welcome to hyperreality and the collapse of meaning

Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation is all about how signs and images gradually detach from the “real” they were meant to represent, until they end up referring only to each other. In your example:

The Gromit mug (left) is the “original” object, something still tied to a material referent (a mug shaped like Gromit).

The Gromit mug mug (middle) is an image of the Gromit mug printed on a mug. Already it’s no longer the thing itself, just a representation of it.

The Gromit mug mug mug (right) is a mug with an image of the “Gromit mug mug.” At this point the chain of reference is recursive, it no longer points back to Gromit or even to a mug-as-object, but only to previous images.

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