Masquerade of Authenticity
"Be yourself," they all comment in unison online, but there is a selected portion of selves you can choose from. Are you a clean girl? Is your aesthetic vintage, into cottagecore, or goth fashion? Is your personality in a dark academia vibe, coquette, coastal grandmother vibes, or rock band aesthetic? We are obsessed with curating our identity online based on all the current aesthetics and trends in order to fit into this aesthetically pleasing world. And a recent interaction opened my eyes to this masquerade.
Hailey Bieber IG
When was your last original experience? Even this sentence was not authentic since "I've never had an original experience" is a popular comment on TikTok whenever someone shares a story you have experienced or can relate to. I was talking to this girl (with a great personality) when she was telling me about all her passions and desires, what she grew up loving and where she wants to end up, what she is doing with her days, and how she would describe herself. Listening carefully to the choice of her words, even they were similar to how I would exactly present myself. This girl's personality was eerily similar to mine. The familiarity of her story led me to preliminarily judge her on whether she actually lives like this or if she is just obsessed with portraying an image of herself that would be considered aesthetic. I knew she did it unintentionally and that she just believes she is up-to-date because I believed the same for myself too. And that is when, just as unintentionally as I got myself into this, I realized that I am way too deep in the trap of aesthetics.
The scathing era of online criticism is over, and we are pledging for simple authenticity and real-life experiences. Yet, even the digital camera photos or quick club selfies are carefully curated, a bit edited, and put out there to portray our "real selves." The trick online is that you should always work hard in order to really fit in.
There are many aesthetic niches today which help us to be versatile in expressing our identity and style. How does one differentiate between authenticity or part of the masquerade of authenticity? Or do all these aesthetics actually put us in the loop and make us get lost in the online maze and eventually lose ourselves while trying to follow an idealized lifestyle?
No wonder why Gen Z are considered most prone to struggle with identity crises. I didn’t know I might struggle with that before I realized that I describe my vibe through well-known boxes of cores or even through taking out my phone and playing a video that quickly displays lots of photos with an aesthetic I aspire to follow. I curate my identity just like social media is teaching me daily, and this essentially kills my self-expression without me realizing it. All this eventually led me to ponder, who would I be if my identity was not raised with the online influence?
This inconspicuous obsession not only creates more unrealistic standards, but they also often become a reason for exclusion and boundless self-criticism. One could argue that these aesthetics create a shared space for social media users where they can have a sense of belonging to a specific core and the people who are part of it. Yet, what exactly are they part of—a shopping cart or a party with an extremely strict dress code?
In other words, is this all about self-expression or about fitting within a consumerist box? Most videos or posts about a certain aesthetic portray not only fashion but a lifestyle, which ultimately makes you feel as if you cannot have that lifestyle without having the items necessary for that aesthetic. Can you study without a MacBook, can you go to the gym without a tight sports bra in pastel color, can you go for a run without a slick ponytail and a Stanley? The sublimity of basing your personality on cultural influences, by one’s music genre of choice for example, was exchanged for packaged consumerism that sells personality in a box.
When identity nowadays is based on products instead of personality, this overconsumption brings up conversations about exclusion and power dynamics. Even simpler ones, such as the stacked rings aesthetic where it is incredibly trendy to wear lots of jewelry, can cause exclusion due to the various socioeconomic statuses online that aesthetic participants don’t seem to take into account. As one comment recently reminded me, most people’s priority is to buy shirts that they would need, instead of rings, as the latter can be considered an unnecessary expense. This ultimately enlarges the gap between people who have more opportunities to follow these trends and people who do not.
All these aesthetics make the online space unwelcoming to everyone, a place where one should carefully curate their identity in order to fit in. And just as unconsciously as we follow these boxes, we take them outside of the screen and bring them to life, to the moment when we all sound, look, and want the same. Yet we still preach for the authenticity one can freely portray on their social media, while the duplicitousness of this masquerade of authenticity is threatening our identity.
