The Society of a Spectacle

In this day and age people love spectacles. They can be loud and obnoxious or quiet and very shiny. Regardless, spectacles grab the attention of the people even if it is for small moment in time.  In the simplest sense, a spectacle is an image. So, when first examining the the title, let alone the content itself, one can assume that the society of a spectacle is a society regulated by images. Theses images are representations of people's lives and experiences. Representations alone do not tell the story, but Debord seems to believe that people accept the spectacle to tell their stories rather than engage in actual social experiences. The Society of a Spectacle is a society in which people have allowed themselves to be ruled by packages of images and cultural snippets to represent their lives rather than going out and experiencing it themselves.

Debord explains that the spectacle "consists of taking up all that existed in human activity in a fluid state so as to possess it in a congealed state as things which have become the exclusive value by their formulation in negative of lived value, we recognize our old enemy, the commodity, who knows so well how to seem at first glance something trivial and obvious, while on the contrary it is so complex and so full of metaphysical subtleties" (Debord Chapter 2, Paragraph 35).

Instagram is an interesting application that is one of the better examples of what Debord is saying because it allows people to literally capture moments (the fluid state) they deem ideal for the message they're trying to present and actually package it into a convenient file (the congealed state) that be instantly be shared with millions of other users. This packaging, the commodity Debord speaks of, is in fact rather trivial, but; when lumped with millions of other packaging it presents a much larger picture of the issue at hand. The issue is that society has allowed the commodity in their lives as a replacement. 

People have likened social media interactions with what it means in their actual lives. For example, Jimmy posted a stauts on his Facebook profile. Jimmy waits. Several hours later, Jimmy returns to his Facebook to see that over 11 people have "liked" his status. Jimmy now feels like he's the man of the hour. It is seen on numerous occasions where people give others online incentives to follow each other's profiles. What used to be hour long conversations on the phone with peers is now less than half a minute conversations between text messages and other social media applications. 

                                                               Instagram memes...who doesn't love them?
                                                                
Debord states that "the spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life. Not only is the relation to the commodity visible but it is all one sees: the world one sees is its world" (Debord Chapter 2, Paragraph 42).

It is 2013 and society has made quite the number of scientific and technological advancements, but for some reason it is being said that people are becoming lazier and dumber. In theory, advancement is supposed to uplift the people,make them stronger. With these new devices such as smart phones and Google Glasses, people seem to have a more of an interest in living vicariously through them more than anything. Debord realized that the more society advanced, the more its people were isolated from each other by witnessing the  world through liquid crystal displays.

The commodity is only as valuable as people make it out to be. Society has a chance, albeit slim, to take control and devalue it, if that's what it wants. The scary part is that society doesn't know. The late Steve Jobs once said that, "people don't know what they want until you show it to them." It's aright for people to enjoy the technological advancements, but they must be able to distinguish between what is on their screen and what actually see in front of them. 

Ahh...We're having so much fun