Don DeLillo, Jean Baudrillard, and the Consumer Conundrum
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Don DeLillo, Jean Baudrillard, and the Consumer Conundrum By Mar ...

Chapter 1:  Shopping for its Own Sake: Don Delillo's System of Objects
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In White Noise, the alienation Baudrillard describes is best exemplified when Jack and his colleague, Murray Jay Siskind, pay a visit to “a tourist attraction known as the most photographed barn in America” (12). As they approach the site, they see a number of signs advertising the barn's imminence, and upon arrival they find droves of people either photographing or selling pictures of the attraction. Admiring the scene, Murray remarks that no one can actually see the barn itself; rather, they are all taking part in the prepackaged experience of the barn:

Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn…We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura…Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. This literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like tourism…They are taking pictures of taking pictures… What was the barn like before it was photographed?…What did it look like, how was it different from other barns? We can't answer these questions because we've seen the signs, seen the people snapping pictures. We can't get outside the aura. We're part of the aura. We're here, we're now. (12–13)

Serving no other purpose than to be photographed, the barn has ceased to function in its capacity as a barn and now functions only as the image or spectacle of a barn—a “barn,” as it were, in quotation marks. For Baudrillard, this state of affairs typifies consumer culture: because nothing serves a real purpose, everything within this culture is nothing more than a spectacle. This dictum applies not only to objects, but to people as well, as exemplified by the connection Murray draws between the barn and its spectators. Self-consciously participating in a consumer phenomenon that might best be termed “the barn experience,” these spectators cannot simply take pictures of the barn. Rather, they exist primarily to service the barn, to maintain, as Murray insists, its image. Just as the barn serves no