That footnote to which you refer? Exactly what I’m thinking. I’m looking for Simulacra and Simulation tonight. Thanks for that.

“But underlying both articles is a sense that this image speak to all of our concerns and anxieties….Only in an age dis-anchored from material reality could we expect, want, even need expertise and analysis from folks far from such expert study…In this way, we’ve moved a bit from Debord’s notion of the spectacle. For Debord, late capitalism makes us consumers-who-are-spectators… But a case like this introduces a strange sort of spectator-agency, in which we see passively, yet act in order to see what we want to see. Perhaps this is Debord’s spectacular order after the remote control. Same image, same spectatorship, yet we switch to see and hear what we want to see and hear. Nice image, now say what I want…”

“The televsion viewer participates suddenly in the creation of a reality that was only just presented to him in dots: the television watcher is in the position of an individual who is asked to project his own fantasies on inkblots that are not supposed to represent anything.” (footnote in Simulacra and Simulation)

I think you’re right that with “the remote control” we have the agency (power?) to install our own fantasies into images that we see, thereby becoming further “dis-anchored from material reality”. It’s a scary thought.

And yes, I really do love bringing up hyperreality whenever I have the chance since I have nothing better to do. I sincerely apologize for being a jerk.