-ukrainian war.
@@JJMcCullough I have friends who are into a grand strategy game called Hearts of Iron IV, which is set in the years leading up to and during WWII.
What makes this game and its series unique is that you can take countries in many different directions, from making America into a democratic socialist state to reinstating the monarchy in Germany to turning Australia into an expansionist, fascist state.
To me, this is all incredibly ridiculous and almost frightening when you see what the modding community does for alternative history routes. WWII has become another fantasy playground.
@@knightshade2654 I think it will ultimately go the route of the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon is now entirely this hyperreal pop culture character we understand simply as a kind of cartoon dictator. He doesn’t really mean much these days except this.
I remember hearing that the Titanic never hit an iceberg, and that it was a boiler thing.
I was a big fan of Baudrillard when I was in college. He fleshes out the concept of hyper reality more in later books like The Transparency of Evil as essentially semantic degradation, where meaning enters into a “radiant” stage where it (symbols and the meaning they leverage) is reproduced via industrial processes without sense, merit, or even agenda. I always felt like he was at his strongest when talking about the social decay of meaning, memes are an absolutely fantastic example of this stage.
It’s pretty crazy that we’ve come to expect that public figures make statements on social media about any sort of random noteworthy fact, even if that fact has nothing to do with what made the person famous in the first place. Imagine being a famous actor or musician and not putting out a statement lamenting the war in Ukraine for example.
JJ… please don’t stop your cultural analyses. Very few youtubers capture the aesthetic of the age as well as you do.
Thank you so much!
This ties in well to your video about anachronisms. Those highly artificial products are marketed in reference to things that exist beforehand as a crutch for people I suppose. Very few would be appealed by products sold as the actual artificial entities they are.
It’s true, the middle stages are often as much about marketing as anything. Steve Jobs worried people wouldn’t want to use a notepad app unless it had lines like note paper. 20 years later no one cares.
Loved the video, I’m currently very sick with COVID and your videos have been keeping me entertained and some what distracted from the sickness
Jesus Christ I had Covid the same day this video came out
When I started my Media Studies A Level, one of the first exercises we did was look at a picture of a fish, with the question being “what is this?” Naturally most people just said “A Fish”, but the point of the exercise was to recognise there was this mediated element. It’s a photo/representation of a specific species of fish. We weren’t discussing postmodernism at that point, but I think it helps show that post-modernist concepts can help to dissect narratives and changes over time.
Particularly even in the way we approach photos now. Often the photo itself becomes the medium of discussion, and the medium it was taken on (film/digital or even camera phones) gets forgotten in the process. We don’t refer to a photo taken on an iPhone (for instance) as an “iPhone picture” or even a “digital” picture, it’s just a picture… It’s kinda like when Polaroid pictures became “Polaroids”, and there was a universal understanding of what that meant.
Tangent aside, as a Left Winger, I do have some level of appreciation for post-modernism, but ultimately it does become quite a bleak way to gage reality, and itself doesn’t really try to see some material solutions for some genuine issues. Like, at least Marx went on length in discussing the advantages that capitalism brought with it… I remember some of that period in A Level Media Studies being a bit bleak, because writers like Baudrillard don’t acknowledge some of this complexity - that newer simplified meanings don’t necessarily replace the old, or aren’t even inherently dumber/more abstract per se.
I really appreciate you looking at stuff like this through a less "doom and gloom" lens. It's easy to takes these concepts and devalue them into some nihlistic video about how awful our current world is to get a bunch of views but you really approached this reasonably and with a refreshing sense of optimism!
I find it interesting how McCullough in his example for the love uses the word "wife" instead of "husband" even though he is gay. I think he did this because heterosexual love is the easiest and quickest conception of love that we hold in our minds to make his example easier to understand. I do like how you can see how uncomfortable he is saying this because it's technically a lie. But a small one that doesn't matter. Because it's used to explain an abstract concept.
