The Simulation as Microcosm

One of the reasons I really appreciated Beaudrillard's use of Disneyland as a metaphor for the simulation and hyperreal is because it ties in really nicely with a trend that I've noticed in our literature this semester, and something I pointed out during our TVS discussion. When talking about the hyperreal and Disneyland Beaudrillard emphasizes the microcosm. One of the key characteristics of a microcosm is its complete isolation from reality (in said microcosm's defining respect). This plays a large role in the success of a simulation because in order to be "convincing", the hyperreal must be fully separated from the real.

All the books (and films) we've read this semester use various methods to construct their own microcosms (in fact Nabokov argues thats what makes a piece of literature great -- that it can create a world entirely separate from reality). The characters we've gotten to know are delusioned because they are unable to escape said microcosm, and this is why it is so easy for them to buy into the simulation. I mean, just imagine leaving a 5 year old in Disneyland and then taking him out when he's 25... it's the happiest place on earth and all, but he's gonna be pretty messed up.

Anyways, good luck on your presentations this week! :)

"WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL"

Is something people used to jokingly say in debate to make fun of high school teenagers who used Baudrillard to make their point and acted like they fully understood him. 

I definitely still don't fully understand him and I'm not sure I ever will. 

Nevertheless the two parts of Baudrillard that interested me the most were first, his discussion of Disneyland as an artificial and infantile world that is set up in such a way that makes us think the “adult” world is non-infantile and non-simulated and second, his idea that media tries to make itself seem real and creates a replication for which there is no original.

And I guess it interested me most because I feel at least partially guilty of participating in that kind of simulation as someone who works in a virtual reality lab on campus. At work, we’re always talking about the difference between VR and the real world or how to make VR more like the real world or how we purposefully want to leave some differences intact to experiment with how some things can be left as noticeably unreal but still feel immersive and real based on the immersive quality of other aspects of the VR world.

And the other thing we do that Baudrillard would probably hate is we have based our entire VR world on a young adult novel that imagines an alternate WWI history that’s more biomech/steampunk, but that also has totally different politics. Which, to some, would probably incidentally reaffirm our current historical idea of WWI as real, rather than the projection of historians working with limited information.

To be honest, though, while I feel guilty of doing what Baudrillard talks about, I don’t feel guilty as if it is some horrible thing. I don’t know. Maybe I’m crazy, but I think the existence of all of these modern simulacra can actually force us to question the “realness” of reality, rather than treat it as artificially realer than our imagined worlds. I mean, I think the fact that their existence has given rise to a writer like Baudrillard is interesting. We’re forced to question the realness of reality MORE in my opinion simply because there are all these simulations swimming about. And it’s not as if the nonreality of reality is the new part. It’s always been around with misinformation, propaganda, artificial images of royalty/celebrity, etc. So, I guess speaking personally, the only area where Baudrillard’s concerns really concern me is war. But that’s a separate issue and wasn’t really addressed in this excerpt. But yeah, drones and the virtualizing of war is really scary.

By Jack

Less Than Zero as an Autobiography

                Less Than Zero, claimed to be the “Catcher in the Rye for the MTV generation” by the USA Today quote on the back cover, revives the angst in me that I had nearly forgotten about after being separated from my parents for such a long time. I, and I’m sure many others, have felt Clay-esque emotions after going across the country to a new place for the first months of college and returning back to the same old familiar home. The familiar home which seems all-too-familiar, with friends you once held fond memories of but not sure if you feel the same way anymore, and with roads and places no longer being as attractive as they once were. After the first couple of passages of Clay’s narrative, I couldn’t really relate to his story anymore, but his angst throughout (not the way he carried through with it) really resonated with my younger adolescent years.

                Like others, I was compelled by Clay’s reckless and glamorous lifestyle and I could hardly imagine people living like this in real life, so I decided to do some research on Bret Easton Ellis to see if this work was possibly autobiographical in anyway. Not surprisingly, like other works we’ve read in class, it was. Bret grew up in Los Angeles (which was pretty much already known, given his familiarity with the region), went to a prep school, and then went to a college in Vermont, not too far off from Clay’s college state, New Hampshire. He doesn’t identify consistently with a particular sexuality, partly because he claims he doesn’t want to be read as a straight/gay/bisexual author.

                Probably for most readers, who aren’t part of “the industry” in LA or the wealthy Beverly Hills cliques, Less Than Zero represents a story of super rich kids (shout out to Frank Ocean) who are selfish, stupid, and too bored to do anything productive other than snort coke and drink champagne. Yet I can’t help but deeply sympathize with him.

-Carrie

Nihilism with a Purpose?

Clay's character is one that all of us can probably relate to in some way. And even if we can't, we have certainly encountered some students at USC who, like Clay, have too much at their disposal an 18 year old. Money isn't a problem for Clay and so unlike others his age who may have to dedicate their time and energy to making a living, or securing their futures, Clay can spare the time and the energy and can indulge a little... or a lot.

