Notes: Volume 2 of the DVD contains episodes 5 to 8.

A meme is basically a unit of culture (such as an idea, practice or theory) that is transmitted from one mind to another like the way a gene transfers its information.

For more on GitS philosophy consult here. (Although Wikipedia is not the most reliable source of information, it nonetheless has volunteer maintainers who are required to list credible sources. Plus, I’m just not up for looking up second-order simulacra and social theory in a university library).

If anyone’s bored and want to read about memes.

Review/Synopsis (may contain spoilers):

The fourth episode in the first volume introduced the case of The Laughing Man with a good dose of police corruption and big corp. politics. Episodes 5 and 6 reminisces the “first” Laughing Man incident and presents the premises that surround the current one that the Major must deal with. The Laughing Man is considered a Super Class A hacker who himself physically threatened the head of Serano Genomics to reveal a conspiracy. He hijacked the video streams and implanted a logo over his own face. He also has the abilities to hijack any one with a cyberbrain and super impose his logo into their visual fields, or to alter people’s memories and impressions of him - even in real time. There have been disputes on whether on not The Laughing Man is a person, a group of people or was created by internal organizations for their own purposes - like an act to sway and confuse the general public.

After the current Laughing Man scare with the Superintendent General, Kusanagi ponders over the existence of an actual Laughing Man. Since 39 people all claimed to want to assassinate the Superintendent General, with some even claiming to be the Laughing Man, and yet…no one was hacked or attacked by a virus Kusanagi realizes that this must be a strange phenomenon. These people weren’t influenced or manipulated by someone, but were all independently motivated to their actions all because someone (likely The Laughing Man) first hijacked and threatened the Superintendent General live on TV; perhaps they were impassioned by the Laughing Man’s logo. Thus emerges the beginnings of a “Stand Alone Complex” - individuals who’s actions add up to a network or complex because of their related or convergent goals and motivations but yet independent within themselves. This is a reference to social evolution and how that would occur in a cyber-enhanced world where mind and body are separated and almost entirely independent of each other.

(Boring badly explained theories below — read at your own risk!)

The concept of the meme deals with how a group of individuals have seemingly arrived at the same goal - without contacting or being influenced by a controller or mastermind. Cultural information, or something like The Laughing Man became a social icon after the “original” event and thus, the transmittance of the collective Laughing Man phenomenon can be likened to genetic replication. DNA must replicate itself before being transferred into daughter cells (vertical replication - aka via generation), and so for the meme to spread, the host must imitate or copy something like an “original” copy. This is where second-order simulacra comes in, disguised as a clever allegory by The Laughing Man incident. The Laughing Man logo appears in the memories of those who’ve seen his real face (alleged), thus a separate or imposed reality exists for those who think that the Logo is his face and don’t/can’t realize that their memories have been hijacked. Second-order simulacra also refers to the merging of reality and simulation, where the symbol becomes more meaningful than the object it represents. In relation too to The Laughing Man, Kusanagi mentions that perhaps there was never a Laughing Man - that there never was an “original”. But yet, can a group of individuals copy and propagate something that was never there? While it is obvious that the Laughing Man, or any other social construct does not have to exist - it is undeniable that there was some sort of terrorist/hacker in both instances. In relation to French philosopher Baudrillard’s theories on simulacra, the copies have replaced the “original”. The physical existence (if ever, any) of the Laughing Man has been replaced by the collective Laughing Man phenomenon comprised of all the individuals that acted.

(End)

Idolater, the seventh episode deals with similar concepts. Copies of an original carry on the symbolic meaning of the original. The episode also ventures into more bio-ethics territory, as an iconic figure is cloned - so, is an ideal worth more than “human rights”?

The last episode gives a bit of information on Kusanagi’s background, although not much. The animation is still excellent and Kusanagi’s fighting skills are showcased more. In this volume, The Laughing Man case propogates itself to be a very interesting phenomenon indeed. It interests me to know how the show will expand socially and philosophically.

Tags: anime, ghost in the shell, series, stand alone complex

Category: Series Reviews

A. Papillon is not amused.