Baudrillardian Simulacrum Stages

BAUDRILLARDIAN SIMULACRUM STAGE I 1. The first stage is a faithful image/copy, where we believe, and it may even be correct, that a sign is a “reflection of a profoundly real”, this is a good appearance, in what Baudrillard call’d “the sacramental order”. IT’S A BUBBLE. IT’S A BUBBLE. IT’S A BUBBLE. IT’S A BUBBLE. STAGE II 2. The second stage is perversion of reality, this is where we come to believe the sign to be an unfaithful copy, which “masks and denounces” reality as an “evil appearance” in the order of “maleficence”. Here, signs and images do not faithfully reveal reality to us, but can hint at the existence of an obscure reality which these signs itself is incapable of encapsulating. SUS AMOGUS AMOGUS YES AMOGUS STAGE III 3. The third stage masks the absence of a profound reality, where the sign pretends to be a faithful copy, but it is a copy with no original. Signs and images claim to represent something real, but no representation is taking place and arbitrary images are merely suggested as things which they have no relationship to. Baudrillard calls this the “order of sorcery”, a regime of semantic algebra where all human meaning is conjured artificially to appear as a reference to the (increasingly) hermetic truth. AMOGUS AMMO, GUNS STAGE IV 4. The fourth stage is pure simulacrum, in which the simulacrum has no relationship to any reality whatsoever. Here, signs merely reflect other signs and can claim to really on the part of images or signs is only of the order of other such claims. This is a regime of total equivalency, where cultural products need no longer even pretend to be real in a naive sense, because the experiences of consumers’ lives are so predominantly artificial that even claims to reality are expected to be expressed in artificial, “hyperreal” terms. Any native pretension to reality as such is perceived as bereft of critical self-awareness, and thus as overessentialist. YOU KNOW AMOGUS

The image parodies Baudrillard’s four stages of the simulacrum using increasingly absurd Among Us and internet meme imagery. It jokes that signs gradually stop representing reality and eventually refer only to other signs, ending in a pure simulacrum where “Amogus” imagery has no original meaning. It is used as an ironic reaction to overcomplicated theory, meme semiotics, or situations where online references have become detached from reality. EN: The image parodies Baudrillard’s four stages of the simulacrum using increasingly absurd Among Us and internet meme imagery. It jokes that signs gradually stop representing reality and eventually refer only to other signs, ending in a pure simulacrum where “Amogus” imagery has no original meaning. It is used as an ironic reaction to overcomplicated theory, meme semiotics, or situations where online references have become detached from reality.

• @pokupkabitka / 6600 2022-05-26