This Dominance of the Hyperreal

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Max and the group on 20 November 2015.

Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria served as inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle

Max, I personally believe that you are Joe Lazarus Sr.'s clone—so far the only iteration. (By the way, this is all probably Farthington's handiwork, who has a degree in eugenics or something.)

I like the idea that each iteration produces an intellectual diminution, going along with the motif of echoes, radiating proscenia, repost/retweet/embed, etc. Also, going along with the motif of inarticulate, speechless, and/or mouthless characters, I like to think Joseph Lazarus III doesn't say his first word until age 15 or something. We'll need to make it a good one, whatever it was.

This played out during the press conference and concert when your answers were more or less just repeating the question.

Right now this part of the story is just a pathedy, that is to say, the pathetic, more or less innocent victims of Farthington. To make it tragic, the two need to interact. I wouldn't be surprised if our increasingly bewildered Joe Lazarus Jr. ends up killing the clone and running away to Mexico (or...India?).

Why? Well, maybe the clone—in his limited understanding of the situation—wants a relationship with his "son." With little inhibition or impulse control, the clone might encroach on Joe Jr.'s life, stalking him or even climbing into bed with him—all with nothing but the best intentions, acting on what he believes to be appropriate, paternal feelings.

All sorts of paradoxical situations arise here—kind of a disordered "the child is father to the man" type thing. But it works because it's just one more manifestation of the turbulent reversals. Joseph Lazarus III is a perfect picture of the project in that he is a contentless simulacrum, a perfect clone, but gutted of any original essence or meaning.

I know this isn't a perfect application of these theories. But it's this move by which the clone tries to supplant the original that strikes me as particularly Baudrillardian. Obviously, Joseph Lazarus III does have a clear referent: Joe Lazarus Sr. But when you look at Baudrillard's examples—like Disneyland or Chinatown—the hyperreal usually does have some referent. The hyperreal seems to be nothing more than a distortion of a referent that no longer exists, like Bavaria of old or early 20th-century Los Angeles. To the extent that Joseph Lazarus III has been unmoored from his referent and attempts to fill the void left by it, he exemplifies this dominance of the hyperreal.

Actually, take this one step further: Joe Lazarus Sr. isn't real—he's just a character we made up. Joe Lazarus Jr. is based a little bit on our Joe, but Joe Lazarus Sr. has no real referent.

So, Joe Lazarus Jr., who has a referent, confronts Joseph Lazarus III, whose only referent is a made-up character.

Joe, can you explain what I'm talking about here?