Reclaiming Baudrillard: Evaluating the relevance of Fatal Strategies to leftist YouTubers
Christodoulou, C. 2026. Reclaiming Baudrillard: Evaluating the relevance of Fatal Strategies to leftist YouTubers. Baudrillard Now. 7 (1), pp. 149-175.
| Title | Reclaiming Baudrillard: Evaluating the relevance of Fatal Strategies to leftist YouTubers |
|---|---|
| Type | Journal article |
| Authors | Christodoulou, C. |
| Abstract | This paper examines the contemporary relevance of Jean Baudrillard to left-wing cultural and political discourse on YouTube. It argues that Baudrillard’s theorisation of ‘fatal strategies’ is a means by which popular leftist critique can be formulated at a time when right-wing populism has successfully exploited the propensity to circulate ‘fake news’ and (mis/dis)information via the Internet and social media, as personified in Donald Trump’s double-election to the presidency of the United States. By the publication of Fatal Strategies in 1983, Baudrillard had abandoned historical materialism as an emancipatory political project, rejecting the left’s Enlightenment humanist presumptions and socialist critique on account of what he later described as the “implosion of the social in the media” (1985). Instead, Baudrillard used the ‘figures of the transpolitical’, such as the obese, hostages, and the obscene, to highlight the object’s ‘revenge’ over the subject. Although Baudrillard’s death preceded the popularisation of social media, this paper contends that for the left to effectively counter right-wing hegemony, it must recognise the normalisation of ‘post-truth’ culture in a late-capitalist condition permeated by simulation and the hyperreal. To this end, it reveals the communicative and discursive methodologies of contemporary leftist YouTubers that strongly resemble Baudrillard’s fatal strategies, regardless of their direct familiarity with Baudrillard’s work. |
| Keywords | Baudrillard; fatal strategies; postmodernism; social media |
| Journal | Baudrillard Now |
| Journal citation | 7 (1), pp. 149-175 |
| ISSN | 2728-3089 |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publisher | Baudrillard Now |
| Publisher's version | License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 File Access Level Open (open metadata and files) |
| Web address (URL) | https://baudrillard-scijournal.com/volume-7-issue-1/ |
| Publication dates | |
| Published | 03 Jun 2026 |