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I'm quite hesitant to mention this for fear that my reason for bringing it up will be grossly misunderstood, but the setup this article describes bears an uncan

I'm quite hesitant to mention this for fear that my reason for bringing it up will be grossly misunderstood, but the setup this article describes bears an uncanny resemblance to locations used by the adult entertainment industry. Both cases share the theme of a constructed fantasy life, a life that we as image consumers must realize is not real yet nevertheless choose to buy in to on some level. This penthouse is not real; rather it exists beyond reality. The fantasy it expresses is what we imagine luxury and the good life looks like, rather than how such a life actually looks. But now that this penthouse does physically exist—now I can go take pictures of myself in it and now that people are actively decorating their own luxury apartments to look like it—how can you say that it is not real? How can you claim that it does not accurately reflect what luxury and the good life really are? This whole hot take is basically a regurgitation of some of Baudrillard's ideas btw. I keep coming back to his concept of hyperreality because it seems so relevant today, and this is an area that I hope to keep exploring. Ahh, if only I could reserve a photoshoot there...

twiceaday 8y ago
What is your point? Absolutely everything in life is an embelishment. We are carbon.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- notduncansmith 8y ago
  That’s fairly reductionist. Eventually it’s nice to have words for the long tail of probabilistic phenomena that emerge from atomic-scale interactions. Words like “sonder”.
FooHentai 8y ago
'The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. [...] when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'
- GW150914 8y ago
  Well that totally doesn’t sound like someone with a personality disorder. /s I’m fairly sure that history will almost instantly forget them, because they exist to be disposable, to be replaced, and as interest and attention moves on their “mark” on history will be exceedingly shallow. Maybe that’s the difference between this constructed “reality” and... reality. Something real can be lasting, while this cotton candy version of reality only seems substantial from a certain angle, for a little while. It’s a kind of shallow “reality” for shallow people with minuscule attention spans.
  - gammatrigono 8y ago
    People should be allowed to have fun, right?
  - FooHentai 8y ago
    Unfortunately you're categorically wrong, since the aide in question was Karl Rove.
    - GW150914 8y ago
      Well at least I nailed the personality disorder bit.
- CPLX 8y ago
  That’s from an old article about Bush in the Iraq war era. I think it’s Rove being quoted. Could be wrong. I think about that quote a lot, it’s seared in my memory. At the time I remember it was a rallying cry, people used it to define themselves as in “the reality based community” online a lot back then. But now that I am a little clearer on what he was actually saying, and how true it was, it’s taken on a darker tone.
  - FooHentai 8y ago
    Yep I'm the same. When I first read it some years ago, it didn't ring true but did stick with me. Over time it appears more true. The implications are unpleasant, and I think that's why there's a strong urge to reject it. But, ironically, it isn't false just because I want it to be.
nosuchthing 8y ago
If anyone is interested in the concept of the fabricated reality, simulacra and the hyperreal I would recommend checking out these works: Adam Curtis's "Hypernormalisation": https://thoughtmaybe.com/hypernormalisation/ https://thoughtmaybe.com/hypernormalisation/ Megalopolis: Contemporary Culutral Sensibilities By Celete Olalquiaga https://www.celesteolalquiaga.com/copia-de-megalopolis https://www.celesteolalquiaga.com/copia-de-megalopolis Some great Baudrillard interviews and books here: http://www.researchpubs.com/list-of-publications/ http://www.researchpubs.com/list-of-publications/
the_watcher 8y ago
Isn't it even more similar to the sets used to shoot the sorts of spreads that have been common to lifestyle magazines for decades? It's essentially just a giant set.
- Semiapies 8y ago
  Yeah, I'm trying to understand the existential freakout, here. It's a set. This exact sort of thing has been done for longer than any of us have been alive, and it was done for exactly the same reasons "Instagram influencers" will use this place or others like it.
  - mattbierner 8y ago
    A traditional set, say a studio kitchen for a food product shoot, is a first level reproduction: the set is a reproduction of a real kitchen; the food shown is a reproduction of real food; and that actor is a reproduction of a real chef. That's all easy enough to see. This apartment though has a second level of fakeness. What it offers is not so much a reproduction of reality as a reproduction of "influencer" life. You go there to take photos of yourself taking photos there. That's one reason why I felt that adult films were an appropriate analogy: porn conveys not only a direct pleasure fantasy but the second level fantasy of being a porn star. I think this second level fantasy may explain why don't care if the first level's fakeness is so obvious. In this case though, the set is not even a reproduction of anything real. It is just a construction of symbols that recreates what a "trendy millennial luxury penthouse" represents. Maybe not even that since the community itself defined which values a "trendy millennial luxury penthouse" should have and how certain symbols signal those values. Take millennial pink. It's not a real thing. Millennials do not have some biological attraction to that specific shade. The color started as a way to show that you had a specific set of values, say: uniqueness and authenticity. At some point however the color came to stand-in for these values; I am unique and authentic because I own a millennial pink chaise. Now the color doesn't even convey that so much as the idea of millennial, or more likely some ironic take on the idea. Influencers make an easy target. My point though was never that influencers are the problem, just as porn is not the problem, rather I think they both capture how we are moving farther towards a hyperreal existence. In my view, the "reality TV" realities they offer are different from more traditional media because they are not just simple reproductions and because, more and more, they are constructed in the air.

