There is nothing particularly new or interesting about Muammar Qaddafi’s death. From a very removed perspective, it is another example of history rhyming. Much like Saddaam Hussein, as noted by the New York Times, Qaddafi was pulled from a hole in the ground near his hometown. And, like Hussein, images from the scene of Qaddafi’s death were made available online immediately after the fact. The carnival continues, this time with Qaddafi as its sideshow. In a few weeks, he’ll be history to everyone in the world, save the Libyans forced to cope with his legacy.

For good measure, Qaddafi’s body now rests in a meat locker, where people from all over can come take pictures with his dead body, if they weren’t already convinced of his death. Anyone else who needs proof can look at the videos and images online.

But what made an impression on me was not just the trauma and confusion conveyed in  videos, but the fact that I had to sit through a thirty second advertisement before watching it. I clicked the video, and what happened? The rebels pulled Qaddafi from his car as he exited the carwash? Wait, no. Do my parents need a new car? No. Okay now lets watch Qaddafi get lynched by a mob. Hey dude, have you heard about this video?! Uh, wait, do you need any shaving cream? We can go to Wegman’s later, I want to see Qaddafi pay his dues!  

In an unsettling way, the video makes the viewer feel like a caveman in a Geico commercial, forced to confront his primitive identity in a modern, post-modern, post reality, what-have-you society. As Libya rushes to cover the naked humanity that Qaddafi left behind with the institutions of modern a civil society, those of us in more “advanced” stages of civilization can reflect on own instincts, equally primordial but better dressed. To witness an execution, one needn’t crowd around the scaffold; they must merely endure a 30 second commercial. The image of Qaddafi’s “walk of death” reminds us that violence and pity — even for a man as immoral and brutal as Qaddafi — are still our two universal conditions. What differs is the extent to which different groups are insulated from these conditions, and whether or not they can pay to experience the softer effects, rather than experience them directly.

As I said before, there is not much to say for Qaddafi’s death that hasn’t been said already. John Lee Anderson, the intrepid reporter for the New Yorker, noted that Qaddafi is merely the latest chapter of “before your eyes” events that can be called the “Deaths of Former Dictators.” Saddam Hussein was the first of this class, according to Anderson, a distinction that elicited a number of comments on his blog. No, the comments said, Saddam was not the first. You can point to a number of other dictators, dating back to Mussolini, according to one comment, who have met a similar demise. But these comments miss the point. Qaddafi’s death, and its subsequent monetization and distribution mark a new chapter of indifference in a long equalizing narrative of consumerism. There was no first and there is no foreseeable last. 

In response to September 11, the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard reflected on how the images of the two tower’s destruction “take it [the event] hostage”— images become a diversion as they are distributed and multiplied. The same thing is happening now with the videos shot last week. “The image consumes the event, in the sense that it offers it for consumption.” In short, the image becomes the event. Baudrillard proposed the same question that we can ask today: “how do things stand with the real event, then, if reality is everywhere infiltrated by images, virtuality and fiction?” 

Anderson addressed one problem on his blog. The images of Qadaffi’s humiliating parade hardly confirm his death, much less illustrate what actually happened. The Libyans flocking in to the meat locker from all over, to confirm the event with their own eyes, simultaneously the uncertainty and irresistibility of images. Moreover, to the extent that these images will continue to multiply, they will only increase their grasp on the post-Qaddafi narrative. The rebels, as the images would lead one to believe, have merely seized the right to administer brutality from one man and distributed it amongst themselves. The media has picked up on this — many have already said that Qaddafi’s death was as violent and chaotic as his 42-year rule. This does not bode well for a country that knows raw violence, but does not know institutions. Save a state oil company, Qaddafi left little behind.  

When we consume violent images, like those of a bloodied Qaddafi being forced out of a pick-up truck, we also become complicit in a process of violence. People love it. If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be a profit opportunity for advertisements. Taking advantage of the most advanced technologies available to the layman — say, a Libyan rebel — the media has appropriated, monetized and distributed the barest of human inclinations: the feeling of revenge and pity that we feel towards Qadaffi, and our indulgence in the images of him. The shaving cream advertisement was no doubt an opportunity too big to forgo. 

Finally, the Qaddafi episode reminds us why it is important to heavily scrutinize the content that we distribute online. When Baudrillard accused the media of participating in the same process of violence —infinitely multiplying and distributing images, eclipsing reality— it came at a point where the media had more control of the content. Now it doesn’t. In the past 9 years since he wrote, anyone can videotape a landmark event and distribute it online. The development of technology, in this instance, draws us closer to the state of nature, rather than away from it. It’s a nuisance that we must endure commercials to experience the most basic human feelings.