Baudrillard’s “procession of the simulacra” narrows down the thin line between true/false and real/imaginary. The first question is: Why do we want to fake facts? What is the goal behind masking the reality?. Once it is solved the following concern is: How can we fake the real world to create opinions based on rhetoric, audiovisuals and cultural bubbles?.
Why would I do it? As a first experimental exercise i am interested in day by day user experience. I want to know how much people are willing to believe in facts almost fictional. This thought remind me: Google Nose BETA, an April fools’ day prank made by Google on 2013 and how much people were amazed and convince about such tech advances, getting close to theirs laptop in order to catch digital smell.
Google TiSP (2011): It promotes free internet using your local municipal sewage lines. You can installed yourself (DIY). Gloves provided
This last fake product allows you control any gmail feature via gestures. Tracking your movements through the laptop’s camera you were able interact in other ways without using mouse or keyboard. If you ask me, not far away from current technologies such as Microsoft Kinect or LeapMotion.
In spite of Google has made this sort of pranks long time ago. Users are still being cheated, filling Google customer service of mails aabouts these events.
But those kind of products are not just a result of pranks. Some of them are sold and bought all the time between us as fake products. Products which cheat consumers selling false benefits. I am talking about products and services from shake weights, weight loss pills, weight loss wraps to false data recovery web sites and false investments with high revenues, etc.
Following the same vein of thought, I’d been seduced by the idea of create a fictional product in which people believe in, maybe invest in, and someday remind them how vulnerable we are to all these social media, needs, culture bubbles and fake commercials. That said, we will make people ask themselves: What is this product exactly?, Are its features accurate? Do I need it?