Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Ask DB1: The Spectral Scrote


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Greetings DB1!

Of late, I have been wondering about the existential aspect of douchebaggery.

Around here (Portland/Vancouver area of OR/WA), we seem to have a plethora of young men who although they have the tatts, hat tilt, Ed Hardy, and “gang” signs, the level of scrotal infestation still seems less than believable. They remind me of the “urban cowboy” outbreak in the early 80’s, where although those infected would dress and talk like a “cowboy”, it was obvious that they were in fact, poseurs.

Is it actually possible to be a poseur douche? Or is the mere desire to be of a scrotal nature give these subjects an automatic doucheosity?

I am wondering if Descartes’ concept of “Cogito douche, ergo sum douche” applies here, or if there is an actual doucheo-cultural integration that must take place for these DSP (douchebag shaped poseurs) to become fully tainted with a true doucheosity.

Any insight you may be able to give on this conundrum is much appreciated.
sincerely,
–“DB 3,564.2”

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As Virilio and Baudrillard have explained, we live in the age where the simulation has replaced the authentic in terms of meaning, signifier and cultural locator.

Ask yourself, why are so many movies coming out about avatars and mechanistic bodies replacing real ones through virtual control?

These films speak to the anxieties of the breakdown between the corporeal and technology’s extension of reality. By seeking to demarcate between image and one’s “real” self, as you ask, you are drawing a binary without distinction. As Baudrillard explained, Disneyland is the new real, and America itself is a simulation/recreation of European based colonial signifiers. “Mainstreet” simulations within a fictive nostalgic hue ratcheted up into spectacle. Disneyland was the first douchification of suburbia. The hyper-real conflation between super-reality spectacle as marker of the authentic.

The pixel image glowing on a monitor cannot be disentangled from the painting on the wall of a museum. The authentic no longer exists in the age of virtual reproduction of mechanical reproduction. Image has superseded body, and can only be reconfigured and recontextualized. But never reverted back to its previous place outside of the self.

In short, the douche echoes the douche, but is in fact, the douche. The age of mechanical reproduction has given way to the simulation of reproduction within the virtual realm, even when re-corporealized on the individual.

# posted by douchebag1

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