I also wanted to tell a short story where the marriage is breaking down, hence why the couple has to use increasingly artificial replacements for love.
@@JJMcCullough you are gay?
JJ McCullough Herero Angst AU
@@RamanShrikant he is
I mean. I think he did it cuz it's funny lol, most of his viewers know he's gay.
I always look forward to JJ uploads on Saturday!
That theory is ridiculously pretentious. I like JJ’s conclusion that while culture always has obnoxious parts, culture also enriches the world.
Abstracting things and making new things is how humans work. The products are super manufactured and capitalist, yeah, but they’re only meaningless if you ignore all the context that led up to them.
I think this also plays a bit into the video JJ shared about hyper-irony and symbols getting overused and simplified until they can mean anything, but not everything symbolic is worthless.
Part of the problem is that it’s very difficult to objectively state when things are “real” and when they start sliding down the simulation slope into hyperreality. Someone in another comment mentioned cheese… like is cheese “real” or is cheese just a simulation of milk? Are we defining “real” as just anything in its absolutely most primitive state? Because otherwise things get pretty fuzzy.
I think it's not only pretentions, but also dangerously close to the hatred for complexity, the abstract and the "unnatural" that is typical for the far-right.
Other than that, I agree that JJs opinion is really refreshing.
@@JJMcCullough I would presume “real” is completely subjective to the individual and the term hyperreality being farcical because some might see cheese as a product of milk while others might see cheese in it’s own realness with its own version of hyperreality.
@@JJMcCullough I would consider something hyperreal when it's based in an 'alternate world'. That's why I think the Facebook heart emoji was a really good example, because it has no real world impact and is only an imitation of something in the real world, that is if you carry the view that the internet is almost an 'alternate reality'. Same with sci-fi movies, NFT art, and the concept of a thumbs up on a video.
true, but abstracting for the sake of abstraction often leads to confusion and uselessness though, especially if there's no thought provoking or artistic value to be gained or realized. for example, financial instruments and investments are at a point where the 'real' product (like getting a home loan) get abstracted into bundles of loans to be sold and traded, which in turn get abstracted into the value of holding the bundles themselves, which can also be traded and transacted and given value. but what utility does that abstraction of an abstraction really give? no one involved in that initial layer (the loaner and the borrower) really gets any sort of benefit or even knowledge of anything that follows. Especially when the valuation of that highly abstracted thing goes down and takes the value of the 'real' thing with it, what's the point of it?
whereas somebody like piet mondrian or picasso's vision of the abstract make people think about the various ways to think and hold the world and our ideas, and further broadens a person's ability to think and comprehend and reason and feel.
I like your ' *actually award winning ' disclaimer in the sponsor ad. It fits in nicely on your award winning* channel
*award deserving
I got one:
1. milk (directly from a cow)
2. Curds and whey (a direct result of using rennet on milk)
3. Cheese (the result of aging the curds with the whey removed)
4. Cheetos (it has powdered cheese but is mostly corn puffs)
5. Hot Cheetos (no cheese flavor but corn puffs with spice)
@@DefinitelyNotADog.
So where would cooked hot Cheetos topped with cheese go?
I can do better.
1. Cold bloodedness.
2. Warm bloodedness
3. Sweet glands.
4. Mammary glands(where milk comes from.)
This whole idea is really just pointing to an arbitrary point in evolution and calling anything that gose beyond a certain point unnatural. Milk is just as hyperreal as Cheetos.
I never really thought about this before, but you're incredibly intelligent. The way you walk through an argument seems simple at first glance, but in reality you're often guiding us through quite a complex idea like it's nothing. Please keep making videos for as long as you can
Absolutely fantastic. Postmodern theory is indeed often an unintelligible headache, and you do an excellent job of breaking down complex concepts here.
This has to be one of your finest videos.
Hyperrealism, as we are calling in in our contemporary world, has always been part of the human experience and integral to culture.
