Simulation & Virtual Realities: How Gen Z's sense of identity has become based in digital spaces

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Jean Baudrillard argues that the image “bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum” (1983: 10-11).

In the way Jean Baudrillard considers reality, it can be summarised to argue that there is no objective, stable reality upon which any sort of media or item can reference as the ‘original.’ Reality is, instead, the human condition of trying to make sense of ourselves and a world that has no inherent, tangible meaning. Simulation is this ongoing process and reality is the everchanging result. The rapid developments of technology in the modern era have only pushed us further into this “Desert of the real” in which “the sphere of the real is no longer exchangeable for the sphere of the sign” (Baudrillard, 2010). This means that the functionality of semiotics in this hyperreality has abandoned the traditional relationship between a signifier and signified, resulting in “a culture of ‘floating signifiers’,” where so-called representations are nothing more than copies that are experienced as more real in their own right than the reality they are meant to depict. Notions of authenticity, as defined by Walter Benjamin in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936) and originality are no longer relevant to the value of an object, thus making them simulacra: copies of originals that no longer exist.

To break down simulation, Baudrillard proposed a hierarchy of four orders of simulacra. The first order describes the straightforward relationship between a simple copy that clearly represents an original. For example, a photograph or painting depicting a real life person, place, or thing. Within this order, there is no question or doubt about which item is the original. In the second order, The Industrial Revolution gave way to an age of reproduction in which mass production created copies of copies that became detached from the original, taking on a life of their own. Walter Benjamin argued that the ability to produce multiple copies of artworks through mechanical means fundamentally transformed the nature of art and its place in society as art experienced a “loss of aura” that only an original would be believed to possess. As the distinction between the original and a copy continued to be questioned, the third order of simulacra occurred where the copy has become its own reality and the original is no longer identifiable. Finally, it is the proliferation of the fourth order simulacra that Baudrillard argues contemporary society is characterised by. Reality itself has become a simulation in which all meaning is lost to the excess of simulacra.

With the rapid technological changes of the modern day, navigating the media now requires navigating a digital landscape, enabling media operation that is not obligated to reference anything real.

“In the virtual world, I was able to do things such as choosing my own gender-neutral body and creating an appearance that reflects my own sense of beauty, which are not possible in real life. I consider Doku as my digital reincarnation. He is me but someone else at the same time. Just like the Buddhist concept of alayavijnana [storehouse consciousness], he represents a stream of consciousness which lingers in different worlds and different selves.” (Yang, 2020)

Multimedia artist, Lu Yang uses their “digital reincarnation” to explore their own sense of identity. To do this, they place Doku in virtual worlds that represent their own personal reality in their beliefs about the world, while also taking inspiration from religion, neuroscience, popular Asian media, such as Japanese anime, retro video games, and more. With modern technology, it is more than possible to not only “play with our identities and explore ourselves, our many parallel selves, and prepare those selves for new dimensions and universes” but to also convey those identities to others. Lu Yang also creates work that poses the question, if we can simulate senses and emotions through technology, what is reality? The sophistication and mastery Lu Yang has of their craft demonstrates not only what can be achieved in a virtual landscape, but also in its nature encourages viewers to contemplate their own perceptions of reality and the self that is derived from that interpretation of it. For audiences experiencing the LuYang NetiNeti exhibition at the Zabludowicz Collection or pieces of it scattered across Lu Yang’s own website or Instagram profiles online, or even any other art gallery, it is, in a way, possible to experience someone else’s point of view and version of the world. It can be related to Slavoj Žižek’s concept of the parallax view in that there are multiple perspectives to be considered before one can gain any more complete understanding of reality (Žižek, 2006). But as there is more than one way to interpret a given phenomenon or event, the idea that there is a single, objective reality to be known or understood enough to be represented is challenged by the complexity of reality as a construct shaped by the multiple viewpoints we adopt to understand the world. As a result, the reality we consume is a multiverse of individual realities that have gone through multiple filters of perception depending on the platform on which they are seen.

