“Simulation is no longer that of a referential being, it is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal” Baudrillard said in Simulacra and Simulation, presumably referring to our baffling cultural practice of creating likenesses of our media-manufactured pop-culture heroes out of melted candles.
Wax figures have been staring at us with their creepy undead eyes since the Middle Ages, when people would make wax masks of dead monarchs and other all-stars of history to preserve their memory and lineage. Today, the practice continues, but instead of mouldy old Charles II we do it with our still-alive, still-reigning overlords, like the venerable Kardashian I, glory be upon her.
Sometimes, though, whether due to a deficit of sculptor skill or you know, the sun, things go a little wrong, leaving us all to wonder if we missed the news cycle where David Lee Roth developed a wasting disease, or if Puff Daddy really was that puffy. Here we’ve assembled 13 of the greatest of those times.
“Mommy, why does Queen Latifah look more like Teen Latina? More importantly Mommy, why does reality now only seem real when viewed through the lens of simulacra? Mommy, recall Borges’ fable about the map mirroring the territory so precisely, the map, i.e, the simulation, actually precedes the territory?” – precocious girl at Madame Tussaud’s. In Morpheus voice: “Welcome to the desert of the real.”