Authenticity is the New Cool.
But wasn’t it always?
I’m showing my age here. Please excuse the old woman on the other end of the series of tubes that makes up The Internets. In my attempt to be authentic, like the social networks of old and the reddit of pre-the-last-three-years, you’re getting some background filler that makes me seem like I grew up when Burger King had Mr. Potato Head Fries.
Mm. Mr. Potato Head Fries were so good. Also, I did grow up then. And I grew up in a pre-smartphone world with Myspace, Livejournal and Sega Genesis.
Speaking of the devil, Myspace was where teens and pre-teens posted their angst and wangst for years, back when I was a wee pup, with sparkles and glitter that would make an Angelfire or geocities website blush head to toe. Authenticity was expected, as people didn’t yet know how to brand themselves fully and monetize their silly videos, pre-meme viral pics, or songs they posted for friends and fans that were far more family than strangers.
A few of the first viral video creators, like the G.I. Joe PSA spoofs, just made content because it was awesome. Ebaums World and Newgrounds were there for entertainment. Not money. Myspace bands were made popular by connecting with others, putting their friends on blast, and sharing their lives.
Sharing your life with people on the internet has lead to some pretty huge e-celeb stars due to the fascination we have with other humans and their failures and successes. We are transfixed with YouTube stars, and follow the Jenners and Kardashians on every platform. We are voyeurs. Voyeurs to something that we want to be or hate, something that is beautiful, dramatic, terrible, or something that is outrageous.
Internet celebrity oogling is not unlike television. Except it feels more real, even when it isn’t.
My boyfriend watches Youtube video blogs, or ‘vlogs’, and I have no idea why he’s so into them. It’s just people trying out Pinterest tutorials and naming them ‘Pinterest Challenges’ like making bath bombs that dye your skin sparkly demon black death with swirls of pink. If you want to make a damn bath bomb, make it yourself? I still don’t get it. Sorry, boo.
Initially Facebook, Youtube and Twitter were much like Myspace, but I’m noticing a big trend as of late towards advertisement and disingenuous overkill. After discussing all of this with my friends over at www.ello.co, I realized I’m not alone in thinking this is all going to hell in a hand basket. And it’s going that way super, super fast.
I think we’re at this weird crux in social media, marketing, and artmaking history where advertisements flood our feeds every unfathomable second and politics have deluged our lives. I think it’s about time we disconnect from the marketing agenda schema and start creating content people can thrive off of, in the realest, most authentic way.
I think we’re at this weird crux in social media history where advertisements and politics flood our feeds and deluge our lives.
That’s not to say that being politically aware isn’t important. Being politically aware is very important. But when people start to confuse opinion with fact, which the internet gives the loudest (and often most ignorant) voices a larger voyeurism-supporting platform in spades, we risk this unfounded miasma of discontent even further.
Raise your hand if you’ve deactivated your Facebook account in the past six months. Raise your hand if you’ve blocked a bunch of ‘friends’ because their ‘factual rants’ are nothing more than pissy opinions. Raise your hand if you’ve straight up left a social network because it was crawling up your butt with something you didn’t like.
Enter the content creator, the artist, the musician, and the living art pieces. The last bastions, in my opinion (not a fact), of authenticity on the internet.
Not all content creators are created equal. Content marketers that rely on the laurels of non-subversive clickbait titles to increase eyeballs make me gag much like fattening movie popcorn with more salt and lard than a ramen noodle spice packet with none of the water. Their content tastes good for a second, maybe you even share it — that’s what they want — but did you really learn something?
Content marketers that rely on the laurels of non-subversive clickbait titles to increase eyeballs make me gag.
There are so many self help articles online. Some of the most popular tell you how to be superman-level productive, get you out of your depressive slump, and take over the writing world with 10 easy payments of $99 (I’m looking at you, Contena.co, and your ‘familial friendly’ newsletter emails on how to be the Bestest Writerer Everszsdfdhh. Get bent.).
I’ve even written some of those self help articles myself, because those are what brings eyeballs. Gross, huh? I try of course to write them in my authentic voice where the tips are actually helpful and not just rehashings of Lifehacker articles or stuff people talked about on Reddit (cough, Buzzfeed). That’s called original content, my dears, and some of you are just slurping up the drippings from someone else’s ceiling to coin a Nirvana lyric.
This content-copycatting works though, so why would we want to change the formula? Well, I don’t know, maybe because most of the world is digitally fatigued and spends hours scrolling selfservingly instead of actually working on their personal development or connecting with others?
Maybe we need to start making things that are real again, and putting the realest creators on blast to combat the ‘screaming-into-the-void’ syndrome that people have?
Maybe marketers should be giving them something juicy, real, and helpful all at the same time so they can keep their souls intact and also get eyeballs? What a crazy idea, this whole authenticity thing, right?
What a crazy idea, this whole authenticity thing, right?
I’m throwing an awful lot of shade here in this hugely long-winded piece of crap article I wrote while avoiding breakfast due to laziness and chugging coffee like it cost me $10 at Starbucks (it didn’t, I made it), so here is an anecdote:
I dance a lot. I dance outside my workplace before entering the employee entrance and bust a move to amazing, audacious people like Santigold, Brooke Candy, Metric, Mindless Self Indulgence, and NIN. I dance because it makes me happy and no one can hear the music but me, so I look like a dork.
I know my coworkers think I’m crazy on some level, but I was praised by this wickedly funny, wickedly prominent Design Director while on my super-hipster-eating-chips-and-hating-the-world-vape-break halfway through the day.
She speaks with such a thick Massachusetts accent (I’m from Boston) that she puts mine to shame, dresses like an Italian Mafiosa, and I think she’s fantastically authentic, herself. She cloisters it as much as she has to, to get by in corporate, but when she lets it go during her smoke break, I think she’s a superstar.
Yaas Queen, give me your thickest, harshest Bostonian accent, I am listening and appreciative.
She said to me this: “I saw you dancing. You really just don’t care what anyone thinks.”
I protested a bit, I felt embarrassed.
“No, I mean, you just do what you do. I think it’s awesome.”
Ending on that anecdote, Authenticity is The New Cool. But actually, it always has been cool. So has connecting with other people in a very real, very personal way, and going out on a limb to risk vulnerability. Myspace was cool because it was fresh and people were awkward. Newgrounds was cool because it was just nerds making weird stuff. Youtube was cool because it was weird people talking about things they were passionate about without shilling for products.
Being brave is cool. Being yourself has never been more ‘in style’ than now, when the social media and internet worlds are filled to the brim with garbage.
I say it’s time to return to that and start supporting people like Molly Soda, musicians like KI: Theory, content creators like the www.manrepeller.com team and Youtube stars who teach you instead of bait you like Nerd Writer.
I say it’s time to return to art, authenticity, and supporting and sharing what is good and real. The internet was made for networking in a real and transparent way. I’m seeing less and less of it, and it bothers me. I’m sure it bothers you, too.
I say we start doing that again.