Stage 1: JJ with the mustache
Stage 2: JJ with the colored hair
Stage 3: JJ with the long hair
Stage 4: JJ making videos about simulacra
Always look forward to the JJ posts
I've really loved the videos you've been putting out recently. You're dealing with bigger and more complex topics, and I think in a very approachable, accessible way.
J.J. should do a video on how his videos go from idea to fully complete video. As someone constantly writing myself I admire his ability to churn out distinct and unique quality videos every Saturday and would love to see the process, both monthly and weekly.
Another fantastic cultural analysis video from JJ! It is refreshing to hear a genuine argument in support (or at least defense) of modern consumerism, rather than the standard “late-stage” diction that is commonplace in online discussion. I think capitalist cultural artifacts/institutions can still provide beneficial meaning to peoples lives, even if it is completely abstracted from its original purpose.
are you implying Cheetos is giving my life meaning
I disagree with JJ’s argument, but it was still refreshing seeing him go over and examine the concept for his audience
Literally what meaning do we get from buying manufactured objects and ideologies
Pure manipulation and the elimination of free thinking
@@PunishedFelix what do you disagree with?
@@JJMcCullough Think of a game of telephone. We have a lot of potential possibilities at the end. but do they produce good value? This is the basic problem with treating this kind of production as equally valuable. I think Baudrillard was concerned with how to deal with this problem, and maybe we should be too.
Another theorist, Félix Guattari, points out that these mutations do actually have certain kinds of productive value. Instead of dissolving things into meaningless particles, they can reassemble themselves into new possibilities. But these new "machines" as he called them aren't necessarily improving our lives either. For example, TikTok exposes people to a simulated world that is so full of lies that it offers next to no value to individuals whatsoever outside of some entertainment. It's rather designed to encourage interaction as much as possible. Additionally, the advertising and culture surrounding TikTok is flattened and optimizes not our cultural interactions but rather our relationship with the brand. This can be seen with many things, ranging from cheetos to fortnite to TH-cam even. In a way, all these products are a game of telephone that is transforming fundamentally how we interact with every aspect of our lives - in ways we have little awareness or control.
I think a big problem with post modernism is that these new simulated things do actually carry value instead of just simply being alienated and meaningless. But when we assume it's good simply because it gives us options to consume (which is debatable in itself) we don't actually understand what that value is doing. Anyone with a basic understanding of economics understands value doesn't simply imply "good" - it's a quantity that represents the real possibility of something.
So what is the nature of the value of these developments?
Bro JJ watches emplemon
He is a man of culture just like us
No, really: to anybody who hasn't watched EmpLemon: please do. The guy does cultural analysis on topics that are more on the periphery. The motherfucker even convinced me that Nascar is kind of cool in its way which I never in a million years would've believed that I'd admit.
I'm sure you're very tired of discussing Canadian politics, but I'd love to hear your take on the big thing that happened in that realm this week. In a minute long short, perhaps.
!!!!^
What happened?
Look at his twitter, he has plenty of thoughts on it there
@@evandaignault idk maybe he's talking about the agreement between NDP and liberals?
@@evandaignault NDP and Liberal party made a deal with each other.
Szechuan sauce, is a meme condiment based on a reference in Rick and Morty to a promotion for the movie Mulan by Mcdonalds, based on an ancient sauce derived from ingredients no longer present in the finished modern product, its still food though. That is what this video made me think of.
J.J.'s relationship with Dr. Pepper toward the end was more chaotic than the one he had with his hyperreal wife.
wow, this video really got me thinking. nice!
8:40 the inclusion of Homer as a comedic character in this perspective reminds me of Jreg's video on irony, especially how meta-irony is rooted in the obscurity of any "actual" truth or reality.
JJ, this video was excellent. Truly one of your best. I sense a dramatic shift in your content. Growing into the confidence of a powerful, much-beloved internet personality, you grow into the confidence necessary to tackle deeper and grander topics. I only hope your channel grows and that you continue to discover and discuss the most important phenomena of life.
