How social media is turning people into personas

and why you’re more lonely than B.F. [before Facebook]

“A persona (plural personae or personas), in the word’s everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask.[1] The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word “phersu”, with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον (prosōpon).”

I have a theory: the way social media usage is shaping up these days is leading us to the ultimate paradox. The more we feel connected to an ever increasing number of people, the lonelier we actually are. The more we display snippets of our lives across an ever-growing number of social platforms — our artisan morning latte on Instagram, our latest project on LinkedIn, flowers from a doting fiance’ or our indignation for a worthy social cause — the more we set up ourselves for real solitude.

We are curating the exhibition of our days like an art gallery curating a retrospective meant to please the crowds — a few recognizable masterpieces, only the best pieces on show, and the unfinished, the aborted, the routine bread and butter work relegated at the back.

The difference is, it is not some stranger artist which we are failing to show in his or her contradiction and complexities — it is our own selves which we are failing to understand; even more, we are positively preventing others from really “seeing” us and possibly getting closer to us. I notice more and more people who are well “connected” online tend to shy away from in-person encounters, conversations, skirmishes, dates, hook-ups — anything which would get them out of this estheticized representation of self and into the low-fi, untidy, unpolished mess that is life outside the display. You follow the stylish traveller, the gruffy-but-sensitive hipster, the coffee geek, the gorgeous-and-smart gal, the #fitspo guru.

The old paradigm of content creators vs content consumers is shifting. Everyone can play multiple roles. Just choose who you want to be online, what you stand for, decide on your branding, a logo, a tone of voice, your hobbies, an Instagram filter- stick to it long enough, and they will come and view. If life gets in the way, ignore it. The “likes” and “love” will build a shiny armour around you. Or do they?

Are we all victims of our own celebrity?

“I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you.”

Luigi Pirandello, Italian writer and playwright

A famous fashion blogger once told me “I don’t like meeting my readers- I don’t want to meet people in fact, they think I am some kind of goddess. And they hate me, and I’m ok because I don’t like them either”. There was resentment in her voice.

It would be too easy to blame her, or the shallowness of fashion. We are all celebrities these day in our own 15 minutes, be it a thousand-strong Instagram following or even the small circle of our former high school flatmates, reunited on Facebook by the reciprocal spying of “who’s doing better now”. We are our own publicist, stylist and directors — and the more we make ourselves into who we want to see in the mirror, the less we allow people to come close enough to see all the rest. The day the shoes don’t match the outfit. They day you have been a bitch at work (not your boss to you- you have been positively horrendous and you’re ashamed of yourself). The day you realise you talk to somebody on the other side of the world a lot more often than to Mum, not because you like them, but because you hope to get some Instagram followers if they tag you.

Mind, this is not to say that everybody is just trying to look happy and successful on social media. The tone of the picture we’re painting of ourselves doesn’t matter. In fact, the most resonating public personas are those who play fragile, “one of us”, the tormented, the fallen, the clumsy, the outcast who is just so “different” it appears to have thousands of people saying they are just like him/her. It doesn’t matter which type of persona you are crafting for yourself — and it’s ok, it can be a creative, fun and fulfilling ride as long as you’re on the driver seat. Social media self-curation can transform our lives into a giant mask ball — the mistery is exciting, unpleasant features are hidden, it is easy to make passing connections. Just be careful to be wearing your persona like a mask that you can shed anytime, not the other way round.