Authenticity feels like a strategy nowadays. It’s something we’re all sort of expected to be, because being real has become commodified. Like everything else in this post-truth late-stage capitalist hellscape, it is a curated façade. We all have to be honest, or at least appear honest, and now honesty doesn’t mean anything at all.
It has become a vibe, a way to sell a product, and it’s happened because authenticity sells. Previously, the trend was a polished picture-perfect world. Influencers with flawless skin, driving fancy cars, living in big houses; we used to love that shit. Now, many of us are sceptical about anything that is too perfect, because it comes off as disingenuous, as inauthentic. The people demand a genuine experience. Genuine doesn’t come with qualities such as ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ it simply demands truth. People like truth, no one wants to be lied to. That’s why we like the person who speaks their mind, we know they won’t trick us. These are the people who say what they mean, they don’t water it down for likes, and they stick to their values. Whether this is admirable or dangerous, you can decide.
As social creatures, we’re typically expected to conform a bit so that we fit into our society, be it a small tribe or a large city. Throughout human history we can find trends that show conformity is just part of the human experience. However, these expectations do leave room for authenticity, even though that comes with its own challenges.
When I was at school, I had to learn to mask or hide anything that made me stand out or seem weird. This was no bad thing, as it meant I’d have an easier time socially. Having said this, it also meant I never really connected with anyone at a particularly deep level. I am in contact with not one single person from that era, and I feel absolutely fine about that because there is simply no emotional connection to them. Over time, I realised that in order to be happy, I would have to allow myself to just be myself, and as I began living more authentically, I did get much happier.
People want authenticity, and the ad agencies know this.
Celebrities who post ‘unfiltered’ selfies receive countless comments praising their bravery, but it’s all bullshit. Minimal makeup, great lighting, and a good camera angle is not ‘unfiltered,’ it is curated. The endgame is of course to sell more products, and this method is particularly smart because a regular person sees a celebrity with “no makeup” looking stunning, and then they feel even more ashamed of their own faces which leads to spending more on beauty products. It’s genius really. It reminds me of my favourite COVID memory, where the famous people sang John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ in front of plain white walls or outside their homes, so as to not show us that they’re singing this song about us all being in the struggle together from their enormous LA mega mansions.
Similarly, someone crying or dumping their trauma in a ‘raw’ confessional video gets an enormous amount of engagement online. The algorithm LOVES this type of content, it’s vulnerability that is so easy to consume and share, and just polished enough to go viral. People have taken a very real act of sharing vulnerability and found a way to turn it into a social currency, which can be exchanged for actual currency. I’m not saying every sad video is fake, but even a fairly legitimate confession feels a bit iffy knowing that the person making it is well aware that a large audience is going to view it. They’ve edited the fucking thing! TikTok and Instagram encourage these types of raw videos, but they require the content to be short, easy to share, and polished enough to do well among the general users; i.e. it’s all fake.
The more ‘true’ we appear, the more engagement we get, and so we lean into it, until it becomes a lie. With authenticity being the new currency of influence, it’s really hard to know if anyone anywhere at anytime is being authentic, or whether it is all an act. Have we unknowingly trained ourselves to perform, with the unspoken rules of the online filtering down into the real world? I think we have. Online empires have been built off of these lies. A brand’s favourite words are ‘genuine’ and ‘real’ because if they look like they aren’t selling anything then people will buy more.
Authenticity then becomes who we are when no one is watching, if we can even remember who that person is. In a world where attention has become more valuable than gold, I suppose disappearing from it all becomes the ultimate rebellion. We don’t need to prove who we are, we can just be. We can be quiet, imperfect, without an audience, just existing.