Critic speak is tough, but we've got you covered.
Quote :The Semiotic Challenge
A garment, an automobile, a dish of cooked food, a gesture, a film, a piece of music, an advertising image, a piece of furniture, a newspaper headline—these indeed appear to be heterogeneous objects. What might they have in common? This at least: all are signs…this car tells me the social status of its owner, this garment tells me quite precisely the degree of its wearer's conformism or eccentricity.
When it comes to semiotics, Barthes is your man. As he makes crystal clear in this quote, pretty much any text or object can act as a sign. Some of these things may be so much a part of modern culture that you're barely aware of them, but that doesn't mean that they're just "there." Far from it!
As Barthes tells us, signs can come in all shapes and sizes and carry all sorts of meanings, but ultimately, the thing to remember is that they are all signs. Meaning, they all symbolize some bigger, broader thing.
What Barthes is saying, then, is that we shouldn't take anything at face value but instead give our brains a workout to recognize the role objects play within society. Sometimes this can be pretty obvious: you don't have to be a master of semiotics to see someone wearing lots of black eyeliner and think "that Goth must not like our society much," just like the whole point of driving a BMW is to say "Hey, look how successful I am." Still, signs can sometimes fly under the radar, and it's important to remember that there's sometimes more than meets the eye.