Postmodernism.

Under Postmodernism, there are various theories given by many theorists, but this blog majorly focuses on the one given by Jean Buillard.  I have used few websites and few videos as inspiration to help me understand the concept of Postmodernism better. I will link those down at the end of the blog. 

Postmodernism refers to state of  culture where media is produced in such staggering quantities that it has crossed the boundaries into reality itself and hyperreality prevails. 

This may seem complex, let's break the definition into three parts, 

-Culture 

- Media 

-Hyperreality 

Culture :

Culture and daily lives are interrelated to each other. Culture is inspired by daily life and vice-versa. For example, the painting The Last Supper by Lenord Da Vinci . The painting has been inspired from events of the Bible. The painting was made  in the 15th century, a period in which religion predominated the society and thus many of pieces of that time, have accepts of religion in them. But as time has progressed, other factors too  started effecting culture. One of major ones being media. 

Media :

Media is of various kinds. It could be in form of books, audio, T.V etc. For the longest time, written media that is books, newspaper, magazines etc effected culture. But with progress in time, other channels of media such as radio started to come in play. Now social media, movies etc are considered as the major channels of media. 

The amount of media that we are surrounded can be considered unhealthy, as the amounts is huge. There are some cases in which media has become so important in the lives of people, that they find it hard to distinguish between the things that they consume on media and the things they see in real life. 

Hyperreality :

Hyperreality is a scenario in which an individual cannot distinguish between real life and stimulated reality.  What is stimulated reality ? Stimulated reality refers to the representation of life and not life itself. For example, presence of influencers on social media is just a representation of the individual and not the individual itself. But it seems that the social media representation of the individual may seem too real in nature, now that is hyperreality. 

Now that may seem that is related to media but it is also considered with reality, everything is a simulation of something. Even in books, in real life scenarios, etc. Everything is just a stimulation of something else which is also a stimulation of something else. This isn't something intentional, this is something that happens naturally, it is human nature.

What can we learn  from this theory?

We are born in this time zone, that is dominated by media. On social media, we see various posts of various individuals. Individuals that we know personally, individual that we do not. Now sometimes we get so engrossed in seeing this post, this feeds, that we forget that social media is just a representation of  an individual's life and not the person's life it self. Keeping this fact in our minds , is very important. 

On media, advertising is also something very common as well. Sometimes the advertisers, use cheap methods to keep their names in the market. For example, for the longest time many beauty brands promoted fair complexion in order to promote their product.  This has had a major impact on many generations and its' after affects are still seen. This becomes a major reasons to differentiate between reality and stimulations of reality. Because what can be considered beautiful to one , may not been seen beautiful  to others. 

Again this does not just refer to physical attributes, but also to themes like love, friendships etc. All of this aspects are shown to us in a certain manner in movies, books, social media etc. It some what becomes compulsory for us to have those things in same manner in the same manner as they are shown to us. But that isn't true, some relationships seem different based on individual's needs , desires etc, and that is normal. Everything that we perceive in media is just representation of reality but not reality itself. This is something that should properly registered in everyone's minds, as sometimes we are living our lives, we sometimes forget to be grateful for what we have, instead we chase behind something that is only partially real. 

This video has been really helpful for me to understand the concept of postmodernism. Please check it out if you want to know more:

https://youtu.be/5x4ntciHTXU

Thank You💓

-MJM.