DO WE BECOME CONTENT BEFORE WE BECOME PEOPLE?
In the past, people enjoyed hobbies and interests privately, without feeling compelled to share them publicly. Social media has changed this, turning individuality into something to display. Interests are now labeled as “niche” or “boring,” and people often feel pressured to curate their lives for others instead of finding satisfaction within themselves.
Today, social media encourages everyone to “build a brand,” often prioritizing aesthetics over comfort, particularly among teenagers. Being “normal” is discouraged, and people strive for uniqueness by labeling typical behavior as “performative” or “attention-seeking.” For example, reading in public is sometimes viewed as attention-seeking. The internet has blurred the line between being an individual and being a brand, leading many to imitate influencer lifestyles rather than pursue what genuinely benefits them.
These days, life feels less lived and more documented for the invisible audience that people already have in mind, recording videos of the concert to post rather than actually enjoying it, and not just that, people start recording all basic activities because they have “content potential”. Validation from people who are complete strangers feels needed, which becomes intertwined with self-esteem. Emotional vulnerability online is one of the most common things on the internet, where everyone is just trauma-dumping about their life to complete strangers and telling all their drama to people who don’t even care about it, and if any video gets fewer likes or views, it suddenly becomes a barrage of negative emotions. Plus, with the growth of this type of content, people online lie about their problems, just to stay more interesting to their viewers and not loose following.
Social media has seen a visible shift from “curated perfection” to a more “authentic” form of content, unfiltered selfies, and casual captions just to appear more genuine and relatable. Nonetheless, this version of authenticity is often just as polished as the trends before it; the spontaneous and “in the moment” photos they share online is often intentional and carefully selected to present “effortless realism”. Ironically, in a time when authenticity is valued, “being real” has become a trend to keep the audience hooked. This is also due to the fear that they will be irrelevant after a time, due to this, influencers and people online constantly compare themselves to others, especially when everyone is now trying to be influencers, this is where something called “pressure to stay active” comes to play, everyone tries different things even when they dont like it, be it dance trends or pranks, just to stay relevant, if anyone dissapears online— it almost feels like they have dissapeared socially.
Social media has, no doubt, given people an opportunity to expresses themselves and their creativity, but they have also created a cultre where having a personality can seem “performative”. The greatest act of authenticity may simply be allowing ourselves to exist offline without care of what complete strangers would think of us.
