The Commodification of Culture ~ Is Debord’s Theory of The Society of The Spectacle Still Relevant Today?
Through images we are influenced. Whether they be in films or on food packaging, our identity as a society and our identities as individuals are shaped through images. Subsequently, the collections of images in our visual culture determine how we operate as a society. For this reason, just like an individual’s instagram profile, “the spectacle” is more than just “a collection of images”; it is a “social relationship mediated by images”(Debord, 1967, 4).
Today the internet is a place where an incomprehensible amount of images can be accessed. A significant proportion of these are uploaded onto ‘social media' platforms on a daily basis and these applications are widely accepted to be the primary form of image consumption today, particularly in the case of younger generations.
Throughout this essay I will explore whether Guy Debord’s 1967 theory of The Society of the Spectacle is still relevant today and the ways in which the sharing of images on Instagram may be a primary instrument in maintaining - and strengthening - the enforcement of the spectacle upon society.
Social media’s addictive tactics and their creation of The Lonely Crowd
In its early days, the online world was seen as something to be celebrated. It was a Techno-Utopia where people could communicate horizontally, without the top-down interference of authority and agenda-driven censorship of traditional media. Just as Debord describes the spectacle as a whole, the internet was “born from the world’s loss of unity” (Debord, 1967, 29). It was designed to connect people; “the philosophy of people who make technology” - including the internet - was "to empower us and allow us to access more”(Newport, 2016).
However, the exponential growth of internet usage - and the subsequent abundance of information that we are exposed to - has resulted in a digital culture saturated with images. Therefore it became more difficult for companies to capture - and in turn, profit from - the consumer’s gaze and “more competition” resulted in a “race for attention” (Harris, 2017). Today “major social media companies hire individuals called ‘attention engineers’ who borrow principles from Las Vegas casino gambling” in order to make their platforms “as addictive as possible” (Newport, 2016) as this “maximises their profit” (Newport, 2016).
These manipulative principles operate by exploiting people’s inherent yearning for other’s approval. The desire for validation is a basic human instinct; in order to thrive and reproduce it is essential that humans are accepted by others. As a result, “we really care what other people think of us”(Harris, 2017) and when this desire is fulfilled (even temporarily) we experience a “spike in dopamine”(Kotler, 2017).
Every ‘follow’ and ‘like’ a person receives on social media represents validation from others and each is followed with this ‘boost’ in dopamine. By providing users with these deliberately “small intermittent variable rewards”(Newport, 2016) social media companies ensure that the consumer frequently engages with the platform and thus their profit is maximised. In this way, these platforms benefit from our distraction. The result is a society where “ignoring people for phones is the new normal”(Beck, 2016).
‘Social’ media could more accurately be named ‘anti-social’ media. Even through its name alone, social media - like the spectacle itself - “presents itself as something enormously positive”(Debord, 1967, 12); a digital world that connects people. However, while it “reunites the separated” - by granting the ability to communicate through collections of images - “it reunites them only in their separateness”(Debord, 1967, 29). Through images, society becomes a “crowd” of “lonely” people, or “the lonely crowd”(Debord, 1967, 2s) - coined by sociologist David Reisman in 1950.
The quantification of validation and the facade of the Instagram influencer
This constant consumption of images “monopolizes the majority of (people’s) time” (Debord, 1967, 6) and distract(s) us from our ambitions (social and professional) thus “interfere(ing) with medium to long term goals” (Peterson, 2018). However, while social media distracts us from our ambitions; “goals” are exactly what we see others achieving on these platforms. The word “goals” is a popular internet-colloquialism, used by individuals to identify an image that depicts a life-goal of theirs.
Individuals who have a large number of followers are known as ‘influencers’ and Alexis Ren is an Instagram influencer whose images are frequently responded to with the comment:“goals”. Figure 1 shows the most recent images she has shared on Instagram.
Social media has quantified validation and its units for this quantification are ‘likes’ and ‘followers’. This concept manifests itself into a theory that the more likes and followers a person has, the higher their value as a person. In this way we “conflate visibility with value”(Palihapitiya, 2017) The fact that Alexis has thirteen-million followers (as well as the fact that her images show her smiling widely and travelling to exotic locations around the world) would lead most people to assume that she is happy.
