Jean Baudrillard was a France culture theory, sociologist, philosopher, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism.

He's particularly prominent among web 2.0 community for his ideas on simulation. Baudrillard developed the concept of "simulacra", that is a layer of simulations, which create the world constructed on representations of representations. The items within "simulacra" as so far removed from the original, that the original can no longer be traced. A good example is this very text. The author has even never read Baudrillard, but only used internet sources, such as Wikipedia and specialized websites. Using bits and pieces of information (which were simulations in themselves, representing Baudrillard's ideas), this very text, the simulation, was created. It will get indexed by Google, which will in turn create another simulation, and so on.

This is also true speaking about social network and virtual role games. Websites like Facebook or MySpace have virtual communities, where users choose their avatars and have whole relationships online, using the simulations to interact. Sometimes imaginary personages are created, which creates another layer of simulation. The internet therefore is in itself a simulacra.