The Society of the Spectacle is pretty prescient reading given the last 20 years.
I skimmed this translation, I like the Donald Nicholson-Smith / Zone Books translation better but this is what I got:
https://files.libcom.org/files/The%20Society%20of%20the%20Spectacle%20Annotated%20Edition.pdfPeople are constantly being bombarded with media and curated images, movies, celebrities, etc that end up mediating our relationships totally. It doesn't really even matter what you have, as time marches on, the appearance of things is even more real to people scrolling on smartphones than an actual person they might connect with directly. Instead of having real friendships, people watch an idealized Sitcom version, or form "parasocial" relationships with streamers. Instead of meeting a romantic partner, we're swiping right on computationally idealized filter-edits of our actual photos.
I find his comments about counterculture and rebellion to be the most compelling. Corporate fashion co-opts every "cool" rebellious counter cultural trend and sells it right back to you. You don't have to bother socializing, creating a counter culture, you can just buy the outfit at Hot Topic. Now we've even got Suno AI Bullshit, the corporate dream is that artists are replaced by yet another commodified simulacrum, much easier to control and denude to maximize shareholder value. When you do happen to manage to connect with say, a band you like, you get scalpers reselling Ticketmaster branded tickets to a venue named after a bank.
This shit reads like Nostradamus.
