Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Society of the Spectacle

As I read Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" I found it all to be eye catching and interesting. It really made you think and when you thought long and hard enough and understood most of it, it really was captivating because what he described was for the most part true and very realistic. Moreover, what I think the society of the spectacle is how our society feeds of a "spectacle" more like an illusion, an image, an object that we have transformed into some sort of commodity. We live off a spectacle an through it too. We want to be the spectacle, whatever that spectacle may be. What I understood from the reading was that Debord described the spectacle like something that we look up to and want.  He feels like our society has now for many years been feeding of things that we create to be some type "spectacle" that we praise and worship. He also mentions that we have commodities that we have kind of created to be superficial. According to Debord, "The commodity is this materialized illusion" (#47,Chap 2, GD) its something that we've converged into something with better value or image. Society tends to commodify basically everything and that's how we create the spectacle.

 The impact that it has on our society is that basically it will most likely never change. We've become so accustomed to having some kind of spectacle that we look up to and share amongst ourselves and that has brought our society together as a whole and people enjoy connecting and sharing a common ground. No one wants to be left out. People commodify things to make it more worthy of and to create a greater value to it, enough for them to bother to even lay eyes on or consider. We live through the life of the commodities and we know nothing more. In the reading Debord mentions, "Not only is the relation to the commodity visible but it is all one sees: the world one sees is its world."(#42,Chap 2, GD). I found this quote to be quite intriguing because it really makes one think about the life they're living and what they have become. It makes you think about your life in general and what have you done to differentiate it from everyone else's.

Our perspective on the spectacle will never change because we have consumed it so much that it's apart of us. We need the spectacles we've created. Honestly, I think that breathing someone else's air as I would say is something that we have created that we actually need now. What we create sells and what sells makes us happy and, therefore, economically speaking helps prosper our economy. This obviously does not work for everything we commodify and make a spectacle of but, economically wise it kinda does. Lets be honest our economy probably won't be doing good if we were trying to be our own person and become different. We don't buy things we don't care about or aren't popular enough. We want what everyone else wants, we want to be apart of the crowd too even if we don't necessarily need it. People feel the need to get things they don't need because we sell it to ourselves or have people sell it to us through advertisements.

For example, with this whole new Iphone 5s and 5c coming out everyone is already thinking of ways to convince themselves that their current phone is crap and that they "need" the new Iphones which are soon being released. Ads are everywhere and the promotions and publications of the products are tempting enough to make one re-think whether their current phone is worth keeping even if in reality it is good enough. Why? because most people feel the need and desire to have something they don't need but just want to have. If you go on the Apple website or any other site that advertises the phones they are perfectly placed to draw the viewers attention and make them want to have it. Some carriers are actually promoting a free 5c if you choose them as their phone carrier. They want you to have it just so they can get more recognition and clientele. Smart, no? I think so.

All in all, I think that Debord makes good points and targets a good topic for readers to stay aware of what is going on within our society and our lives. "Once society discovers that it depends on the economy in fact depends on the society. When the subterranean power of the point of the visible domination, it lost its power. The economic Id must be replaced by the I. This subject can only arise out of the society, that is, out of the struggle within society"(#53, Chap 2, GB) Debord mentioned. I think the society of the spectacle has to change through the society and only the society. In the book, "Convergence Culture" Jenkins wrote, "Convergence involves both a change in the way media is produced and a change in the way media is consumed."(pg. 16, Convergence Culture, Jenkins.) I think this has to do a lot with how we want to live our lives because if we tried to become more knowledgable on how to use the media and what to learn and not learn from it rather than try and be it our society would probably be different.

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