1.2. Research about Hyperludes and Reflection

After doing some research, I found out the piece is based on the book Hypermodern Times by French philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky. The sinopsis of the book says the following:

"The term ‘postmodernity’ has been used to describe that historical transformation of the late 20th century when the institutional breaks holding back individual emancipation disintegrated, thereby giving rise to the full expression of individual desires and the quest for self-fulfilment. But there are now signs – argues Gilles Lipovetsky, one of the most original social thinkers in France today – that we’ve entered a new phase of ‘hypermodernity’, characterized by hyper-consumption and the hypermodern individual. Hyperconsumption is a consumption which absorbs and integrates more and more spheres of social life and which encourages individuals to consume for their own personal pleasure rather than to enhance their social status. Hypermodernity is a society characterized by movement, fluidity and flexibility, distanced more than ever from the great structuring principles of modernity. And the hypermodern individual, while oriented towards pleasure and hedonism, is also filled with the kind of tension and anxiety that comes from living in a world which has been stripped of tradition and which faces an uncertain future. Individuals are gnawed by anxiety; fear has superimposed itself on their pleasures, and anguish on their liberation. Everything worries and alarms them, and there are no longer any beliefs systems to which they can turn for assurance. These are hypermodern times."

- Goodreads

The main points of this book seem to be consumerism or instead, the most radical form of consumerism society has ever experience: hyperconsumption, and the somewhat contradictory relation in between fear and pleasure. The pleasure comes from the individual liberty we managed to achieve that allowed us to develop, fulfill and buy our desires. The fear, however, shows up every time we do not achieve the results we expected or can't find sufficient pleasure in the things we consume. We lack direction and mainly, we lack a path to follow, guidance. This reminded me of an interview on the Joe Rogan Podcast to Chuck Palahniuk, the writer of the book Fight Club, on which the famous David Fincher movie is based on. Palahniuk, although he was talking about Fight Club and its significance to men, mentions that men no longer have the figure of a master in their lives, no one to follow and no one to learn to. He said men have a father but that after their father they ought to have a second paternal figure who will teach them how to be human and men during their adult life. I believe he was talking in a literal way, and even if my opinion agrees or not with this statement, Lipovetsky's theory matches somehow with Palahniuk's. It is true that there are no references in our society on which we can rely on for comfort and guidance, it is not a men's problem but a social problem. If there are any, they are idols or role models that are not any superior or wiser than the average human. Our icons are celebrities, musicians or businessmen, but these people are humans on the same level as we are. The already vanished clichés of turning to God when times get hard, having blind faith in our country's leader or having faith in general, are long gone and with that, our chances of feeling safer in the world. We live in a time that is quite absurd in many ways. We are extremely excessive and what we consume is excessive too. From the violence in the things we enjoy on our free time, e.g: video games and movies; to the amount of clothes we buy, cheap or expensive, what's the need in having 5 thrifted shits of the same style?; to the amount we drink and eat.

1. Starting Point and Development

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