Reminds me of Debord’s idea of the spectacle and Baudrillard’s simulation. The vicious cycle of art imitating life and life imitating art is ever accelerating with technology that gets better at beaming content into our brains to the point that we might not even have meaningful content with reality behind mass media.
I think about Simulation & Simulacra a lot. Esp. when religious relatives talk about Jesus, and how GOP-Jesus is built on a lot of other interpretations -- themselves dubioubly built on other interpretations -- and wonder how much is actually even vaguely related to what the man might have said or done.
But conceptually I see capitalism embracing it, as each simulation is a way to sell something new, e.g. "social media bubbles", which in turn allow for clickbating, selling of specific merch to specific demos, complete detachment and assimilation into basically different realities, etc. They have every reason to, cuz everything is based on adds and clicks and building consensus via social media likes; those things now drive sales, and that drives stock prices.
Alex Jones comes to mind, with his brand of hyperreality and absurd statements -- lots of clicks, aka lots of money -- as well as his ability to target and shill his MAN-PILLS, FOR REAL MEN. Little wonder why there is a lot of overlap with Q-Anon there...
Honestly, I think this is true. I've noticed ever since I've stopped watching TV since 2007 and avoided most TV dramas (I've been mostly watching youtube videos on various topics like radio electronics, cooking, and the like since with maybe the occasion let's play of Dwarf Fortress or a group of people playing a tabletop campaign) that I've kind of fell out of the loop of the mainstream culture. So many things from pop music to references to TV shows have kind of left me just puzzled. Mind you, I'm in my 40s so I'm kind of "boomer" at this point.