The part about all of this which gets me the most is that when trying to move backwards and deconstruct something that has become hyper-realistic, it can be really hard to determine what is the “natural” or “original”. I feel like the idea that everything is somehow an iteration of something else applies, and therefore hyper realistic things (good or bad) are inherently creative
This channel might be my favorite on TH-cam. Always positive, unique, and interesting.
0:09 - I immediately remember that entire commercial. The face of Mac Tonight is embedded in my psyche. I wonder if that can be classified as childhood trauma.
You should watch the emplemon video it’s great
never seen one of your videos before, got this recommended and i had to sub. i love this kinda deep dive stuff.
The FB pfp and the status you used in 8:00 is so good lmao. But in all seriousness, i was expecting for this video to be abstract due to how vague the video title was, but you broke it down and made it easier to understand. Another brilliant video! 10/10
"I think the act the observing and appreciating the things that define are day to day lives, including the little. Can be an important path to meaning. Which is a path to happiness."
Yeah this sounds like good words to live by. I mean theyre coming from a pretty optimistic guy so seems they work for you JJ!
Reading the comments it feels like many people realized they love philosophy. Thanks for this vid JJ, as always
I would absolutely love to see more videos about philosophy from you JJ
7:31 "My 𝐰𝐢𝐟𝐞." You dropped this king 🧢🧢
Wow JJ you started as a smart informative channel on Canada but now you’ve delved into some really fascinating topics that I personally really loved hearing about. Keep it up man! 👊
Videos like this make me realize that while I'm definitely on the left politically, I find a lot of postmodern critique to be indistinguishable from aesthetically based critiques of middle class consumerism or weird reactionary romanticism. In that respect, I'm much more of a Keynesian, wanting a system whereby middle class freedom and leisure is available to as many people as possible.
So you're basically a left wing-liberal rather than an out and out determined anti-capitalist ( or terrorist nihilist against the phoniness of modern society as the Author put it)
Weird reactionary romanticist here. I think you are absolutely right that we and postmodernists are cut from the same cloth in being uncomfortable with the modern world, but the road from there is forked. I think of them much like nihilists, I understand their complaints, but they exist only as a negative, I see no value in critics who have no ideal in turn.
Or in the case of some post modernists, their ideal is simply the status quo of the near past, which is a position, but one I certainly find lacking.
@@BasicLib Well, one would hope that even in a non-capitalist society, all the people of the world can still enjoy a high standard of living comparable to middle class leisure. Lots of leftists want to remove unjust and destructive institutions, but I don't think very many would want to sacrifice all of industrial society to accomplish it. I certainly don't want to be a subsistence farmer.
@@General12thI mean, I am open to your attempts but it is this lack of clarity on the subject from far too many leftists, including Marx and Bakunin that prevents me from being being a revolutionary anti capitalist
If you guys are able to find a whole different alternative to capitalism like the capitalist did to feudalism with liberalism that does not perpetuate authoritarianism, Then fine but as things stand it appears by far the best position is not to violently overthrow capitalism but to put in systems in place that distribute the fruits of the economy in such a manner that provides for the basics standards of living for as many People as possible
Food, Shelter, Clothing, Education, Healthcare
No need to, nor is it really possible to have the dildo factory communally owned
Or a guaranteed vacation to the Bahamas for everyone
Etc
Basically a acceptance of the existence of the wealthy as a result of private property efficiently managed but the abolition of poverty as a guarantee of a humane existence for all in society.
Such that wealth gets you nothing but a better standard of living than the average in a market economy.
And by wealthy I don’t mean Our tech Oligarchs (they shouldn’t be possible) but regular really wealthy people in a society, some of them very VERY wealthy as you can expect from the variations of relevant contribution to economics that exist within a human sample population.