Clay wastes his time away on cheap thrills: the alcohol, the cocaine, the sex, the valium to come down again... etc, but he is hopelessly bored by it all. Clay and the overprivileged youths he affiliates himself with have nothing to aim for because they already have it all. So they wander aimlessly, numbly, miserably.

The city of Los Angeles as it is presented in Less Than Zero is plastic, artificial, and devoid of hope. It is also a place where everything happens too fast; kids grow up too fast and, like Clay and his friends, experience the world of drugs, sex, and partying far too early.

Reading Less than Zero was an almost disturbing experience for me. The listing of roads driven, drugs taken, friends encountered... etc, could have been boring, but it was somehow mesmerizing to me. Everything is presented so matter-of-factly, and so plainly, that it is simultaneously horrific and understandable. I never really questioned what Clay was doing, because it made sense somehow in my mind.

Less than Zero seems to raise the question of what really matters and what doesn't, or rather, if anything that we will ever do can really matter... Clay's life is only as important as he makes it to be, and he believes his life (in LA) to be rather meaningless. I think the ultimate takeaway for me from this reading was just a de-familiarization to a nihilistic, yet valid, way of looking at life. I choose to ascribe meaning to the choices that I make in my life, but many people choose not to. It's a danger that is always there, I suppose.
-Kayla

When does the elevator stop?

For me, the most striking example of the extreme apathy in Less Than Zero is after Clay accompanies Julian to Finn's apartment and discovers Julian's work as a prostitute. As the two boys stand in the elevator, Clay realizes, "I really don't care and suddenly feel foolish, stupid. I also realize that I'll go with Julian to the Saint Marquis. That I want to see if things like this can actually happen. And as the elevator descends, passing the second floor, and the first floor, going even farther down, I realize that the money doesn't matter. That all that does is that I want to see the worst" (Ellis 172). As the elevator descends lower and lower, like their lives spiraling downwards, neither of the boys appear to have a working conscience (probably dulled from too many drugs). However, at what point, if any, does the apathy stop? What does it take to drag one of these characters out of such a mindset? One can say that going far away for college seems to have begun the process for Clay, who expresses a large discontent with life at home. Although the dissatisfaction is present, Clay is still too apathetic to speak up or act against it, so in my eyes he is still just the same as the other characters. Is conformity so strong that it can cover up morality? Is there a catalyst that can break through the apathy and conformity of teenage life in the 1980s, and if so, what?

A Semi-Charmed Life

This song, to me, is literally LTZ in song form. The vibe is so Californian and laid back, and because of its upbeat quality, you would never ever notice it to be a song about an intense crystal meth addiction unless you really listened to the lyrics.

The way that I see this song is as a personification of drug addiction and how it is similar to a relationship, which speaks to one of Clay and his friends major problems: they substitute drugs for real relationships. There is literally no social gathering without some kind of drug involved, including events with the family.

My favorite line of the song (in the context of LTZ) is "I want something else, to get me through this/Semi-charmed kind of life" because it really speaks to the primary role of drugs in novel. To them, and especially to Clay, drugs are seen as a way to pass time until death, which is so incredibly depressing considering that these characters are our age.

The Environment of L.A. in Less Than Zero

One thing I found funny about Less Than Zero is that when Clay describes things, he seems to be speaking in a very sleazy, Hollywood-style way that's very detached from what he's actually describing. Every time he speaks, I can almost imagine him laying out on a lawn chair by the pool, chatting nonchalantly with his hands to some companion next to him and gesticulating a lot with his hands while staring up into the sun (and all the while failing to come close to any sort of tan).

I found extremely interesting the paradox because the inner states of characters and the external environment (namely, the weather). The heat is described over and over again in keeping true to the stereotype of sunny Los Angeles, and yet Clay is anything but vibrant. There are two different conceptions of the California beach culture at play, the first being the excited beach-going sort who play volleyball and surf and are very excitable and outdoorsy, and the other being how I have described Clay above (the lazy, apathetic tanner). It's a tad ironic that he's absorbing so much sun and yet he seems cold as ice on the inside, almost meaninglessly drifting through life.

I find it interesting what others have said about SoCal stereotyping in the novel and it not quite being true for one who has truly experienced Los Angeles. Surely, no hyperbolic stereotype can truly live up to its reputation, but the book definitely takes advantage of a lot of the stereotypes that I had believed as a resident of the bay area before moving to L.A. As unrepresentative of the whole population as these stereotypes are, I've definitely met people in L.A. who embody them. I wonder if people are sometimes compelled to become the stereotype placed upon them. Might someone who has lived in L.A. their whole life feel a compulsion to act a certain way because of conceptions others have of them? I also find it interesting to view this behavior taken out of its context. When someone from SoCal leaves the area, will they adapt to their new surroundings or will they embody where they come from to an extreme?

But I digress.