Bret Levinson
Convergence
Edited Piece
9/29/15
You’re
the Spectacles Pet
The spectacle is media and all the products we buy to make us feel like we
belong. The spectacle will always live because of how advanced our time has
become. Your iPhones, PlayStation, computer, apps on your phone are all forms
of the spectacle. And all of us who have those are participating in the
spectacle as the society. The society of the spectacle is the group of those
people who partake in the spectacle.
Debord describes the spectacle
like something that once starts taking over the humans life (games on phone,
cellphone, Twitter, Instagram, fake life (Sims), etc.) then become the object
and get ruled by the object. “ The world at once present and absent which the
spectacle makes visible is the world of the commodity dominating all that us
lived. The world of the commodity is thus shown for what it is, because it’s
the movement is identical to the estrangement of men among themselves and in
relation to their global product”. Debord is saying that the commodity is going
to be dominating all that is lived. The products that we choose to buy will
control us in the end. The spectacle that we all take part in, for example,
buying the new iPhone every six months they make the new one. We become
obsessed with the spectacle because we feel as if we need to be apart of every
new thing. On twitter we have to read the newest news so we don’t feel left out
at the dinner talk about what Donald Trump said in the debates. We as a society
cannot go a day without communicating with people on our phones because we are
so use to always being in contact. If you meet someone that doesn’t carry their
phone with them at all times you think to yourself “that person is crazy”.
Debord also describes the spectacle as something so overpowering that its all
one sees. “ Not only is the relation to the commodity visible but it is all one
sees: the world one sees is its world”. A scary thought but Debord was right
about what the spectacle has become. Whenever you’re out to eat with your
family you either need to be back at a certain time for the game or a certain
TV show. Or, you will definitely have it recorded. Whenever you go to a
sporting event or a gallery you need to make sure you have a picture of the scene
or yourself at the scene. You do that so you can post it on social media and
share it to hundreds, thousands, or even millions to see it. That social media
that you posted it to is the drug you crave. The likes you acquire make you
feel special. That’s what Debord is talking about, it controls your life. “ Attains
its ultimate fulfillment in the spectacle, where the perceptible world is
replaced by a selection of images which is projected above” (Debord36). The
images we take, the apps we use to see these images, the posts we put out there
for likes, is a fulfillment that fills our drug addicted minds.
Everyone plays along with the
spectacle, meaning buying all of the newest gadgets, reading different websites
daily for news, we as people are participating in what Debord describes as the
spectacle. We become apart of the spectacle and the continuous cycle that will
never stop as long as people are alive.
The commodity of a spectacle
Debord is referring too is the latest technology piece that is out. Objects
that when we buy we feel as we are of higher power. “ The spectacle is a
constant opium war which aims to make people identify goods with commodities
and satisfaction with survival” (Debord 44). Things that when we have them and
others don’t have them make us feel like those people don’t belong and we are
the normal ones. We become addicted to the latest gadgets that come out. We
feel as if it is a drug and we need it to survive.
The impact of the spectacle has
become so overpowering to people that they don’t even realize that it takes
over their lives. It’s normal to wake up and the first thing you do is check
your phone right? No, it’s not right; you just think it is because you are part
of the society of the spectacle. It controls your life, you don’t control its.
Bibliography
1.Debord, Guy-Ernest. “ The Society
of the Spectacle.”
2."Media Culture and the Triumph of the
Spectacle." Media Culture and the Triumph of the Spectacle. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.
Here is a picture of the Mets players posing for a camera after clinching the NL East in 2015.
http://static.queenscourier.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/champs.jpg
Here pictured is people who put phones in the middle of table while eating so it doesn't ruin the dinner. Also known as "Phone Stacking"
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/09/22/fashion/22DISCONNECT_SPAN/22DISCONNECT-articleLarge.jpg
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