I think I’ve more come to realize this too, in that I’m attracted to social democratic Nordic model policies due to the fact that they help more people be a part of the middle class.
bro your videos are addicting. very educational and i really the cadence of your speech when speaking for some reason. i love learning about these abstract postmodern concepts
The best video I've seen so far on this topic. Specifically, very well done analysis of the immaterial instances of simulacrae/hyperreality, such as love and politics. The abstraction of emotions and action are very real and very felt, intuitively, but it's hard to give these feelings a name or an explanation.
Honestly beautifully put, and really makes me think about the way I view things.
I feel the same with "memes" and "Internet humor" in general, that the further abstraction does not take away from the value, but can enrich the "cultural Item" with a unique and intricate past. There is definitely room for nuance, and there are things that just muddy the water for me, but overall I have actually seen the rampant "virality" and "mutation" of memes on platforms like tik tok to be extremely inspiring. Nothing is without its problems, but the sheer creativity and intellectual prowess on display from people so young leaves me inspired and genuinely hopeful for the next generations to come.
Regardless, I hope this contributed to the discussion in a positive fashion, and to all who read, be well my friends. o/
My life Is not artificial, it’s naturally flavored.
I appreciate the DKC sound effects you incorporate in your videos
I love it when you delve into more philosophical content! Cultural and sociological theory is so interesting!!
I think JJ and a lot of his viewers know this already because we seem to like videos about foreign cultural artifacts a lot (I know I do!) but even if you are getting all cynical about how synthetic your own culture is in some ways, looking at a foreign culture often evokes an opposite kind of response where we have fun appreciating and decoding the culture and history of something that we don't understand quite so easily. Just like you say at the end of the video, we look at a culture like that and call it "deep" or "rich." Sometimes you have to step away from what's familiar (maybe too familiar in the case of some of these examples) to gain a new appreciation for that sort of thing.
I think a good 4-stage example would be paladins.
Stage 1 would be knights who so were renowned for their martial abilities that they were direct vassals to their kings.
Stage 2 would be the Knights of the Frankish king Charlemagne who led his army against the invading Muslims.
Stage 3 would be the universe depicted in the book Three Hearts and Three Lions(which Dungeons & Dragons is based off of), in which the Paladins are depicted as wandering knights who co-exist with dwarves, fairies, dragons and trolls.
Finally, Stage 4 would be the Paladins of World of Warcraft, in which they are depicted as supernaturally strong warriors with the magical ability to heal allies, a power which the old Knights of Charlemagne never had.
This is such an interesting concept. I guess I have seen this happening most often is with memes. Memes often go from just a funny image, to a more complex version of that image, to a reversal of that image, to a parody of that image, to a completely new image unrelated to the original.
I was fascinated with this simulacra theory when I first heard about it but the visual representations of the stages made it so much clearer thank you
Proud of JJ for his brief stint in the terrifying world of heterosexuality
Your globe has long intrigued me. I received one (brand "reploge") decades ago as a gift and it has the same color scheme: ussr green, china orange, india purple, etc. Judging for example from the size of ussr green and the color patterns on Africa and the Arabian peninsula, I'm guessing that globe may be of 1970ish vintage, same as mine.
been loving the topics you talk about dude!
I literally just got done with the Mac Tonight video. I watch Emp Lemon all the time so to see his amazing work in your videos definitely made me pop.
This is just a superb video. Thought provoking and entertaining! Thank you JJ!
It's interesting to see that Baudrillard (and other nihilist postmodernist philosophers) seem to share a similar desire with many right wing cultural traditionalists: To return to so some (usually imagined) past when life had more "meaning". I think you can see this with what might be called "indigenous fetishisation" that you sometimes see on the far left, here indigenous groups are put on a pedestal for their traditional practices, to act as a model for a fulfilling and sustainable society that the white man destroyed with their own invention, capitalism, not only in these indigenous groups but in their own society.
Of course, it's just as imaginary as any cultural conservatives image of a bucolic small town America, or a cosy traditional english village. Indigenous groups had wars, poverty and oppression for thousands of years before any settlers arrived. And in the modern world, it can be a hindrance to these indigenous groups, urged to preserve their culture in aspic by left wing activists, and to see cooperation with capitalist corporations or any alterations to their land as a betrayal of their way of life.
