Who Are We, Really? — The Atlantic
With Instagram there was the idea that my life is constantly available for perception and evaluation by other people. I had these thoughts: I’d upload a photo and then I’d view my Instagram story and try to pretend to be somebody else—a stranger—and imagine how they’d see me. I’d be trying to present myself to be legible in a certain way to complet... See more
The Atlantic • How to Leave an Internet That’s Always in Crisis
Never before in history have so many people been under the gaze of so many strangers. Humans evolved in small groups, defined by kinship: those we knew, knew us. And our imaginative capabilities allowed us to know strangers—kings and queens, heroes of legend, gods above—all manner of at least partly mythic personalities to whom we may have felt as ... See more
Chris Hayes • On the Internet, We’re Always Famous
The problem is, we no longer live solely among those we know well. We're now forced to refine our personalities by the countless eyes of strangers. And this has begun to affect the process by which we develop our identities.
Gurwinder • The Perils of Audience Capture
“We are so used to disguising ourselves from others that we often end up by disguising ourselves from ourselves.”
David Brooks • How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
Taylor called this authenticity, and it became the unreachable horizon of modern life. It’s a concept that makes sense only in its absence; we recognize inauthenticity, phoniness, when someone’s clearly being a poseur. Yet the struggle to feel authentic—this is very real, even if we know better. In Taylor’s telling, everyone becomes a kind of artis
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