However, sadly in 2017 Alexis revealed that she suffers from anorexia. She restricted her eating to maintain her slim physique as she “felt like (her) body was the only reason people liked (her)”(Narins, 2017). She told of the loneliness she experienced when nobody understood how she could be unhappy while appearing to live “the most perfect life”.
Humans’ instinctual “need for validation”(Lindgreen, 2017, p115) causes us to “curate our lives around this perceived sense of perfection”(Palihapitiya, 2017); we primarily only share positive experiences and omit the negative aspects of life and the “behind the scenes”(Steve Bartlett in video). “By design social media rewards us for showing our best (lives)”. But while we are living our predominantly mundane lives, we experience “constant exposure to friends’ carefully curated positive portrayals of theirs”(Newport, 2016) and end up “comparing (our) behind the scenes to other people’s fake highlight reels”(Bartlett, 2018). This “can leave (individuals) feeling inadequate”(Newport, 2016). As a result “the more you use social media, the more likely you are to feel lonely or isolated”(Newport, 2016).
Self-commodification and When Having turns to Appearing
“The self today” is “a self that’s packaged to be sold”(Deresiewicz, 2011). Individuals who successfully “sell” themselves do so by applying the same sentiment of Benjamin Franklin’s advice “if you want to get ahead... make yourself pleasing to others”(Deresiewicz, 2011). Alexis’ primary method of making herself pleasing to others is by making her conventionally-attractive face and figure the subject of her images.
In The Society of the Spectacle, Debord identified how “the first stage of the economy’s domination of social life” resulted in “human fulfilment” being equated with “what one possessed” rather than “what one was”. Through commercialisation the commodity had been fetishised to a level that an individual’s social value no longer depended so much on their personality but what their possessions said about them. Society’s values changed from “being into having”. But in this 1967 text, Debord observed that a second shift was happening; from “having to appearing”. With the popularisation of photography and film it did not matter so much whether a person actually owned the commodity, for whether they appeared to was enough. The “ultimate purpose” and “immediate prestige”(Debord, 1967, 17) a person would experience from “having” could now be derived from appearing to have, even if the appearance tells a lie.
By commodifying herself in her collection of images, Alexis’ identity is reduced to a selection of photographs through which it is virtually impossible to distinguish between what is real and what only ‘appears’ to be real.
Life Imitates the Spectacle and The Fickleness of the Modern Self
“People define themselves through” the images “they transmit to others”(Gronow, 1997, p5). “They manipulate or manage appearances and thereby create and sustain ‘self- identity’”(Gronow, 1997, p5). But this “fabricated self... takes flight from substance and focuses instead on its own constructed status”(Adatto, 2008, p58). Alexis’ views clearly align with this sentiment; her instagram biography reads “you become what you believe, so believe in yourself” (shown in Figure 2).
This concept coordinates with the well-known phrase “life imitates art” (Wilde, 1891). Individuals in their real lives can “imitate” (and seemingly “become”) the spectacle (“art") that they exhibit in their collections of images. “Some see this way of viewing ourselves as liberating”(Adatto, 2008, p58); “traditional notions of fixed selves... give way to the modern notion” of a self that is “always in the process of forming or reforming itself”. But these “fixed selves” were “defined by character or soul” rather than images. To elaborate, “since sincerity is no longer a matter of conscience” it becomes “a quality of ’individuals who believe in the impression fostered by their own performance’”(Adatto, 2008, p58).
With such an abundance of images on social media, people’s identities (especially those of younger generations) are less stable as they are constantly influenced by new stimuli. In the same way that “life imitates art” the spectacle integrates itself into our identities so successfully that one of the few constant identity characteristics is our reliance on these these images to “create and sustain ‘self-identity’”.(Gronow, 1997, p5)
Does a Self-Aware Society means the Theory of The Society Of The Spectacle is Redundant?
It can be argued that the impact of the spectacle is limited by the fact that we are aware of it. “Today we pride ourselves on our knowledge that the camera can lie” (Lindgreen, 2017, p111). With popular photo editing applications such as Facetune and PhotoShop the majority of individuals in our mediated culture are aware that “pictures can be fabricated, packaged and manipulated”. How many times have you heard someone say “you must remember, social media is not real life” - or “people only share images they want you to see”? These notions seem to be repeated so frequently that they are beginning to become cliché. Some may dispute that a society that is self-aware of the unreality it exhibits is therefore not ruled by the spectacle as images are no longer viewed as reality. Instead, “people even come to develop an affection for the artificial element”(Lindgreen, 2017, p111).