I agree. But isn't fetishisation of indigenous peoples a simulacra in itself?
This is personally why I detest both left and right. The right stands for absolute moral values, yet cannot defend them coherently or even criticize them. The left is constantly seeking to destroy previous falsifications of reality and looking for the "genuine", but doing so they only deepen and deepen the intellectual artificial theories and divorce from reality more and more.
Take for example that the right stands for rigid gender norms and thinks they are best for everyone, and the left thinks gender is totally an illusion. Personally I don't find either appealing, I think gender is just a biological dichotomy and fact of life, just like height or eye color, yet I don't think rigid gender norms do any good for society.
I think the reason is ultimately pretty simple. You can generally divide most people by the question of whether they think the world is fine and simply needs some changes vs it being fundamentally flawed and in need of major changes.
United by opposition to the present, but split by different ideals for the future. As a right wing cultural traditionalist my beliefs are rooted in supporting institutions and beliefs that are associated with giving people meaning, (religion, family, patriotism, etc). Some will agree with me, but some will be immediately put off because they simply don't believe the world is particularly lacking in meaning, and some will agree that there is a 'problem', but will find my preferred solution distasteful as well.
It's easy for people who roughly support the status quo to gather around reality, but people who don't, find themselves needing to find a concept to support, and thus naturally as seen before in history, more 'revolutionary' movements are very prone to having a lack of cohesion.
and this fetishization actually makes people turn it from stage 1 to 2 or 3
Seeing as though birthdates are declining globally it looks like modern life has truly lost meaning.
gotta love when one of my favorite youtubers happens to watch another one of my favorite youtubers
This is an amazing video. It’s organized and you have a point. It sounds like it should be expected, but a lot of creators seldom meet those criteria.
I like the example of video games. Games in and of themselves are abstractions of the real world; chess has always been known to represent war, monopoly with property development and capitalism. Video games I think take it a step back in abstraction, as they often directly attempt to mimic reality in a visual and narrative sense. They also often let you choose how you want to represent yourself through character creation.
I could see it almost as like a branching path. Some games have become hyperreal, like say Fortnite that represents nothing. But then others have indeed become more representational than even traditional games like Chess. Like say Call of Duty, it actually aims to recreate war authentically, at least visually.
You might remember the book _Simulacra and Simulation_ from the film _The Matrix._ It's the green book Neo opens up to find some computer discs hiding inside. Neo then gives the discs to a man at his door who calls him "My own personal Jesus Christ" before Neo follows him and his girl with the white rabbit tattoo to the club where he meets Trinity for the first time.
The author said in interviews that the film _The Matrix_ fundamentally misunderstood his point in the book, but as far as I can tell JJ got it right. Nice!
JJ also got it quite wrong
I like your stuff man, thx for being relatable and being versed in the topics you talk about
Wow, I never expected this channel to explain and cover something so complex in such an understandable and interesting way, congrats!
The wife scenario is funny.
JJ has already made videos about how people like to categorize things. Often in groups of 4 even. Ironically I think the people who make these memes are doing the same thing they may be trying to critique.
If you say pressing a heart symbol online is somehow a connected replacement to falling in love, it sounds sinister and depressing. If instead you look at is as another way to communicate, it looks more positive.
It's not some 4th level down abstraction, it's just an abstraction of saying "I like this." People often have a hard time giving compliments, so being able to tell someone you like what they made or are doing, without them in the room, at any time, very quickly, seems like a positive addition to human communication.
The other abstraction is the choice of a heart, but I don't really see how it's any worse that written text. Why use 9 abstract characters for "I like this" when you can use one. If we want to avoid connotations of romance we could have chosen a check mark, or thumbs up, or smiley, but for whatever reason facebook's designers had one preference where youtube had another. Maybe in other languages they do have a single character for "I like this."
