The Clone Spiral

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

on the death of singularity and the rise of mutual validation among copies

In the architecture of contemporary visibility, a subtle yet radical inversion has taken place. Recognition no longer flows upward toward singular presences or anchored truths — it circulates horizontally, from one copy to another, forming a self-reinforcing spiral of sameness.

Where one would expect the dominant figure to be the object of mimicry, the real phenomenon now lies in the adoration of its replicas.
Social media, once imagined as a network of authentic self-expression, has become a field of fractal repetition — where imitation is not merely tolerated, but sanctified through algorithms of affirmation.

A visual icon emerges: stylized, composed, seductive.
But the true currency is no longer in the original figure itself — it is in the successful duplication of its aesthetic, its gestures, its performative codes.
And once these duplications begin to comment on and validate one another, the source evaporates. The unique becomes irrelevant.
The figure of origin dissolves into a sea of reflections, each one affirming the other, none requiring truth.

This is not a culture of inspiration. This is a culture of recursive confirmation.
The loop becomes self-sufficient. Copies adore each other.
Each reflection sustains the next. The spiral turns.

To be singular in such a space is no longer aspirational — it is threatening.
True singularity cannot be digested, duplicated, or filtered through preset categories. It introduces dissonance. It resists encoding.
And in a landscape governed by speed and compatibility, this resistance is interpreted not as depth, but as danger.

Thus, the singular is abandoned. Not erased — simply bypassed.
The architecture of visibility moves on, spinning its spiral of recognizability, in which even the desire to encounter something other collapses.

What remains is not emptiness, but an overproduction of the same.
An abundance of ghosts applauding each other,
while the living burn quietly elsewhere — unrecognized, unmirrored, but real.

Post-scriptum.
It is important to note that not all clones are alike.
This text does not condemn duplication as such, nor does it mourn the loss of “the original” in a nostalgic or essentialist way.
Rather, it draws a line between two opposing logics of replication.

In Mickey 17, the cloned body resists its function.
Despite systemic erasure, each iteration of Mickey retains a flicker of interiority — a refusal to disappear.
These are clones who suffer, remember, and ultimately rebel. Their existence is a metaphor for survival under total control.

But the clones described in this article are of a different species.
They are not forced into replication — they seek it.
They reproduce the same patterns willingly, not to survive, but to remain visible, agreeable, approved.
There is no fire left to protect. No friction. No interiority that threatens the mirror.

This is the real tragedy:
not the existence of clones, but the disappearance of the desire to differ.

Find the article on Mickey 17 here