Hyper-reality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality

Hyper-reality is a philosophical concept that fascinates me. It refers amongst other things to the perceived norm, especially in terms of aspirations.

So for example, a celebrity such as Beyonce will always appear perfectly presented; all of the work behind the scenes is never seen, but in fact to achieve this level of perfection a punishing amount of physical work (both in the gym and in dance practise) is required, a large number of makeup artists and hairstylists are employed for the window dressing, her diet is heavily restricted and of course there's liberal use of Photoshop and possibly Autotune to iron out any remaining imperfections.

Hyper-reality applies also to faceless brands; in the supermarket the shelves are arranged to present an image of an endless supply of whatever it is they're selling. One of the tasks of a supermarket worker is to rearrange the shelves so that the products are right at the front of the shelf, giving the illusion that all the shelves are full.

We're so used to this that if you stop to think what it would look like if this wasn't done, the image is quite strange.

Other examples incude McDonald's, where the golden arches symbolise to anybody worldwide that they will get an "identical" product to one under any other golden arches.

This whole concept of hyper-reality interests me mainly due to the impossible demands meted out by chasing celebrity beauty. There's a massive market devoted to exposing what celebrities look like without makeup, so it's not like people are unaware that celebrity is not reality, but still young women across the western world try to achieve some pretend standard of impossibility, and get depressed when they don't match up.

Hyper-reality can also be very much applied to the internet. We spend so long communicating on Facebook that it has become the primary method of information dissemination. Entire personal dramas (and not just those invented by teenagers) are played out fully on some servers in Palo Alto, with no actual human contact, yet this is as real as a face-to-face meeting.