we can never be truly authentic online
Identity is contextual and, if we are to live, breathe, and grow, it has to remain contextual. The Internet of the “authentic self” — a loathsome, aberrant idea if there ever was one — is an exercise in slowly getting strangled by your past selves.
Robin Berjon • Retrofuturism
Authenticity brings us to avatars. This might seem a strange connection: aren’t avatars, by nature, inauthentic? After all, avatars entail being someone other than yourself. But for many people, avatars are a vessel for more authentic self-expression.
Rex Woodbury • Throughlines (Part I)
I will never understand the amount of comments saying couple goals and how do I find this! to the most staged, rehearsed, insincere moments I’ve ever seen. I can’t get my head around applauding people who set up a camera in the corner to record themselves being romantic.
Substack • You Don't Need To Document Everything
So: we have a desperate need for more authenticity these days. At the same time as performative measures are increasing in number.
Rohit • Our love of authenticity rises as all the world became a stage
Another corollary of blocking users’ feeds is that posting can start to feel like mere housekeeping – an obstacle to be cleared rather than a valuable form of self-expression in itself. This results in non-committal content – half-captured faces, blank computer screens, random window frames, empty dinner plates – which quickly gets boring. The... See more
Dazed • The Death of BeReal
But who are we — am I — trying to be original for? Myself, a client, a boss, a professor, Instagram, my mom, nobody at all? I think that it’s time to really think about who we’re creating for, so that we can strategize who deserves our originality, who deserves our efficiency, who deserves both, and who deserves neither. If there’s one thing I’m... See more
libbymarrs.net • Post-Authentic Sincerity a Premium Generic Essay
Walter posits that because a regular mirror reverses our image, we never get to see our real selves or make real eye contact – “right eye to right eye, left eye to left eye” – which subsequently feeds our brain “faulty information