In 1967 Guy Debord published “la société du spectacle”. The content of the book and Debord’s original thoughts are presented in 221 numbered paragraphs, just like blog entries, with a table of contents with 9 chapters each introduced with a quotation. The first paragraph reads: “Toute la vie des sociétés … s’annonce comme une immense accumulation des spectacles. Tout ce qui était directement vécu s’est éloigné dans une representation.” Modern societies are conceived as a huge accumulation of events. What used to be experienced directly, has become only a distanced representation. The spectacle or the events society has moved beyond the state of being just a part of society to become the defining element of society. At the same time, events in the broadest sense are an instrument of unification (para. 3). Events constitute social links between persons, which are mediatized through images (para. 4). It is a “Weltanschauung, which has become effective and through the force of images (including faked ones) creates an “objectivation”, a kind of imagined reality.
This society of events, following Debreu, creates a positivism with a reflexive structure. Only things get attention that are great events (instagramable, make headlines, clicks), and only great events will receive broader attention (para 11). The result is a tautological character of the events society and it has become self-referential. Society shifts from the definition of (1) être = to be, (2) avoir = to have, to (3) paraître = to appear. It is the appearance that counts. A person’s individualism becomes socially mediated by its ways to appear in front of others (para 17). Social power then derives from the form of representation that can be achieved.
The final entry of the 1st chapter (para 34) states. “Le spectacle est le capital à un tel degré d’accumulation qu’il deviant image”. Events form a kind of capital, which through its accumulation becomes an image or the image of society.