I'm quite hesitant to mention this for fear that my reason for bringing it up will be grossly misunderstood, but the setup this article describes bears an uncanny resemblance to locations used by the adult entertainment industry. Both cases share the theme of a constructed fantasy life, a life that we as image consumers must realize is not real yet nevertheless choose to buy in to on some level.
This penthouse is not real; rather it exists beyond reality. The fantasy it expresses is what we imagine luxury and the good life looks like, rather than how such a life actually looks. But now that this penthouse does physically exist—now I can go take pictures of myself in it and now that people are actively decorating their own luxury apartments to look like it—how can you say that it is not real? How can you claim that it does not accurately reflect what luxury and the good life really are?
This whole hot take is basically a regurgitation of some of Baudrillard's ideas btw. I keep coming back to his concept of hyperreality because it seems so relevant today, and this is an area that I hope to keep exploring. Ahh, if only I could reserve a photoshoot there...
'The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. [...] when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'
That’s from an old article about Bush in the Iraq war era. I think it’s Rove being quoted. Could be wrong.
I think about that quote a lot, it’s seared in my memory. At the time I remember it was a rallying cry, people used it to define themselves as in “the reality based community” online a lot back then.
But now that I am a little clearer on what he was actually saying, and how true it was, it’s taken on a darker tone.
Yep I'm the same. When I first read it some years ago, it didn't ring true but did stick with me. Over time it appears more true. The implications are unpleasant, and I think that's why there's a strong urge to reject it. But, ironically, it isn't false just because I want it to be.
Well that totally doesn’t sound like someone with a personality disorder. /s
I’m fairly sure that history will almost instantly forget them, because they exist to be disposable, to be replaced, and as interest and attention moves on their “mark” on history will be exceedingly shallow. Maybe that’s the difference between this constructed “reality” and... reality. Something real can be lasting, while this cotton candy version of reality only seems substantial from a certain angle, for a little while. It’s a kind of shallow “reality” for shallow people with minuscule attention spans.
Isn't it even more similar to the sets used to shoot the sorts of spreads that have been common to lifestyle magazines for decades? It's essentially just a giant set.
Yeah, I'm trying to understand the existential freakout, here. It's a set. This exact sort of thing has been done for longer than any of us have been alive, and it was done for exactly the same reasons "Instagram influencers" will use this place or others like it.
A traditional set, say a studio kitchen for a food product shoot, is a first level reproduction: the set is a reproduction of a real kitchen; the food shown is a reproduction of real food; and that actor is a reproduction of a real chef. That's all easy enough to see. This apartment though has a second level of fakeness. What it offers is not so much a reproduction of reality as a reproduction of "influencer" life. You go there to take photos of yourself taking photos there. That's one reason why I felt that adult films were an appropriate analogy: porn conveys not only a direct pleasure fantasy but the second level fantasy of being a porn star. I think this second level fantasy may explain why don't care if the first level's fakeness is so obvious.
In this case though, the set is not even a reproduction of anything real. It is just a construction of symbols that recreates what a "trendy millennial luxury penthouse" represents. Maybe not even that since the community itself defined which values a "trendy millennial luxury penthouse" should have and how certain symbols signal those values.
Take millennial pink. It's not a real thing. Millennials do not have some biological attraction to that specific shade. The color started as a way to show that you had a specific set of values, say: uniqueness and authenticity. At some point however the color came to stand-in for these values; I am unique and authentic because I own a millennial pink chaise. Now the color doesn't even convey that so much as the idea of millennial, or more likely some ironic take on the idea.
Influencers make an easy target. My point though was never that influencers are the problem, just as porn is not the problem, rather I think they both capture how we are moving farther towards a hyperreal existence. In my view, the "reality TV" realities they offer are different from more traditional media because they are not just simple reproductions and because, more and more, they are constructed in the air.
This apartment though has a second level of fakeness. What it offers is not so much a reproduction of reality as a reproduction of "influencer" life.
Are you seriously trying to present aspirational marketing as some new, "hyperreal" thing?
This is like the media comprehension version of "Each generation thinks it invented sex". We're not moving farther toward anything. We've been there since the nineteenth century.
That’s fairly reductionist. Eventually it’s nice to have words for the long tail of probabilistic phenomena that emerge from atomic-scale interactions. Words like “sonder”.