However, the concept of having something such as a “digital reincarnation” or alternate personality that exists within the virtual world, is a phenomenon which the general population would also be familiar with— as observed across social media. The popularisation of social media platforms like Instagram has made this possible in everyday life, especially in ‘Gen Z’ culture.

“Today’s youth are “digital kids”… cognizant of the myriad digital technologies around them— technologies they can control and customise to fit their own lives and styles… They live parallel “online lives” with behaviour that is very different from and often puzzling or frightening to the generations that came before.” (Hirumi 2010, p. 9-11)

Virtual profiles allow us to split and spread our personality traits across various platforms and pages within those platforms. While it suggests an intention to ‘connect’ people, the human desire for socialisation has led most to treat the platforms as an online gallery in which they can curate an idealised version of themselves and their lives. As a result, the distinction between an individual’s modified online persona and their “real” identity becomes unclear. This is especially prevalent in a prosumer era— in which the role of producer and consumer is combined as media production becomes democratised (Jenkins, 2006) and we find ourselves in a position where “we are the screen, the editor, reporter, and subscriber all at once” (Wisecrack, 2015). Content creation has become a viable career option and as social media platforms are built on the foundation of content produced by their users, everyone on it can be considered a content creator by default. The dopamine rush resulting from the “reward” of a “like” on said content not only reinforces the habit of creating a simulated social reality, but makes it genuinely addicting (Haynes, 2018).

The dependency on user-generated content has given people access to both an endless amount of information and tools and opened opportunities for almost every demographic to be represented in one corner or another somewhere across the Internet. As a consequence, it has given a platform to stories that seek to “entertain, please, or upset others” rather than to inform (Chadwick, Vaccari and O’Loughlin, 2018). Internet discourse that takes place in comment sections and online forums alongside that natural instinct of humans to ‘fit in,’ influences their personality in terms of likes and dislikes, language, etc. and can cause polarisation. On top of this, algorithms are designed to collect data on a person’s interests based on their app usage so that their ‘feeds’ can recycle and regurgitate similar content, as well as targeted ads that blend in with the rest. At the same time that this locks users into a cycle of like minded content, this “explosion of information, of events, makes the ability to understand the world nearly impossible” and the only way human beings have learned to cope with such an overload is to only subscribe to messages that are compatible with their own beliefs and emotions, accepting those alone as ‘truth.’ As an outcome, “confirmation bias reinforces itself as social media users turn away from any messages that challenge them” (Morris, 2020). In the sense that everyone is solely seeking representation of ‘their truth,’ simulation enables the existence and acceptance of media that is not backed by fact-based reality, such as “fake news,” tabloid press, post-truth culture and quasi-news organisations promoting conspiracies as journalism.

The advanced level of interactivity in modern apps is what makes it so encompassing and hyperreal, meaning that our consciousness is no longer able to distinguish between reality and simulation of reality. Where social media covers current events — describing the social, political, economic state of the world— video games can be used as a more imaginative space for experimentation. It allows people to recreate reality in order to alter it, without producing the same consequences in their physical world. Sandbox games like Minecraft, Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing have become increasingly popular, particularly in light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic as they provided a comforting world for people to escape into as a replacement for the life they could not live in the quarantine lockdown. In that time, video games became more reality than the outside world could be. Similarly, life simulation games, such as The Sims 4, see players “practically playing a God” where “certain aspects of yourself [are] presented through how you choose to play the game” (Mad Seedling, 2018). Although it was designed as a “simulated version of life” the uncanny art and movement of avatars deviates from how humans appear and behave in reality. This, however, does not discredit its potential for influencing reality as research into using The Sims 4 as training examples for intelligence assistive robots has been conducted to overcome privacy concerns of using real households for data collection (Roitberg, 2021). Similarly, Grand Theft Auto has been used for making autonomous vehicles. Even beyond the gameplay action, the realism employed by the game world environments alone make their worlds “as real as any other city you drive through and not get out of the car for” (Atkinson and Willis, 2009). Engaging with these “simulated alternatives to urban space” “generate an understanding of space and sociality that is inflected with the possibility of playing with that space, mentally and physically, as the parameters of these games are introduced into the real city by players.” This is why video games have also been utilised by schools to better engage and educate children and teens in a world where at least “97% of [U.S.] teens ages 12-17 play computer, web, portable, or console [electronic] games” (Hirumi, 2010). Traditional methods of teaching can no longer compete with the advanced technology many youths have available to them outside of school as “Kids confront ideas, goals, decisions, and ethics in their complex games that were almost never confronted by kids that young in the past.” In other words, the detail and scale combined with the freedom to explore and take advantage of these virtual spaces however the player sees fit makes video games a perfect example of how reality and simulation have blended to be both the causes and consequences of each other.