With the Simpsons, from the start they were a parody of the real world AND the characters in sitcoms at the time. Those characters were mostly depicted very positively, which wasn't accurate to the real world. When Homer in a season one episode tells part to do whatever it takes to be popular, or when they depict the police chief as incompetent, it was controversial. Dads and cops on TV always new the right thing to do. The Simpsons wasn't a realistic depiction of the world, but some might argue it was a more realistic depiction that other sitcoms. Nowadays, there are less sitcoms to parody the same way, but whether the newer Simpsons writers do a good job or not, they are still parodying the real world. If done well parody communicates a useful message in a persuasive way.
Humans like to try to force things into patterns. Outside of very strange brand collaborations in junk food, most things are only a group of single level abstractions. A old phone image quickly tells you what pressing that button does. Is talking on the phone instead of in person an abstraction? Maybe. I think the ability for me to talk to people I like more often and call an ambulance in an emergency is a far bigger upside than the downside of "living in a more artificial world."
For some reason I find simalcra kind of beautiful, like all of human culture is this grand collaborative project where everyone builds off of everyone else.
you never cease ti amaze me with how you come up with this stuff
7:32
Ah yes, beautiful picture of JJ and his wife ❤️
Amazing video J.J, as someone who's really into post-modern litterature, this video is really well done!
Suddenly I want to make a stage production of the beggar's opera, but randomly have a character in there that shows up for one scene, says "I am racist" and then leaves with the cast not acknowledging it. Just to explain the absurdity of that nonexistent lineage to the audience
Man, Emp really has come a long way. I saw your comment on that video, and I can't say this was the crossover I was expecting.
Who needs that whole Kanye-Kardashian drama, when we've got J.J. and the wife?
if reality itself is the profound reality, the internet would be the second step that masks and denatures reality, and VR would mask the absence of a profound reality. Where could it possibly go from there? I guess there could be an internet within the virtual reality where people argue about virtual drama and politics that have nothing to do with basic reality. Then again, that sounds like how a lot of people use the internet already. Maybe this is too meta.
JJ's video topics are always random, but always great!
So excited about this one. I've been talking about this for years, but never had the right vocabulary to talk about it more effectively.
JJ: my “wife”
Those who know he’s gay: you mean “husband”
I knew he was gay and didn't care. He made a fictional example, it doesn't have to have bearing on his reality
I think a lot of this serves to make us think about purpose in life, the 'why' that follows the 'how' simulacra are formed. The videogame example I found particularly pertinent because I grew up playing videogames, frankly because I was too chubby and unco-ordinated to play outside with the other kids (being not-so-popular didn't help either). Already you can see videogames acting as a sort of phony substitute for 'real' games without any of the health/social benefits of a game like soccer.
Then as I grew up I played them less and less, moving onto other things, while simultaneously coming to understand and appreciate more and more of the politics around gaming: things like GamerGate, video game crunch, hype culture, loot boxes/microtransactions, etc. as well as the theory of what makes a good game, even though I rarely played them. I ended up in this bizarre situation where I could wax poetic about topical issues in gaming, but if you gave me a controller and told me to actually play one it would feel foreign as it's been so long since I had the time/motivation to do the thing I'm ostensibly interested in.
That feeling of emptiness when I picked up the controller and truly struggled to force myself to do something I used to spend entire weekends (make that weeks in the summer) doing, is what I think Baudrillard was really trying to get at; my interest in gaming has progressed from something real to a simulacra, and it was so gradual that I didn't even notice. The illusion isn't perfect, but once in a while it cracks just enough for us to realize that something is missing. I guess the question then becomes, do you want to do anything about it.
Video content ideas are sooo good!
It's funny, because people say that you can be truly original or creative, that you have to pull from somewhere, whereas level 4 simulacra pulls the least from an objective reality. Therefore, wouldn't creating a level 4 simulacra be the most creative thing you could make?