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Jean Baudrillard was a French theorist born in 1929 and was a key figure in the field of Postmodernism. Although he past away in 2007, he has published over thirty books and left numerous essential thoughts in many spheres of philosophy. Because of his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, Baudrillard’s books often focused on the impacts of modern culture on the people around them a.k.a post-structuralism.

Postmodern:
Baudrillard has proven to be an influential figure, his presence felt in popular movies like the Matrix. The Matrix perfectly displayed one of Baudrillard’s topics of interest: hyperreality. Hyperreality is the fake realm created by imitations of reality which stems from the proliferation of newer technologies like mass media. The fake reality becomes increasingly more predominant as humanity’s perceived truth; thus, our contact with the "real" world—at least in Baudrillard’s perspective—is shrinking. As odd as it sounds, reality becomes less tenable, and instead fake implanted virtualities take the place of these realities.

Simulacra and Simulation:
Baudrillard’s book "Simulacra and Simulation" explains the formation (more specifically the shift from our reality) to hyperreality. He clearly separates the shift into four different categories. The first stage is a faithful copy, or commonly referred to as the reflection. It is when the objects is a "reflection of a profound reality". This is also what Baudrillard refers to as the "the sacramental order". The second stage is a perversion of reality, this is where signs of an unfaithful copy arise and will "masks and denature" reality as an "evil appearance”. Here, signs and images no longer reveal reality, but can hint at the existence of an obscure reality. The third stage masks the absence of reality; thus, producing signs that pretends to be a faithful copy; however, the copies are no longer of the original. Baudrillard refers to this phase as the "order of sorcery". The fourth, and final, stage is pure simulacrum. Simulacrum is when there is no relationship to any reality whatsoever. Here, signs merely reflect other signs and reality is simply a reflection of these false signs. This is the world that Baudrillard fears we live in today, where products no longer even have to pretend to be “fake” to be our reality.

Hyperreality:
Baudrillard never directly—at least to my knowledge—condemned hyperreality to be of something bad. This is probably because the world that we live in is surrounded by the hyperreal. Everything we are fascinated by, whether it be those name-brand clothes or the luxurious sports car, are all forms of the hyperreal. These objects, themselves, have little additional value in terms of purpose, but it is the status symbol associated with it where we derive its monetary value. Baudrillard’s most famous representation of hyperreality, however, was his use of Disneyland. The whole place is a play of illusions from giant walking mice to dancing pirates. Inside, you can forget about reality and be drawn to the world around you. Baudrillard notes that when in Disneyland people “want to be childish in order to make them believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the ‘real’ world”. Disney is the temporal escape into a world of imagination, a hiding in a “utopia”. However, this simulation is not limited to just the park, for Baudrillard believes all of America is all but a fake reality. Through the simulation of reality, our consciousness is tricked into accepting the additional value that certain products have associated with them. Simulations of reality are becoming more and more of a reality, hence giving truth to the arrival of the hyperreality. Although Baudrillard does warn us of falling into the trap that is hyperreality, I believe that he cannot fully condemn it, for so much of it is our truth today.