Tag: hyperreality

• Trump l’Oeil

  February 23, 2025

  I BEGAN WRITING this after I saw the photos of Donald Trump working at McDonald’s. Like many, I was struck by how much the images, with their bizarre aesthetics and surreal content,… more ›

• A Brief Guide to Trump and the Spectacle

  February 22, 2025

  ‘Television Was a Baby Crawling towards That Deathchamber.’ These words are by Allen Ginsberg, writing in 1961, the title of a poem anathematising America. ‘It is here, the long Awaited… more ›

• Inside the Delirious Rise of ‘Superfake’ Handbags

  May 7, 2023

  Once upon a time, the legend goes, Theseus slew the Minotaur and sailed triumphantly home to Athens on a wooden ship. The vessel was preserved by Athenian citizens, who continually… more ›

• Dictatorships and Data Standards

  April 17, 2018

  Dictatorships and Data Standards » Since the 19th century, government statistics have been central to our sense of shared social reality. Is that going away? more ›

• Is Everything Wrestling?

  May 28, 2016

  Is Everything Wrestling? » The charms of professional wrestling — half Shakespeare, half steel-chair shots — may never be universally understood. Every adult fan of the sport has encountered those… more ›