Due to the immersive quality of video game worlds, gamers’ experiences may feel as or even more real than their “real world” lives. They give gamers experiences of the real world that could be in some sense representative, and yet so complex and evocative on its own that their relationships, hopes and dreams, are shaped around their experiences in the virtual world.

“They meet in online places, such as multiplayer games, and multiuser virtual environments, such as Second Life. They coordinate, collect, evaluate, create, search, analyze, report, program, socialize, transgress, and a large part of the time basically grow up online.” (Hirumi 2010, p. 11)

The way that ‘Gen Z’ interacts is primarily online and even offline interactions make references to online culture that sound almost like a language of its own. Therefore, it is evident that while video games may echo reality, their cultural impact has reached a point where reality can also echo video games. The communities formed over shared interest in video games are just some of the fan communities (fandoms) that dominate the internet culture the younger generations were raised on. It has become normalised for people to form friendships and even romantic relationships over the internet. Online friends and ‘eDating’ are so common that there are servers (e.g. on Discord, a VoIP and instant messaging software) and apps dedicated to finding people for forming these relationships. Dating apps like Tinder have arguably become the main way for people 18 and older to meet and date people, while apps like Yubo — whose slogan is “Get friends. Get real.” — exist for people aged 13-17 to socialise. Additionally, video game and internet phrases intertwine themselves into everyday language. For example, it has become a trend on TikTok for people to refer to people they encounter in the real world as “NPCs,” a term used in video games for “non-playable characters” or any character within the game’s world that is not controllable by the player (Bardhan, 2022). Besides that, Merriam-Webster has added slang words to its dictionary definitions, such as “sus” (suspicious, often associated with the multiplayer game, Among Us) and “pwn” (to dominate and defeat, used in gaming) with even the Oxford English Dictionary updating to include its own list of slang words like the aforementioned “fake news.” This all acts as evidence that the reality simulated by virtual worlds and online culture has assimilated with the reality outside the screen.

To consider the impact of media and technology on society, one must also consider the impact of capitalism on media. The concept of the “culture industry” as proposed by the Frankfurt School argued that mass media serves the interests of capitalist society by producing and promoting a narrow range of cultural products that reinforce the dominant ideology (Babe, 2012). Their ideas are closely related to Baudrillard’s in that people’s understanding of the world is shaped by media representations that are used to create and reinforce a simulated reality that bears little relation to the true nature of the world. Baudrillard’s agreement with the part capitalism plays in causing simulation is evident in his decision to decline the offer to be a consultant for The Matrix (1999) movie. Although ‘the Matrix’ aims to act as an allegory for our own postmodern condition, inspired by Baudrillard’s book, he had reservations about the commercialisation of his work and worried the project would be too simplistic to capture the complexity of his ideas. As a film project, the entertainment industry attempting to appropriate simulation for profit was perhaps too ironic. However, the trend of science-fiction chalking the problems of consumerism, capitalism and the influence of media on society up to being caused by an alien race, sentient machines, or other entity separate from humanity is not unique to The Matrix. While it is true that themes in films such as The Matrix and They Live (1988) can be interpreted as commentary on capitalist ideology, they never directly critique or address the system itself.

