Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard, born in 1929, in Reins, Paris is a postmodern theorist and a  sharp critic of contemporary society, culture and thought.  According to Baudrillard, our postmodern culture has become reliant on models and maps that we have lost all contact with the real world that preceded the map.When it comes to postmodern simulation and simulacra, Baudrillard suggests that postmodern culture is artificial, thus the concept of artificiality still requires some sense of reality against which to recognize the artifice. We have lost all ability to make sense of the distinction between nature and artifice. Hyperreality is a world of simulacra, without intermediary mass media. The "American dream" is an example of this, culture and media create and perpetrate the hyperreal.