The Gulf War did not take place
by Jean Baudrillard · first published 1995
8mentions
2recommended by
8HN commenters
2016–2026first – last mentioned
25% recommend75% neutral
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
…the reality of war because it shows you some beheading. Voyeurism and gore are not the same as genuine insight into what scary and violent places are actually like. It's worth reading Baudrillard's 'The Gulf War Did Not Take Place' on how media representation, and stylized, selective footage is used to distort. You didn't get to know the 'reality' of war, but the hyper-reality of it. If you were to actually go see the reality…
on “LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online” ↗> All photographs or videos you have seen have been placed there for you to see them. For those reading the above, wondering about this phenomenon, read Baudrilliard's The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Even if you don't agree with Baudrilliard's overall thesis, the facts he brings up are still cogent (e.g. a photo from the Exon Valdez spill was used instead of an actual photo of the Iraqi military's…
on “U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites” ↗Also Googling "Did the Gulf War take place" brings up links about Baudrillard's The Gulf War Did Not Take Place.
on “Google is not just a platform – It frames, shapes and distorts how we see” ↗The phenomenon is at least as old as Baudrillard's work The Gulf War Did Not Take Place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulf_War_Did_Not_Take_Plac...
on “Twitter based map of Russian troop movements” ↗…easy to get lost and everything disappears all the time, and you'll never be able to know how or why. The real world is like a tornado made of spaghetti. And the fake world (like in Baudrillard's The Gulf War Did Not Take Place kind of way) feels so much realer and more familiar because it doesn't need to deal with the eccentricities and contradictions of reality, but can safely play with its symbols. Like the difference between…
on “The Elon Musk Circus Comes to Eagle Pass, Texas” ↗> I think the author is using the original motivation of musing on null hypotheses to derive the title "The Higgs Discovery Did Not Take Place", It's probably a reference to "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place" by Jean Baudrillard, which took a similar critical view of the Gulf War as TFA takes of the Higgs discovery.
on “Yes, we did discover the Higgs” ↗The modern world is like Jean Baudrillard's vision of hell. Back in 1991 he wrote "The Gulf War did not take place", commenting on what was at the time a new development of 24/7 live media coverage of the war. Media saturation created a hyperreality where images about the war replaced the thing itself. How far we…
on “When Virality Is the Message: The New Age of AI Propaganda” ↗He wrote in many different styles, depending on the subject and likely audience. Simulacra and Simulation, Silent Majorities and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place are very different texts.
on “In the belly of the MrBeast” ↗