Authenticity has disappeared from my online life
This chimes with something I’ve been feeling for a couple of years now, but until this week I didn’t really put my finger on it. Your post — and a few others recently, particularly the Beme launch video — helped me identify what’s missing: authenticity has disappeared from my online life.
Authenticity was supposed to be what social media was about — it was social, it was supposed to be about us. And for the early years — the blogosphere — your authenticity was the best coin you had.
That carried over for the first few years on social media and then … something changed. Today I self-censor a lot more than I used to, I thinkbecause the narcisisstic images everyone projects about themselves are so damned perfect that I can’t afford to be the real me anymore, which is a human being, flaws and all.
If I could travel back in time 10 years, I’d take a selfie stick with me to represent our age. I doubt anyone would believe me.
Update: I followed up on this short reaction a few months later with a fully-fledged post:
