Graham, zizek

This reading was confusing to me at first, but I think that I grasped some of the major concepts that they were discussing..well at least I hope that I did.
It was said that "virtual reality simply generalizes this procedure of offering a product deprived of its substance: it provides reality itself deprived of its substance, of the hard resistant kernel of the real- just as decaffeinated coffee smells and tastes like real coffee, without being real coffee, virtual reality is experienced as reality without being so" (231)
I think this means that virtual reality has the illusion of being real, because you can see it, sometimes feel it, or maybe even taste it (in the sense of the coffee example) but it is not the real thing. It is like the difference between a 10,000 dollar gucci bag, and a knock off purse that you get from New York. It might look real, it might smell like leather, and even say the brand on it...but it is not real. Of course the object exists, and it is real in that case, but it is not what it appears to be. It is an illusion for everyone to assume that you are wealthy and have a beautiful designer bag. There are so many things today that have "knock-off" versions, that it is difficult to even determine what is real anymore.
Like when we went to the art museum Tuesday, we discussed which art work was the first to be created. Is it the first copy, or the first sketch..what is the first? What is real? This is sometimes a difficult question to answer, but I think that it is what the author was getting at when he wrote this story. I hope that I grasped the idea that the author was trying to portray to the reader, I think that this was one of the readings that I understood best so far, but tell me if im wrong!