== Identity Note == Identity used to be about reflecting reality, but in its transfer through the stages of simulacra, it has become about reflecting what you want to be and how you want to be thought of; an idealized self. Identity in the first stage: Reality says: "My hair is brown;" Identity says: "My hair is brown." Identity in the third stage: Reality says: "My hair is brown;" Identity says: "My hair is purple." And to achieve this ideal self, you must purchase the hair dye. You have to buy identity. Performative. Furthermore, this can be taken to the nth degree when looking at online profiles. It is often joked that many people on Discord with a cutesy anime girl as their profile picture are actually often old men. This is a profound example of simulated identity in action. Online profiles are pure simulation, without any correlation to reality. Identity becomes pure choice with zero grounding in material reality, and the constructed identity often becomes more real to people (they know the anime girl, not the person). The man outputs the idealized representation; everyone responds to that output; the actual person becomes irrelevant. In the context of the transgender community, many are so terminally online that they "become" the anime girl they present on their profile and in their memes in the same mechanics. == Gender Note == Gender has "detached" from the reality of sex and turned into a simulacrum you affirm via how you act, what you consume, how you dress, sound, etc. Most importantly, this functions the same for both transgender and non transgender individuals. For example, buying a large pickup truck to testify your "manliness." Right now, I would say that many transgender people are in the third stage since they try to adhere to either male or female, and they pretend to be a "faithful copy," so to speak. What they present, though — as a third stage simulacra is — is arbitrary, given that the person can pass off as the other sex under scrutiny. You have to understand that, if you present as the gender in agreement with your sex, you map closer to the second stage. What you present is falsified (like the pickup truck thing), yet hints at a true reality. They're both arbitrary. I'm not saying buying a pickup truck makes you any more of a man than buying women's hygiene products makes you a woman. Baudrillard's stages map cleanly here: First stage: Sex as faithful copy of reproductive anatomy Second stage: Sex as masking/perverting that reality (rigid gender roles obscuring individual variation) Third stage: Sex as masking the absence of reality (the claim that sex is "socially constructed" while still using the categories) Fourth stage: Pure simulacrum where the sign (gender identity) operates without reference to the original (anatomy), and the original becomes unspeakable Q: The simulacrum of hyperreal gender still requires the suppression of the referent rather than its irrelevance. True fourth-stage simulacra don't need to forbid mention of the real; they make it unthinkable. Is gender hyperreal in the sense that the biological has become literally unrepresentable, or is it hyperreal in a weaker sense—where the biological is known but unspeakable? A: It's unmentionable, yet not unthinkable. But if the beliefs of the newer generations are anything to go by, it will be unthinkable in the future. Right now were are merely in a transitional phase. Many of the old generations still have a worldview and perception rooted in a reality. But this way is dying. At first it becomes unmentionable, then it becomes preserved by certain communities — but like how ancient languages die — it will eventually cease to exist. But at least these languages can be artificially revived; a belief incompatible with the modern milieu won't. == The Internet and COVID-19 == The internet is a world unbound by the confines of reality; it deals only with signs without an immediately accessible physical origin. This makes any and all representations near arbitrary right out of the gate. Any photo must be taken, any video must be recorded, any post must be written, any identity must be chosen. It is only natural that any simulacrum would completely mutate through the four stages as soon as reality stops being a virtue. In comes the Coronavirus Pandemic, which forces people to live entirely through these signs lest they face an insurmountable danger if they try to leave the confines of their home and enter the real world. This not only accelerated the conventions of the internet's descent through the stages, but also primed the human mind to accept and expect its hyperreality. As a result, a devastatingly denaturing effect has hit the real outside world to conform with these expectations. Everything outside now must be hyperreal. It is through this mechanism that every simulacrum I've noted is allowed to flourish and consume the real. This fusing of sign and origin has given a newfound sense of validation to people who had previously used the internet to signify being or doing something that was an impossibility. Now that the idealized selves of the internet are expected to be presented in real life, people can enter environments where the falsified simulacrum can outgrow in signifigance the truth it formerly represented, and the former impossibility can be affirmed into reality. Now the distinction between real and hyperreal is merely a nostalgic gesture or prudish grasp onto the past. Q: That maintaining the distinction has become a kind of bad manners, like bringing up an ex at a wedding? A: Yes. For example, maintaining the distinction between the two sexes of male and female.