Re last night's 20/20 cricket match

As Debord said, “All that was once directly lived has become mere representation.” Had he been at the SCG last night, even an old Marxist like him would be shocked at the accuracy of his foresight. Soft drinks and fried chicken, it appears, are colonising our social life. (from "Crikey" online magazine of social. political, cultural, etc commentary)

In broad terms, Debord's theories attempted to account for the spiritually debilitating modernisation of both the private and public spheres of everyday life by economic forces during the post-WW2 modernisation of Europe. He rejected as the twin faces of the same problem both capitalism of the West and the statism of the Eastern bloc. Alienation, Debord postulated, could be accounted for by the invasive forces of the 'spectacle' – the seductive nature of capitalism. Debord's analysis developed the notions of "reification" and "fetishism of the commodity"Karl Marx and Georg Lukács. This analysis probed the historical, economic and psychological roots of 'the media'. Central to this school of thought was the claim that alienation is more than an emotive description or an aspect of individual psychology: rather, it is a consequence of the mercantile form of social organization which has reached its climax in capitalism. (from Wikipedia on Guy Debord.)