However, it is important to consider that this process of simulation also occurs on a broader level, as reality itself is already mediated before an attempt is made to represent it through film or other means. This challenges Richard Rushton's concept of realism in film, which emphasises the importance of accurately depicting the real world (Ruston, 2010), as Baudrillard's theory of simulation suggests that media representations can create their own reality and shape our understanding of the world in ways that are divorced from objective truth. There is no reality that can be used as a basis for accurate representation because our understanding of reality is too multifaceted, influenced by various forms of representation such as language, media, and cultural narratives. The reality that Ruston stresses the importance of portraying authentically is inherently influenced by how it is represented to us.

While the Frankfurt School believe that the culture industry promotes a false sense of individuality and choice (pseudo-individuation) in favour of standardised, hegemonic content aligned with the capitalist agenda, Jean Baudrillard would argue that simulation is a complex process induced by a variety of factors, including both individual choices and the larger social and economic forces of society. “The media creates a copy of the event” but “we prefer the copy of reality” (Wisecrack, 2015) and thus, simulation is therefore, partially self-imposed.

“The most serious problems posed by advertising derive less from the unscrupulous-ness of those who fool us than from our pleasure in being fooled” (Baudrillard 2001, p. 72)

On the other hand, it is arguable that the relationship between capitalism and the media is no longer clear-cut in the sense that the dominating reality proves that capitalism always seems to catch up with the content and movements that attempt to oppose it, and their meaning becomes lost in consumerist motivations. In other words, capitalism has adapted to appropriate culture as media production becomes more accessible to the general public, rather than being controlled by a small group of elites or large corporations. Capitalism counters the levelling of the playing field for media creators by jumping on the trends of promoting ‘political correctness’ and attaching themselves to the values of whatever social or political message is popular and prevalent. It creates a facade of being a “progressive” brand, whilst reaping the benefits of media exposure from both sides. For example, when the #BurnYourNikes backlash followed Nike’s ad campaign featuring black athletes like Colin Kaepernick taking a knee to protest racism and police brutality, the company’s value increased by 6 billion dollars (HBomberGuy, 2016).

“Once we could have fun denouncing the dark, solid reality concealed behind the brilliance of appearances. But today there is allegedly no longer any solid reality to counter-pose to the reign of appearances, nor any dark reverse side to be opposed to the triumph of consumer society” (Rancière and Elliott, 2009)

Since there is no longer any one dominating ideology and instead, a range of realities represented across the “information superhighway” (Nunes, 1995), capitalism co-opts popular trends for its own purposes. This can further contribute to the process of simulation as media representations become more commercialised and superficial, but better at concealing their true intentions, and it becomes difficult to distinguish between genuine opposition to capitalism and commercialised or superficial gestures towards progressive values. There is no longer any real rebellion or counter culture because there is no longer one agreed upon reality that leaves anything off limits. As “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning” the illusion of choice granted to us in deciding which products to consume — e.g. opting for econscious brands or ones that align themselves with personal political values— only attempts to obscure the way that the nature of reality has been replaced by images and groundless representations.

In conclusion, simulation is highly relevant to contemporary media practice, as media representations of reality have come to play a more significant role in shaping people’s understanding of the world than direct experience of reality itself. As soon as humanity attempted to define and represent reality, we entered simulation in a way that has become more and more muddled as we navigate a capitalist-driven, media-based world oversaturated with ‘truth.’ What we now call reality is actually an impermanent consensus constantly redefined by the plethora of contemporary media frontiers available to us— like virtual and augmented reality technologies— as society becomes increasingly screen-based. Overall, Baudrillard’s concepts of simulation and simulacra highlight the complexity and fluidity of reality in the digital age.

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