However, while this may be true to an extent, the spectacle is one step ahead.
Instagram ‘influencer’ Miquela Sousa - better known by her Instagram handle @lilmiquela - joined the platform in 2016 and already has one-and-a-half million followers. While there are many influencers who have far more followers than Miquela, it is the reason for her fame that sets her apart from others; she is not a real person. She is in fact a CGI fictional character invented as a digital art project.
As shown in Figure 3 Miquela’s appearance is hyperreal; zooming into her high-definition images reveals details of pores on her nose and individual strands of hair on her head. The street-fashion trends she follows and her poses in photographs are typical of human influencers. Miquela is designed to look like a quintessential Instagram influencer while still maintaining her CGI appearance.
Trevor McFedries and Sara Decou invented Miquela and the fictional narrative of her life as an Instagram “it-girl”. By utilising the power of images they have completely created, rather than just curated, a life online. The pair have completely taken the “self” out of the equation, yet for all intents and purposes, Miquela may as well be a real person. Just like the majority of Instagram influencers; we only know her through images (shown in Figure 4)
Even though the consumer knows that Miquela is not a real person (although some may believe her claims of being a robot) the identity that McFedries and Decou have constructed is strong. By staging photographs of Miquela ‘hanging out’ with real social media influencers (as shown in Figure 4) and being featured in a number of publications including Vogue and Refinery29, her creators have demonstrated just how ‘real’ social media can appear to be when it is in fact far from reality.
The Commodification of Culture and Human Identity
In order to make Miquela culturally-relevant, controversial and in turn consumable, her creators have had her comment on sensitive cultural issues. Miquela claims to be “a champion of Black Lives Matter and the absolutely essential fight for LGBTQ+ rights” (as shown in Figure 5). Subsequently,“culture becomes completely commodified”(Debord, 1967, 193).
Miquela frequently posts about feuds with other CGI characters (as shown in Figure 6) which are also created by McFedries and Decou. This dramatic appeal of her outspoken personality attracts consumers. By characterising her psyche Miquela’s creators are commodifying every aspect of what makes up a human identity, without a human existing.
As shown in Figure 5, Miquela tags brands in her images, just like Alexis Ren and other Instagram influencers. Brands pay influencers to share images of their products as they can reach a large number of consumers through their social media; they are valuable to companies. Often, the more followers an influencer has, the more money the company will pay them; the two values are proportional. In this way ‘followers’ and ‘likes’ are used as units of currency, as well as scales of validation. “As culture becomes completely commodified”, including being turned into numerical values, “it tends to become the star” and most highly-desired “commodity of a spectacular society” (Debord, 1967, 193)
When an influencer is featuring a product it is not always clear to the consumers whether it is a paid advertisement/sponsorship or not. Therefore, consumers may often see influencers presenting products without any knowledge of their financial agenda. These photographs are constructed to sell a product (as well as a person and a lifestyle) under the guise of an image that is only commodifying a person. What appears to be a product choice in favour of aesthetics or practicality is actually a choice in favour of money.
Debord describes that “the spectacle is money one can only look at, because in it all use- value has already been exchanged for the totality of abstract representation” (Debord, 1967, 49). It is only there for the purpose of being viewed, and through viewing it we are adding value.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that Guy Debord’s theory of the society of the spectacle is certainly still relevant to today’s mediated culture. An individual’s instagram profile is more than a “collection of images”; it is a “social relationship mediated” and curated by images. This “social relationship” refers to the construction and commodification of self- and social- identity and the isolation that results from the selective mediation of these images, creating the “lonely crowd”.
It must be recognised that the majority of society do not use Instagram and other social media platforms to all of the extremities that were discussed in this essay. Many individuals of older generations may possess a rarely-used FaceBook account, but are members of no other social media platforms. Meanwhile, many people who are active may operate under private accounts and feel uninfluenced in the ways I have described. However, the spectacle exists though all forms of media - as it is all forms of media and therefore it is unavoidable.
It is predominantly the younger generations - the millennials - who witness and experience the ways in which the online platform of Instagram is the closest that society has ever come to the fulfilment of the spectacle.
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