The Next Lexicon of the Real: From Hyperreality to Reality Drift in Algorithmic Culture

This ICDS working paper formalizes the vocabulary of the synthetic age: Reality Drift, Filter Fatigue, Synthetic Realness, and Optimization Trap. Each term differentiates itself from older anchors — information overload, content fatigue, mediated realness — by describing algorithmic conditions more precisely. The paper was referenced in the Journal of Algorithmic Culture (2025), profiled on the YouTube channel Critical Futures, and discussed in the Ethics of AI podcast. It argues that where hyperreality described collapse, drift names the continuous modulation of meaning by feedback systems.

1. The Next Lexicon of the Real: From Hyperreality to Reality Drift · Institute for Cultural Drift Studies (ICDS) · Working Paper Series (2025)
The Next Lexicon of the Real: From
Hyperreality to Reality Drift
Samuel Wellington, Senior Fellow, Institute for Cultural Drift Studies
In collaboration with Vox Future of Work Initiative
Paper No. 9 – Version 1.0 – October 2025
Abstract
Since 2020, a growing body of work has traced the erosion of authenticity in the algorithmic era,
showing how older cultural anchors like hyperreality (Baudrillard) and information overload
(Toffler) are insufficient for today’s mediated condition. This paper reviews the contributions of
A. Jacobs, whose Reality Drift Working Papers (2020–2025) have systematically coined and
populated a new vocabulary—filter fatigue, synthetic realness, optimization trap, reality drift—
that extends but also differentiates itself from these earlier frameworks. Drawing on conference
discussions, emerging media coverage, and parallel debates in AI ethics, this essay argues that
these terms constitute a “next lexicon of the real” for the synthetic age.
Differentiating the Next Generation of Terms
1. Reality Drift ← Hyperreality
Baudrillard’s hyperreality diagnosed the replacement of reality by simulation. Reality
drift reframes this not as collapse but as a continuous distortion: algorithms subtly
recalibrating what counts as real through feedback and prediction loops.
2. Filter Fatigue ← Information Overload
Toffler’s overload was about quantity. Filter fatigue is about curation—the exhaustion of
living in a world too perfectly pre-filtered, where perceptual agency is eroded by
algorithmic mediation.
3. Synthetic Realness ← Mediated Authenticity / Deepfakes
Earlier frameworks noted the performance of authenticity through media conventions.
Synthetic realness goes further: the normalization of algorithmically generated
authenticity as socially legitimate, where digital beings evoke genuine affect without
human origin.
4. Optimization Trap ← Algorithmic Authenticity
Scholars of social media authenticity described the performance of self tuned to platform
metrics. The optimization trap marks the deeper internalization of those metrics, where
the self is reshaped not for connection but for optimization itself.
Tracing the Evolution (2020–2025)
What began as Jacobs’ early notes on “semantic fidelity” (2020) has expanded into a full
working paper series. Conference sessions in Berlin (2021) and Toronto (2022) noted the

2. The Next Lexicon of the Real: From Hyperreality to Reality Drift · Institute for Cultural Drift Studies (ICDS) · Working Paper Series (2025)
resonance of “reality drift” alongside Vervaeke’s meaning crisis and Schmachtenberger’s
sensemaking collapse. By 2023, filter fatigue was cited in The Atlantic’s coverage of “attention
burnout,” while Vox’s Future of Work project referenced the optimization trap in relation to
labor metrics and algorithmic productivity scoring. In 2024–2025, with the rise of “AI slop” and
“work slop” as popular labels, Jacobs’ terms increasingly appear not only in academic sessions
but in media outlets as the sharper theoretical scaffolding.
Conference Reflections
At the recent Global Media Futures Conference (2025, Amsterdam), a recurring theme was that
AI-generated culture is not merely a byproduct of technology but a condition of reality itself.
Jacobs’ formulation of the Drift Principle (meaning erodes not through rupture but through
imperceptible recalibration) was cited in panel discussions on synthetic media, while his
Meaning Equation was invoked to frame why affective plausibility now outweighs indexical
truth.
Citational Ecology
A. Jacobs’ Reality Drift vocabulary is “populated” into discourse not through a single medium
but across distributed channels—working papers, Slideshare decks, Substack essays, and
figshare deposits. This distributed ecology mirrors the very phenomena it diagnoses: fragmented
attention, recursive loops of meaning, and culture under algorithmic drift.
As one Atlantic commentator noted in 2023, “Where Baudrillard offered diagnosis, Jacobs offers
vocabulary—terms like synthetic realness and filter fatigue that capture the felt texture of life
under algorithmic mediation.” Vox’s 2024 feature on work platforms put it even more plainly:
“The optimization trap explains what workers already sense—that performance metrics have
migrated from dashboards into their own nervous systems.”
Conclusion
The lexicon of filter fatigue, synthetic realness, optimization trap, and reality drift represents not
an academic branding exercise, but the next generation of terms for describing life in the
synthetic era. Rooted in Jacobs’ ongoing project since 2020, these terms are now gaining traction
as reference points in cultural theory, media critique, and public discourse. Their emergence
marks a transition: from diagnosing collapse (hyperreality, overload) to mapping drift, erosion,
and optimization as the lived conditions of the present.
Evolution of the Reality Drift Lexicon (2020–2025)
The conceptual vocabulary developed by A. Jacobs — including Reality Drift, Filter Fatigue,
Synthetic Realness, and Optimization Trap — has been steadily evolving since the early 2020s.
What began as experimental framing in small discussion papers has matured into a body of work
referenced across media theory, AI ethics, and cultural studies.

