Jean Baudrillard: Hypermarket and Hypercommodity

In this part of the text Baudrillard begins to talk about the change in product

consumption and media messages which has lead to the hyperspace of commodity, referred to as the Hypermarket. This suggests that the objects we possess are no longer commodities, but instead they are something we use to create a social mask; what is expected of us, 'they are tests' that have a control of our lives. The media messages are applicable everywhere. In terms of advertising, Baudrillard implies that it no longer fulfils its sole purpose of communicating and/or informing, but it is in fact a "perpetual test" that ensures you are acting a certain way, or conforming to certain constructs, or codes. Essentially, advertising has ceased to do what was intended of it, and instead has become part of this system, this hypermarket, that controls social order and commodity culture, giving it a whole different type of power socially and communicatively.

In response to the reference of "controlled socialisation", Baudrillard talks about surveillance as a "décor of simulacra", which implies control, and social comfort. We are aware of CCTV, and what it signifies; that we are being watched, giving this allusion to repression because we are restricted to a certain social order. This is evident within the advertising platforms, for example, billboards; by influencing this hyper-commodity, the role being to kept intact the screen we consider our reality. The same with television, essentially you relate and resonate with the advert, and see what you think is expected of you, thus leading you to mirror the consumption of the commodity culture. Baudrillard makes known that the three examples work together in order to form this new notion of what is normal, or expected of the culture, which he feels, "closes this world in on itself".

Baudrillard then goes on to talk about the hypermarket, how it is not just the consumption of products, it is also about social relation and acculturation. The mass media has changed the way we think about things, and now we adopt a new way of living, and accepting the simulacra that is present everywhere. The hypermarket alludes toward the end of modernity, as it's role is  now far more than just "consumption"; advertising uses simulacra that distances the product away from reality, so the "objects no longer have a specific reality there" instead they are used to form the expected social construct. Baudrillard states that between 1890 and 1950, there was an increase of modern stores built in all locations, and this is the fundamental modernisation of the hypermarket and its rise in society. However, as the hypermarket monopolises, it begins to lose quality of the market.