Do we need to "forget history" as a neccesary step to form hyperreailty?

Question

From the wiki on hyperreality,

The simulacrum is "an image without resemblance"; as Gilles Deleuze summarized, it is the forsaking of "moral existence in order to enter into aesthetic existence". However, Baudrillard argues that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes—through sociocultural compression—truth in its own right.

There are four steps of hyperreal reproduction:

Basic reflection of reality, i.e. in immediate perception

Perversion of reality, i.e. in representation

Pretense of reality, where there is no model

Simulacrum, which "bears no relation to any reality whatsoever"

Clearly, the simulacrum would always bear relation to reality by it being able to be created from this process. The only way the above makes sense to me, is if the past history of the simulacrum is continously forgotten as it is created. Is this how Baudillard thought it, or am I missing something?

Answer 1

Not necessarily. It can just be about cultural accretion. See for instance Baudrillard's steps discussed in relation to internet memes here: Video games as new art If you go to 'Know Your Meme' the emergence of many memes is documented down to the exact Tweet, then influential uses that spread it's use. They then become 'touchstones' referencing a mood or a stance, that may get further and further abstracted and combined.

So here it's not that a fish shaped fish finger is forgetting that fish are involved. Swedish Fish candies, have only a very abstract relationship to fish.

Baudrillard's four stages of simulatiin have become a meme, and in this image we see memes used to illustrate progressive abstraction, using examples that increase in abstraction. The information to explain the memes may be out there, like the etymology of words we use. But many don't know them, and the knowledge isn't needed to use them for their social functions.

Another good example is Disneyland.

1. A story set in a real time and place
2. An animated film of the story, set 'a long time and far far away' which draws out archetypal qualities
3. A sleeping beauty costume allowing participation or enactment
4. Someone referencing that if they make friends with animals they have become a Disney Princess

Or wearing mouse-ears, where they have become a sign indicating you went to Disneyland, long abstracted from an actual field mouse.

Answer 2

I don't think so.

I don't really understand what this hyper-reality is all about. But that article says that Disneyland is an example of hyper-reality. I have never been to Disneyland but I gather it looks something like this:

In any case, it is possible to visit Disneyland without forgetting history. In particular you can go there and remember the history of when you walked in the gate. I know this because people go into Disneyland and then later they come back out. So they must remember the history of where they came in.