It’s not often that you hear the words “Facebook” and “postmodern philosophy” in the same sentence. Picture albums named after tequila-soaked vacations and “wall posts” referencing reckless one-night stands hardly seem deserving of affiliation with great minds such as Umberto Eco and Jean Baudrillard. But in a world becoming obsessed to the point of dependence with technological reproductions of reality, the connection may not be so farfetched.
When was the last time you saw someone snapping a photo at a party, and heard a friend exclaim in a slurred voice, “Put this on Facebook!” (or, as became some friends’ and my motto freshman year, “Facebook that shit!”)? Or, how often do you come across an acquaintance’s profile and wonder if his favorite book really is Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” let alone whether or not he knows what Objectivism is?
Maybe I’m the only one, though I doubt it. What I’m certain I’m not alone in is the concern that people are confusing social networking sites, which allow you to create a simulated profile based on your life as a real human being, with reality, or worse, becoming unable to tell the difference between the two.
According to postmodern philosophy, “hyperreality” characterizes the inability to consciously distinguish reality from fantasy. At the heart of the concept is the loss of the distinction between “real” and “fake” when what we experience is filtered and reproduced by myriad technologies and media.
French theorist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard claims that modern society has replaced meaning and reality with symbols and signs, and that the human experience is not of reality itself, but of a simulation. Cultural signs and media recreate experience through simulation and, thus, create a perceived reality, on which Baudrillard asserts society has come to depend. This “reality” is made up of “simulacra,” or copies to which there is no original. The distinction between reality and representation is lost, and only the simulacra remain.
Too abstract? Think of Facebook as one of these simulacra. Rather than a simple representation of one’s reality, Facebook and similar media exist for many as the source of their reality. Most would agree the online profile was originally meant to relate information about its creator for the knowledge and use of its viewers. The creator communicates personal details about his or her life and discusses things with which he or she associates or enjoys. On Facebook, you tell complete strangers (or maybe just close friends, depending on your privacy settings) your favorite music, movies, books, interests and any other details or idiosyncrasies you deem worthy of publishing.
But somewhere along the way it got out of control, and now people seem to be reversing the process. Most of us have, at some point, had Facebook “friends” who we’ve never met in person. These “cyber friends” have their own “cyber realities” and interact with your cyber reality, all without ever coming into physical contact. You can pretend you’ve read the entirety of James Joyce’s works or have the musical taste of a “Rolling Stone” writer. If a picture gets posted that you don’t like, just erase it; people only get to see the parts of yourself you choose to show them. Ask yourself: If you could spend a day as your Facebook counterpart, wouldn’t you?
The catch is, none of it is real. Instead of creating a profile based on the events of their lives and the things they know and enjoy, these people cultivate interests and activities based on the self they create on their profiles. The profile becomes an idealized version of oneself, and people begin to act out their “real” lives based on the “hyperreality” they create online. The “self” that exists on the Internet becomes more important than the “real self,” until its creator can’t tell the difference between the two, nor which came first.
It’s the age-old story of the chicken and the egg, with a twist. And it doesn’t stop with Facebook. Blogs, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace and other online networking sites are all outlets through which people can express and publish themselves for the world to see. But is that really what they’re doing?
The question arises: What would people’s lives be like if these sites didn’t exist? Do people blog because they have something to say or because blogging is what you’re supposed to do and they know people are watching? I thought, at least originally, a blog or a profile was a means to an end, not an end in itself. I’m worried that all too frequently the “selves” that are expressed online are fabricated in order to keep up with trends, until eventually everyone forgets why they wanted to express themselves in the first place.
My annoyance with drunk co-eds and desperate-to-be-hipsters aside, I’m genuinely frightened that Baudrillard’s argument that we live in a simulated reality is, or is soon to be, not a simulation at all. While I don’t claim to be immune to the world of hyperreality and all its glamour, I’d like to think I’m resisting. I still don’t have a blog or a Web site, I flat out refuse to start “Tweeting,” and I’m slowly weaning myself off Facebook