This reminds me of an article on The Verge two years ago documenting the semi-intentional convergence of interior design [1]. Admittedly, there was a focus on spaces like short term rentals and coffee shops, but the effect seems translatable; we seem to be converging on sterile, "personalized but not personal" designs.
I'm curious if, similar to the dislike many have for the unrealistic airbrushed images of the human form, we will arrive at a place where these sterile, fatastical spaces are no longer in vogue. In many ways, it encourages a similar level of unhealthy pursuit of the unattainable.
I used to be in favor of certain styles for office or home design (particularly industrial modern or industrial chic), but over time I've grown a fondness for one-of-a-kind quirkiness. Places that at first glance perhaps aren't very aesthetic, but there is still an order or a pattern to them (as opposed to an unstyled or haphazard space), and once you start looking more closely, there's a lot to like.
I was just thinking how very "midcentury modern" that apartment looks. Give it another few years and it will probably look horribly dated with respect to whatever fashion is currently popular.
I've seen claims that Youtube makeup tutorials have effectively created a "look" of their own, too.
I believe that this article is meant to invoke horror and show how artificial the penthouse and the industry it upholds by using words like "picture perfect" or "spotless". Personally, I'm all for it because the penthouse is just another step to making professional looking shots more accessible and attainable for the average person. As the article notes: "some were even booking hotel rooms or making covert visits to furniture stores to get their work done."
Instagram is no longer a platform for uploading amateur photos. It's become its own industry now and we should be treating it as such, and not just shaking our heads.
> Personally, I'm all for it because the penthouse is just another step to making professional looking shots more accessible and attainable for the average person.
"The average person" doesn't make a living doing stealth advertising for lifestyle brands. This is a marketing service; it's not about accessibility.
Lately I've heard a lot of people complaining about magazines photoshopping women and Facebook posts that depress people because they just show how great other people's lives are.
This is the same thing. This is people deliberately creating an unrealistic scene and trying to play it off as real.
People can do whatever they want, but I'd much rather follow someone who showing their own home instead of faking it to this extent. (And that goes for the people who rent a hotel room or pose in furniture stores, too.)
It sells the lie "I am an ordinary person and this is how I live," just like airbrushed models sell the model "this is how a person is supposed to look." Don't get too hung up on the literal meaning of "realistic."
I don't get it. It looks similar to a lot of AirBnbs I've rented. The furniture isn't really to my taste but it has that "clutter-free living space that isn't actually lived in" air about it.
If anything the NY Times have just bought into the owner's marketing hook, line and sinker and have regurgitated a press release on their behalf.
Or is this presented here for our daily social media 2 minutes' hate?
I wonder how many luxury AirBnbs are rented a night at a time for this same purpose. If I wanted to do marketing product shots for Instagram style adverts that's probably where I'd go.
The photos look just like any catalog or magazine shoot, i.e. not having what I assume would be Instagram's charm of spontaneity and reality (I don't follow Instagram).
The charm and spontaneity of generally comes from the personality of the influencers. Real or not, it's far easier to convey a personality that _seems_ real with an IG handle than in a magazine shoot. Stories makes it even easier.
I'm from Spain and I am in love with Spanish country houses. I find the rawness and authenticity of those house much more beautiful than this manicured fabricated penthouse. There is an almost primal appeal to the houses of old people who don't know what Instagram is, and wouldn't give a shit otherwise; people only concerned with the pragmatism of every day life. I wonder if one day someone will decide to package and sell them as the fantasy of living the simple life.
I think that has already lived, died, and we are now haunted by it's ghost. How many hipster woodworkers are on Instagram producing various designs that are fever-dream versions of arts-and-crafts furniture (which was itself an aesthetic that relied heavily on rustic nostalgia)?
This penthouse is not real; rather it exists beyond reality. The fantasy it expresses is what we imagine luxury and the good life looks like, rather than how such a life actually looks. But now that this penthouse does physically exist—now I can go take pictures of myself in it and now that people are actively decorating their own luxury apartments to look like it—how can you say that it is not real? How can you claim that it does not accurately reflect what luxury and the good life really are?
This whole hot take is basically a regurgitation of some of Baudrillard's ideas btw. I keep coming back to his concept of hyperreality because it seems so relevant today, and this is an area that I hope to keep exploring. Ahh, if only I could reserve a photoshoot there...