“French social theorist Jean Baudrillard has this concept called the hyperreality. It’s rooted in simulacrum (Latin for “copying shit”) and follows this rule: the “faker” something seems, the more “real” everything else around it seems to be in comparison, even if this perception is a false one.

Baudrillard suggests that in order to deal with our postmodern times (aka the Horrors,) individuals employ a fatal strategy (aka a coping mechanism) that he refers to as the fractal self, which involves the self disintegrating and “becoming a proliferating fractal of objects and simulations, leading to the collapse of the subject-object relationship and the realization of a simulated existence” (basically, constructing personalities centered around existing media.)

We as individuals can change who and what we are as easily as we’d change clothes. We can adopt personalities formed as a fad or a fashion with incredible ease. There are many aesthetic uniforms to pick from: goth, cottage core, tweed jacket intellectual, clean girl, scene girl, old money prep, jock, coquette, “indie kid” etc. The “self” is nothing more than a series of ornaments we can put on and take off as we please.”

The Wreck Room by Tara Maggiulli