The Reality Principle

Disneyland is presented in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality, but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle...

Watergate. Same scenario as Disneyland (an imaginary effect concealing that reality no more exists outside than inside the bounds of the artificial parameter): though here it is a scandal-effect concealing that there is no difference between the facts and their denunciation. Same operation, though this time tending towards scandal as a means to regenerate a moral and political principle, towards the imaginary as a means to regenerate a reality principle in distress.

The denunciation of scandal always pays homage to the law. And Watergate above all succeeded in imposing the idea that Watergate was a scandal – in this sense it was an extraordinary operation of intoxication: the reinjection of a large dose of political morality on a global scale.

- Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings
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Unrelated, but still:

Space may be the final frontier
But it’s made in a Hollywood basement

- Californication, Red Hot Chili Peppers