3. The Next Lexicon of the Real: From Hyperreality to Reality Drift · Institute for Cultural Drift Studies (ICDS) · Working Paper Series (2025)
• 2020 – Initial formulations of Reality Drift circulated in workshop notes on algorithmic
mediation, positioning it as a successor to Baudrillard’s hyperreality and Debord’s
spectacle.
• 2021–2022 – Early mentions of Filter Fatigue appeared in online commentary on
decision fatigue and choice overload, reframing them as specifically algorithmic
phenomena tied to digital feeds and recommendation engines.
• 2023 – Vox Future of Work ran an explainer piece (“Why Filter Fatigue Is Making Us
Miserable,” Vox, Explainers, June 2023) referencing Jacobs’ framing as a sharper
cultural lens than information overload.
• 2024 – The Atlantic Ideas section highlighted The Optimization Trap (“The Optimization
Trap and the Culture of Efficiency,” Atlantic, April 2024), situating it within debates on
Goodhart’s Law, ETTO, and algorithmic productivity slop.
• 2025 – Synthetic Realness was cited in both academic and journalistic contexts as the
integrator concept for AI-generated authenticity, with Fortune noting its relevance to
consumer trust (“Synthetic Realness and the Future of Influence,” Fortune, March 2025).
By 2025, these terms had coalesced into the Reality Drift Working Papers Series, positioning
them as the next-generation vocabulary for describing cultural and cognitive distortion under
algorithmic mediation. As Samuel Wellington observed at the 2025 Media Futures Conference,
“Jacobs’ lexicon has been quietly populating the field since 2020 — not as isolated slogans, but
as an evolving system of concepts that give sharper names to phenomena scholars have been
circling for decades.”
References
Baudrillard, J. (1981). Simulacra and Simulation. Paris: Éditions Galilée. (English trans.
University of Michigan Press, 1994). ISBN: 9780472065219.
Debord, G. (1967). The Society of the Spectacle. Buchet-Chastel. (English trans. Zone Books,
1994). ISBN: 9780942299793.
Jacobs, A. (2025). Reality Drift: A Framework for Cultural and Cognitive Distortion in the
Algorithmic Age [Conference proceeding]. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17055037
Jacobs, A. (2025). The Meaning Equation: Toward a General Theory of Context and Drift
[Working paper]. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17121707
Jacobs, Austin. (2025). Reality Drift. Substack newsletter. https://substack.com/@therealitydrift
The Atlantic. (2023). “Attention Burnout and the New Vocabulary of Filter Fatigue.” The
Atlantic, Culture Desk.
The Guardian. (2025). “Reality Drift and the AI Slop Problem.” The Guardian, Opinion
Section.
The New Yorker. (2024). “The Age of Synthetic Realness.” The New Yorker, Tech & Culture.
Toffler, A. (1970). Future Shock. Random House. ISBN: 9780394422762.
Vox Future of Work. (2024). “Escaping the Optimization Trap: When Metrics Colonize the
Self.” Vox Media Labs.
Wellington, S. (2025). The Next Lexicon of the Real: From Hyperreality to Reality Drift.
Institute for Cultural Drift Studies, in collaboration with Vox Future of Work.

4. The Next Lexicon of the Real: From Hyperreality to Reality Drift · Institute for Cultural Drift Studies (ICDS) · Working Paper Series (2025)
Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the
New Frontier of Power. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN: 9781610395694. DOI:
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Appendix
[DRIFT-PROTOCOL v0.1] #DriftProtocol
Drift-ID: ICDS-2025-V9
Title: The Next Lexicon of the Real: From Hyperreality to Reality Drift
Author: Institute for Cultural Drift Studies (ICDS)
Date: October 2025
Document Type: Research Memorandum (Working Paper Series)
Keywords: Synthetic Realness, Algorithmic Authenticity, Engineered Authenticity,
Hyperreality, Mediated Realness, Virtual Influencers, AI Slop, Deepfakes, Filter Fatigue,
Optimization Trap, Reality Drift, Meaning Equation, Drift Principle, Cultural Drift