No it isn't, it's been around a lot longer than that. I love the Illumintus books, but they're a rehash of existing concepts. I suggest you check out Guy Debord's Society of the spectacle; as well as the book, there's a film which is available in full on Youtube and narrated by Debord himself. Of course such ideas had been floating around in philosophy for longer than that, but Debord's work was very current when the first Illuminatus trilogy was written around 1975.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle