Applied Baudrillard: From the Virtual Economy of Metaverses, NFTs, and Deepfakes, to a New Nihilism and Hatred of Capitalism

Abstract

Jean Baudrillard's (1929–2007) theoretical writings are applied to an examination of today's global virtual economy and society. New advances in virtual culture, which flourished during and after the COVID-19 pandemic—esp., metaverses (immersive virtual worlds), non-fungible tokens, and deepfakes (synthetic media)—are discussed to show the prescience of Baudrillard's theory for how our global consumer society of the image is now defined by the problem of simulation. Baudrillard is shown to have theorized important trends and phenomenon in our contemporary global hyperculture that have hitherto been neglected: non-communication, anti-work, and anti-consumption are, among others, explained as developing phenomena because they are pathologies of a new nihilism, a hatred of capitalism, that is not realized through destruction, but through the simulation and deterrence that now defines contemporary global culture and society.