“Beautiful Cabin Crew”: What Would Jean Baudrillard Say?
Let’s look at the several months old phenomenon of the “Beautiful Cabin Crew”, and then write an essay about it, from the perspective of Jean Baudrillard.
Before we start with this essay, here is some background. In case you don’t know what all this is about, let me explain:
Beautiful Cabin Crew / Scarlett Johansson / Boom Challenge
The “beautiful cabin crew” phenomenon on Facebook is part of a broader trend known as the “Facebook AI Slop” epidemic. Sometimes it’s also referred to as “AI Boomer trap”.
Basically it’s a large number of AI-generated images being spammed across Facebook, often accompanied by bizarre or nonsensical captions.
The phrase “beautiful cabin crew” specifically originated from AI-generated images of flight attendants holding pictures of religious figures like Jesus Christ, which began circulating in late 2023.
These posts often use engagement baiting tactics, with phrases designed to attract likes, shares, and comments.
Other common phrases include:
- “You will never regret liking this photo,”
- “Why don’t pictures like this ever trend”,
- “#BOOMchallenge,” and
- references to celebrities like Scarlett Johansson and Jennifer Lopez.
The trend has been heavily criticized and parodied, particularly because the content is low-quality and appears to target users who might not realize it’s AI-generated.
And of course I just had to create an AI rendition of this. Here’s the first video I made:
A few weeks later I felt compelled to make one more. Let’s see if this will become a series, because I’m seriously addicted to this aesthetic.
Now, before we get to this essay written from the perspective of Jean Baudrillard about the beautiful cabin crew, here’s a brief info about who Baudrillard is.
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007)
Baudrillard was a French sociologist and philosopher. Baudrillard’s theories on hyperreality and simulacra have been influential in media studies, particularly in understanding how media creates realities that can be more influential than the actual events they depict.
His concept of hyperreality explores how media, through constant reproduction and simulation of images, blurs the line between the real and the simulated, leading to a state where the distinction between reality and its representation becomes indiscernible.
In this state of hyperreality, the simulation of events often holds more power and significance than the events themselves.
This is evident in contemporary media, where news cycles, advertisements, and social media platforms create a world that is experienced through a lens of curated and manipulated images.
Baudrillard’s work has profound implications for understanding the power of media in shaping public perception and the nature of reality in the digital age.
His analysis extends to the ways in which reality TV, social media, and digital culture have created a new form of reality — one that is manufactured, controlled, and consumed as a commodity.
Baudrillard’s ideas challenge us to question the authenticity of our experiences and the extent to which our lives are mediated by images that no longer reflect an objective reality, but instead, construct a new, simulated world.
The Beautiful Cabin Crew: A Simulation of Hyperreal Beauty
By Jean Baudrillard (as imagined)
In the labyrinth of modern digital culture, the “beautiful cabin crew” phenomenon on Facebook emerges not as a mere trend but as a profound symbol of the hyperreality that now governs our collective consciousness.
Here, the image supplants the reality, creating a simulacrum — a world where the representation of beauty overtakes and obliterates any genuine experience of it.
The Simulacrum of Beauty
The “beautiful cabin crew” does not exist as a simple admiration of attractive individuals in a service role. Rather, it is a simulation, a copy without an original.
In our hyperreal society, the image of the beautiful cabin crew becomes detached from the reality of the individuals it portrays.
What is circulated, liked, and shared on Facebook is not the person, nor the role of the cabin crew, but an image of idealized beauty — a beauty that has been constructed, mediated, and amplified through layers of digital manipulation and societal expectation.
In my terms, this phenomenon is a perfect example of the third order of simulacra: the hyperreal.
Here, the image of the cabin crew is no longer a representation of real people working in aviation but a simulacrum — a self-referential image that exists only to perpetuate its own existence.
This is the phase where the image bears no relation to any reality whatsoever; it is its own pure simulacrum.
Hyperreality in the Digital Age
Social media, particularly platforms like Facebook, functions as the epicenter of hyperreality, where the boundary between the real and the imagined has long since dissolved.
The images of the cabin crew members are not reflections of their true selves but are instead meticulously curated representations designed to fulfill and perpetuate a collective fantasy.
These images are imbued with a kind of seductive power, not because of their connection to any real-world individual or situation, but precisely because they exist within a digital realm where appearance and image are everything.
The “beautiful cabin crew” becomes a spectacle, a “perfect crime,” in my sense, where the reality of the individuals — complete with their flaws, their struggles, their humanity — is murdered by the seduction of the image.
The Obscene and the Fascination
In “The Evil Demon of Images,” I argue that in a world where images no longer refer to any reality, the obscene becomes the only means of existence.
The “beautiful cabin crew” phenomenon represents this obscenity. It is not pornographic in the traditional sense, but it is obscene in its pure visibility, its excess, and its relentless self-reference.
The very idea of beauty is stripped of its traditional connotations of depth and significance, leaving only a hollow shell — a façade that is consumed, reproduced, and circulated endlessly without any reference to the real.
The obsession with such images is not born out of a desire to engage with the real world but from a fascination with the hyperreal. We are drawn to these images because they offer a version of reality that is more desirable, more seductive, and more complete than reality itself.
The “beautiful cabin crew” is not celebrated for their service, their skill, or their individuality, but for their ability to perfectly embody the hyperreal image of beauty that our society worships.
The Death of the Real
In the end, the “beautiful cabin crew” is a testament to the death of the real in the digital age. In a world dominated by simulacra, where images no longer correspond to any reality, the real has been replaced by the hyperreal.
The cabin crew member as a real person ceases to exist in the public consciousness, replaced entirely by the simulacrum of their image.
This is the ultimate consequence of the “beautiful cabin crew” phenomenon: a world where the image not only represents but replaces reality, where the hyperreal is not merely an illusion but a more desirable, more powerful version of existence. It is a world where we have lost touch with the real, seduced entirely by the simulation.
In this hyperreal world, the “beautiful cabin crew” phenomenon is not just a trend but a manifestation of our collective loss — a loss of the real, a loss of depth, and ultimately, a loss of meaning in the digital age.
PS. Here is my second video on the topic of “Beautiful Cabin Crew”:
Enjoy, Gobless, and Amen.
