Oct 25, 2016

The Society of the Spectacle and Black Mirror Reflections

As I was watching to one of my favorite series in the moment, I was sure that I would have to write about the first episode of season 3 of "The Black Mirror", by Charlie Brooke: Nosedive. It illustrates how society will incorporate social media to their lives in a much more profound way than sharing pictures and funny posts. According to the episode, social media would impact our acceptance in
relationships, our eligibility to live in certain places, and even the access to services or healthcare; everything would be based on your daily rating, established by basically everybody you interact with during your daily routine.

In The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord gathers 221 thesis about what he calls "the spectacle", which would be "a social relationship between people that is mediated by images". These relationships are facilitated by the over exposition and the reinforcement of  only positive aspects of life (appearances, social status, possessions, etc.).

Bellow, I've separated Thesis 219, which seems to fit perfectly into the confusing life of Lacie:

"The spectacle erases the dividing line between self and world, in that the self, under siege by the presence/absence of the world, is eventually overwhelmed; it likewise erases the dividing line between true and false, repressing all directly lived truth beneath the real presence of the falsehood maintained by the organization of appearances. The individual, though condemned to the passive acceptance of an alien everyday reality, is thus driven into a form of madness in which, by resorting to magical devices, he entertains the illusion that he is reacting to his fate." (Debord, Guy. 1994. The society of the spectacle. P. 135 New York: Zone Books.)

1 comment :

  1. I just saw this episode yesterday as well. This is a very interesting comparison with the quote from The Society of the Spectacle!

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