The Society Of The Spectacle

What The Society Of The Spectacle means to me: When I think of spectacle, I immediately thought of the word, "Illusion", and as we discussed it in class, I started to think that Guy Debord was explaining humanity as a spectacle. And in this society, our human lives are now revolving around the commodities of this world, and that we have become a spectacle because of this society. We are becoming disillusioned.  Guy Debord writes about how our society is relying on commodities to keep us in this illusion of happiness. He writes that the spectacle has learned to put abundance in tangible forms such as materialistic items like clothes and shoes. He even writes that in order to make this tangible form valuable is to make it seem like you can't live without it---in his words, "use value must be explicitly proclaimed." In order to make these tangible things valuable, you must “fetishes” the commodity and make it seem like you can’t live without it. Debord also points out the more “abundant” the item is, the more the spectacle of it being priceless will be upheld. He also points out that even in this spectacle, everyone ignores the fact that these commodities are just things that will last only for a while, so that’s what makes them keep buying things that they, in the end, don’t need or want. By doing this, “the commodity has succeeded in totally colonizing social life.”

                                            

Fashion changes is an example of these points in this day and age, and the fashion changes in every changing era, people will go with what is popular and what is “different” until they move on to the next thing since they get bored of it and it’s not spectacular anymore. In the early 2000s, we had bell bottom jeans and Chinese slippers as a fad. That’s when people started to notice that they were all looking the same, so they wanted to be different and so they looked at what other commodity could make them happy and different. People who were selling items started to notice this change of attitude of “being different”, so they tried to sell the image of being different by selling clothing that will make them stand out. That’s why fashion is so interesting because everyone is trying to be the spectacle of society. Fashion always has an icon, whether it’s Kim Kardashian or the Duchess of Cambridge, the spectacle of these women wearing something different and stands out, people will want to copy their outfits and they will think that magically overnight they will have this abundant happiness that will make them stop wanting for more when they are doing the exact opposite.

In the journalism and media world nowadays, there are articles that people write called, “I Dressed Up Like Kim Kardashian For A Week And This Is What Happened,” and people read about it like it’s world news which just proves that the spectacle of fashion fads and fashion icons will always be an illusion---a spectacle.

Works Cited:

Debord, Guy. "The Society of the Spectacle." Chapter 2: The Commodity as Spectacle.