VIDEO Verwijderd (Adam Curtis, 2016, YouTube.com)
The term “hypernormalisation” is taken from Alexei Yurchak’s 2006 book Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, in which Yurchak argues that for many decades everyone had known the Soviet system was failing, but as no one could imagine any alternative, politicians and citizens were resigned to maintaining a pretence of a functioning society. Over time, this delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy and the “fakeness” was accepted by everyone as real, an effect that Yurchak termed “hypernormalisation.
”Curtis exposes a deeply cynical world where powerful institutions and manipulative agents (millionaires, business men, politicians, secret servicemen) conspire to frustrate, prevent and ultimately destroy the potential for change, mainly by marshalling all the forces of modern art, entertainment and news media to attack the individuals sense of reality and their ability to perceive danger and control.”
