Within the world of hyperreality, the murders on television and movies become more real than the murders occurring in one's own neighborhood.
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Reggie Jackson's 1977 World Series game-six homer is experienced as more real than one's own birthday or one's child's baptism - or, perhaps better yet, the picture of one's child's birthday has an aura of authenticity and perfection that makes it more real and meaningful than the actual birthday. In his 1981 magnum opus Simulacra and Simulation, French postmodernist thinker Jean Baudrillard famously coined the term, "hyperreality," which the philosopher defined as a situation in which symbols, images or what Baudrillard calls "simulacra and simulation," become "more real than real." Jean BaudrillardĪs Baudrillard argues, for millions of Westerners during the Cold War, entranced by television, advertisements and the deluge of commodities and products of late capitalism, the world of images in which they spent the bulk of their conscious life became more real than their seemingly mundane existences.įor the sports fan, a season of the Dallas Cowboys or Manchester United - the wins and the losses, the injuries, the locker room and off-field drama - are all experienced not only as more exciting than the sports fan's life, but rather all of these things present themselves as more real than the drama and relationships of that person's own life. You are not signed in as a Premium user we rely on Premium users to support our news reporting.