Performing Authenticity

You gotta love the title of this paper which first appeared in New Media & Society. It quotes a Twitter user: "I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience". In the article Alice E. Marwick and danah boyd make very astute observations about performing authenticity.

This concept of 'authenticity' is a popular one. We refer to the 'real me' and authentic experiences, artifacts, and people. However, there is no such thing as universal authenticity; rather, the authentic is localized, temporally situated social construct that varies widely based on community. [my emphasis]

They continue, with a very important unpacking of the rhetoric of authenticity: "for something to be deemed authentic, something else must be inauthentic."

Their article leaves us to understand that the authentic is mediated through imagined audiences. The projected interlocutors shape the presentation of self.

I find myself wondering how do I shift mindsets and contexts: who I imagine the eavesdropper might be. See Dave Eggers The Circle.

And so for day 2142
24.10.2012