Baudrillard argued copies of reality had replaced reality itself

Jean Baudrillard argued that modern media and brands are no longer copies of something real — they are simulacra, copies with no original behind them at all. He called the result hyperreality: a world of signs so convincing that the simulation feels more real than whatever it was supposed to represent. Disneyland, he said, exists partly to make the rest of America feel 'real' by comparison.

— Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation — 1981, trans. 1994
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