I’ve been reading about something called hyperreality.
The Dictionary of Sociology defines hyperreality as “a concept in post-structuralism that refers to the process of the evolution of notions of reality, leading to a cultural state of confusion between signs and symbols invented to stand in for reality, and direct perceptions of consensus reality.”
But I believe hyperreality, while a legitimate philosophical topic, also describes a mental illness.
Think of it this way. For the first time ever, a person tastes an orange. The flavor blows his mind.
Craving that taste, he squeezes it to make orange juice – but real orange juice goes bad. Then he gets the idea to make powder to make a drink, but while the flavor is intense when it is mixed with water it doesn’t store well, so he finds or invents non-toxic chemicals that taste like orange but won’t go bad. Then he uses those chemicals to make candy that tastes like oranges – but this candy has sugar, and he wants to cut down on the sugar, so he invents a chemical sugar substitute.
Now we have a material that is not naturally produced, doesn’t look like an orange, and really doesn’t taste all that much like a real orange either – but it becomes a substitute for the real thing.
That’s a hyperrealistic process.
You ever wonder why people, mainly women, become so addicted to plastic surgery they become weird plastic versions of themselves – often to the point of grotesquely destroying their natural good looks.
The Innertoobs and social media is full of balloon breasted, bulbous assed women with lips the size of a pair of Goodyear Wrangler DuraTrac 275/60R20 115S A/T All Terrain tires, trying to look like Barbie or Kim Kardashian.
Unless you subscribe to Weird Tales, you probably don’t know the names Justin Jedlica or Rodrigo Alves, two men who spent over five hundred large (each) and endured a thousand surgeries to turn themselves in to human Ken dolls – and they are not the only ones. Google “human Ken doll” to see more than you would ever imagine – or want to see. Google “Jocelyn Wildenstein “, the reclusive socialite who has had so many facial surgeries, she looks more cat now than human.
Hyperrealism is the process they used to create a simulacrum.
Cool word, huh?
My reading led me to the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard and a new word: simulacrum. Baudrillard observed the contemporary world is a simulacrum, a representation of a world, a place where reality has been replaced by false images to such an extent that one cannot distinguish between the real and the unreal.
The lunacy doesn’t stop with crazy broads and dudes – now it is cool for the kids of parents from Lower Munchausen By Proxy, New York, let their girls have their booblettes excised and coochies turned inside out and boys get their tallywackers whacked off and turned inside out– all to conform with their own personal and impossible simulacrums of being something that doesn’t exist in nature.
This horror isn’t hyper at all, unfortunately it is all too real.
This fascination with altering one’s facial and bodily appearance beyond recognition and over the boundaries of sane esthetics reminds me the book by Jodi’s-Karl , À rebours ( Against Nature or Against the Grain). However lovely or unlovely by some anrbitrary standard each of us may be we are each of us the handiwork of God. All of this self-mutilation just screams out rebellion against God, against Nature and against decency.
Not a therapist but a lot of this seems related to body image and confidence problems including injecting one of the most toxic chemicals into your face to “eliminate” wrinkles...
IMHO, adults are welcome to do whatever they want, just don’t expect me to endorse or support your delusion.