• by Paul Parton , Op-Ed Contributor, Yesterday

Jake Paul is not a good boxer. 

That’s right, I said it. 

Jake Paul is rubbish at boxing. 

Now, to be clear, I wouldn’t want him to hit me, but equally, when I have been convinced to spend time and money watching a high-profile boxing match, it would be nice to see skilled boxers competing. And Jake Paul is not a skilled boxer. That fact is obvious to anyone who has watched the slow-motion replays of his fight with ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson. He was essentially being coached by the world champion to keep his guard up. And Tyson had to repeatedly pull his punches to avoid knocking out an unprotected Paul.

But why is this important? Because Jake Paul managed to get 108 million of us to watch a boxing match that we pretty much knew would be bad. And he got paid $40 million for it. Whereas the great Mike Tyson – who all of us tuned in for – earned a comparatively measly $20 million. So, he may not be a good boxer, but he is very good at generating audiences and making money from them.

Jake Paul has made a whole career out of that kind of provocative spectacle. As he told Time Magazine, “My career is fundamentally about a lot of attention.” And he has become expert at turning controversy into currency. He intrinsically understands the value of visibility, and the value of an audience, and his real skill has been to turn boorish behavior that provokes reactions into content that builds audiences.

Interestingly, this unusual and yet very familiar dynamic was predicted with surprising precision in the late 1960s by a political activist called Guy Dubord. He wrote a manifesto called The Society of The Spectacle and in it, he theorized that we were living in a culture in which lived experience had been replaced by curated images of the experience.  And where our attention was being grabbed, held onto, and commoditized for sale.  Sound familiar?

Dubord’s manifesto is short, and the theory is dense, and a little inaccessible, but it perfectly explains why we doom-scroll at 2 AM, why TikTok dances dominate cultural conversations, and why we care more about how our vacation looks on Instagram than how it feels. Today, many of our experiences don’t seem complete until they're documented, filtered, and shared. If it’s not on ‘the ‘gram’ it didn’t happen – or at least it didn’t matter very much. 

Debord could never have imagined TikTok's algorithm, but his framework helps explain the TikTok effect with surprising precision, the replacement of mass broadcast spectacle with personalized algorithmic curation.

When we open the app, we’re immediately presented with algorithmic content that creates an effortlessly satisfying consumption experience personalized to our data profile. It creates what researchers identify as "flow states" where we become deeply, addictively, happily immersed in the content. And we embody what Debord described as the alienation of the spectator: "the more he contemplates, the less he lives."

Influencer culture represents another manifestation of contemporary spectacle. When creators craft their own brands for algorithmic distribution, they transform themselves into commodities for sale. They work to optimize their posting schedules, jump on trends, and calibrate content for maximum engagement – and in doing so, reduce their lives to what Dubord would describe as ‘appearing’ rather than ‘being’.

It has created a media landscape that has evolved from passive media consumption to active participation in creating the content that competes for our attention.  And this evolution from watching the spectacle to actively creating it represents what scholars call "Spectacle 2.0"—a world where we're both audience members and performers at the same time.

Jake Paul perfectly embodies the type of new media celebrity that defines this transformation. So too do stars like Billie Eilish and the K-Pop phenomena BTS. But in every aspect of our lives, from politics, to dermatology, to federal reserve policy, there are media commentators and content creators adding to the spectacle. Perhaps none more so than Donald Trump. 

The academic Douglas Kellner described Donald trump as “the master of the media spectacle” referencing how he bypassed traditional political communications channels preferring direct contact with potential voters through social media and events – framing politics as entertainment, favoring ratings over policy, and casting himself in the leading role of a new reality TV show. Trump epitomizes what Dubord would go on to describe as the ‘integrated spectacle’ where entertainment, social media, politics, and economics blend seamlessly, and the boundary between content and commerce dissolves. 

For any of us operating in any aspect of the media ecosystem today, understanding the integrated spectacle is crucial. And while Dubord and his contemporaries – and the many cultural theorists that followed - may have been critiquing the spectacle in the hopes that we would find an enlightened path out of it. The unfortunate truth is that we’re all too self-absorbed to care, so we can either use the spectacle or be used by it.

Understanding how we simultaneously consume and create the spectacle is essential for driving meaningful connection with an audience. And key to that is understanding that the spectacle creates an environment where cynicism and engagement coexist.

Warner Bros.' marketing campaign for Barbie represents one of the most sophisticated examples of contemporary spectacle creation. The campaign leveraged over 100 brand partnerships, AI-generated content, and a coordinated social media strategy to create a cultural phenomenon.

But what made the campaign particularly effective was its embrace of paradox—the film's tagline, "If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you," explicitly acknowledged and monetized criticism of Barbie's socially problematic history. The campaign generated an estimated media value of $771 million, with the film grossing $1.44 billion worldwide.

Effective strategies like this acknowledge the paradox of the spectacle. In a world where everything becomes content, the people who succeed will be those who can navigate the tension between authenticity and performance, creating moments that resonate even when everyone knows they're watching a show. Even if the show, like Jake Paul’s boxing, isn’t very good.