twiceaday 8y ago

What is your point? Absolutely everything in life is an embelishment. We are carbon.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
notduncansmith 8y ago
That’s fairly reductionist. Eventually it’s nice to have words for the long tail of probabilistic phenomena that emerge from atomic-scale interactions. Words like “sonder”.

FooHentai 8y ago

'The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. [...] when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'

GW150914 8y ago
Well that totally doesn’t sound like someone with a personality disorder. /s I’m fairly sure that history will almost instantly forget them, because they exist to be disposable, to be replaced, and as interest and attention moves on their “mark” on history will be exceedingly shallow. Maybe that’s the difference between this constructed “reality” and... reality. Something real can be lasting, while this cotton candy version of reality only seems substantial from a certain angle, for a little while. It’s a kind of shallow “reality” for shallow people with minuscule attention spans.
- gammatrigono 8y ago
  People should be allowed to have fun, right?
- FooHentai 8y ago
  Unfortunately you're categorically wrong, since the aide in question was Karl Rove.
  - GW150914 8y ago
    Well at least I nailed the personality disorder bit.
CPLX 8y ago
That’s from an old article about Bush in the Iraq war era. I think it’s Rove being quoted. Could be wrong. I think about that quote a lot, it’s seared in my memory. At the time I remember it was a rallying cry, people used it to define themselves as in “the reality based community” online a lot back then. But now that I am a little clearer on what he was actually saying, and how true it was, it’s taken on a darker tone.
- FooHentai 8y ago
  Yep I'm the same. When I first read it some years ago, it didn't ring true but did stick with me. Over time it appears more true. The implications are unpleasant, and I think that's why there's a strong urge to reject it. But, ironically, it isn't false just because I want it to be.

nosuchthing 8y ago

If anyone is interested in the concept of the fabricated reality, simulacra and the hyperreal I would recommend checking out these works: Adam Curtis's "Hypernormalisation": https://thoughtmaybe.com/hypernormalisation/ https://thoughtmaybe.com/hypernormalisation/ Megalopolis: Contemporary Culutral Sensibilities By Celete Olalquiaga https://www.celesteolalquiaga.com/copia-de-megalopolis https://www.celesteolalquiaga.com/copia-de-megalopolis Some great Baudrillard interviews and books here: http://www.researchpubs.com/list-of-publications/ http://www.researchpubs.com/list-of-publications/

the_watcher 8y ago

Isn't it even more similar to the sets used to shoot the sorts of spreads that have been common to lifestyle magazines for decades? It's essentially just a giant set.

Semiapies 8y ago
Yeah, I'm trying to understand the existential freakout, here. It's a set. This exact sort of thing has been done for longer than any of us have been alive, and it was done for exactly the same reasons "Instagram influencers" will use this place or others like it.
- mattbierner 8y ago
  A traditional set, say a studio kitchen for a food product shoot, is a first level reproduction: the set is a reproduction of a real kitchen; the food shown is a reproduction of real food; and that actor is a reproduction of a real chef. That's all easy enough to see. This apartment though has a second level of fakeness. What it offers is not so much a reproduction of reality as a reproduction of "influencer" life. You go there to take photos of yourself taking photos there. That's one reason why I felt that adult films were an appropriate analogy: porn conveys not only a direct pleasure fantasy but the second level fantasy of being a porn star. I think this second level fantasy may explain why don't care if the first level's fakeness is so obvious. In this case though, the set is not even a reproduction of anything real. It is just a construction of symbols that recreates what a "trendy millennial luxury penthouse" represents. Maybe not even that since the community itself defined which values a "trendy millennial luxury penthouse" should have and how certain symbols signal those values. Take millennial pink. It's not a real thing. Millennials do not have some biological attraction to that specific shade. The color started as a way to show that you had a specific set of values, say: uniqueness and authenticity. At some point however the color came to stand-in for these values; I am unique and authentic because I own a millennial pink chaise. Now the color doesn't even convey that so much as the idea of millennial, or more likely some ironic take on the idea. Influencers make an easy target. My point though was never that influencers are the problem, just as porn is not the problem, rather I think they both capture how we are moving farther towards a hyperreal existence. In my view, the "reality TV" realities they offer are different from more traditional media because they are not just simple reproductions and because, more and more, they are constructed in the air.