Still wouldn’t be able to tell someone what postmodernism is if they asked me. The book schizophrenically jumped around a lot though I’m not sure if that’s the books fault or whether it’s the inherent vagueness of “postmodernism”.
The section on hiphop was hilariously embarrassing.

The crux of postmodernity is that there are two “presents”. One is a “spectre” present, a Virtual Reality techno-media simulacrum that makes the other “real” present appear borderline, fugitive, elusive.

This overview manages to cover an immense amount of ground from structuralism to architecture to the commodification of knowledge itself (where knower becomes consumer). The virtual and the idealized present a kind of hyper-reality towards which "real life" tries to either catch up or emulate. Consumer objects like athletic shoes take on a life of their own as status symbols now almost entirely divorced from any concept of "sports." The market appropriates and commodifies everything from data to experience funded by constant financial flows invisibly crossing borders and timezones almost instantaneously.

Postmodernism as both concept and term seems inherently contradictory, amorphous, and slippery. And yet it does seem to capture some changes to culture/art/life not readily captured by other terms/theories. An irony and relativity unraveling grand narratives and dominated by image/video.

I don't get the purpose of this book. For a "complete novice," it definitely is NOT a useful introduction or a guide, as it's hard to follow (the authors often jump from one concept/theory/buzzword to the next with little relation between the two), it rarely explains complex and vague terms and notions in a manner anywhere near sufficient, and many of the examples offered are so scantily presented that they serve to confuse more rather than elucidate. Indeed, for an "introduction" this book is almost qrotesquely bad at explaining and clarifying. To a reader with some knowledge of postmodern theory and/or associated fields, the book offers 200 pages of sort-of-but-not-really amusing pictures, but it fails to provide a coherent, engaging and intellectually enriching account of postmodernism and its manifestations. In other words, the book is simultaneously too complex/vague and too shallow: it could have gone further in one of these directions to cater to one type of readership, yet instead it only skims the surface of its subject matter (problematic for a more experienced reader), but it does so without translating this very subject into more digestible terms (problematic for the complete layman).

Mostly, it just reminded me how much I detest Baudrillard.

made it through 34 pages before i had to stop, terrible fucking book