Am I lying to myself?

“Losing yourself in inauthenticity”

—Anonymous (3/14/2024) (9:47:32)

Lots to dissect here. How about I call your one-liner and raise you three perspectives? Let’s discuss the relationship with inauthenticity in terms of the industry, the cooperative, and the individual. All of these can be slogs when you feel yourself losing heart. But surely what you think/feel about something must be authentic, right? Unfortunately, it’s not always so simple, or at least it doesn’t feel that that— but what do you know? Perhaps, nothing. Unless you know yourself. C’mon, let’s go down this rabbit hole together.

1. Don’t be Disney

At an industry level – yes, things can often feel much more inauthentic. Let’s take Disney, for example, my favorite billionaire multi-media conglomerate punching bag. Following the acquisition of franchises like Marvel and Star Wars, they’ve produced loads of content that many feel doesn’t match up with the spirit of the original I.P.s. There are arguments to be had within the worlds of these franchises, but there’s no arguing the commitment Disney has to fulfilling the needs of profit margins set by stakeholders. The degeneration of quality within these franchises can be ascertained to be the fault of strict content schedules (Marvel through COVID) or in reshaping the identity of worlds to be better marketed towards the most amount of people.

Star Wars, of course, prints money through the identifiable designs of characters and set pieces, so sanitizing further releases and having them be recognizant of prior, successful iterations, means we’ve got plenty of processed meat with eternal shelf-life spans. It’s also why you feel such a difference in the value of something like Andor as compared to, say, any of the last three movies. Andor hits because it’s got something to say, not because it’s meant to land. This means alienating portions of an audience and cutting potential revenue (no one’s buying an action figure of a Senator using her daughter as a bargaining chip) but doesn’t just that parenthetical excerpt make you slightly interested?

 In a Star Wars universe, no less… Anyway, check that shit out, it’s dope.

I’m not even going to delve into A.I. and that whole headache. What’s more concerning is that people actually believe it could usurp art. I’d like to remain hopeful about the human race. I’d like to believe that our complex emotions and beliefs are not the kinds of things that can be artificially reconstructed. That’s why authenticity is so important and so, well, authentic. But all the more reason to cultivate media literacy and ensure that we can safeguard the societally/evolutionarily elected medium of storytelling to construct our cultural values! You are not immune!

2. Treat people with Kindness (and Yourself)

At a cooperative level – I fully understand where you’re coming from. Personally, I’ve got a short social battery, and (in our digital age) the idea that anyone who wants to talk to you equates to a little blue bubble that gradually goes up in number freaks me the hell out. Sometimes it’s difficult to come back to reality from that and to readjust to what it feels like to have real, genuine discussions with others on a face-to-face level. On that note, I’d emphasize just reminding yourself to be true to your own authenticity, and try not to lose yourself in a world full of faceless users on a screen.

If other people are inauthentic, I’d recommend getting away from them! They’re probably not the partner for you. This feels like a simplified solution. If they’re being fake, then, yeah, don’t associate with them. But if it’s their art that feels inauthentic, then they probably haven’t figured out what their personal connection with art is yet, so be sure you’re gauging fairly with inauthenticity. If you like them and feel they’re missing the point to their own work, simply talk with them. Be honest with what you like or don’t, but importantly, be sure you engage with them so that you both can discover the kind of vision they would like to realize. It’s a much better avenue for improvement than not trusting anything or dismissing everything I don’t understand personally as being inauthentic. Oftentimes, there is a lot we can’t see or understand about the process that went into someone else’s work, and it can be very easy to confuse our own lack of awareness with inauthenticity, but the line there is very blurry. With all that said, apply these acts of mercy to yourself every once in a while as well.

3. You’ll be okay Pinocchio

At an individual level – this one’s scary. The self is scary. If you’re at a loss with yourself, you’re not in a writing roadblock, you’re probably more at what feels like a stop sign in life, which I also fully understand. I think everyone can relate to this on some level. If what I make doesn’t feel sincere, and everything else is already in service of what I make, then what the hell, right? Why keep trying at all?

Look, you’re just overworked. “But I haven’t done anything” Well, you sound worked up. Take a beat and do something you enjoy outside of your art, if for no other reason than to remind yourself that what you like exists outside the scope of yourself as well. Art is meant to encapsulate life; the proxy implication to that is that life is worth living. Live it your own way, tend to yourself, understand that as annoying as others can be, there is beauty in everyone (well, mostly), and all of it lends itself to a truer experience of life, which we can then manically copy down into our notes app for future reference. What is passion if not something to simply experience? The process is hypnotic, it’s all about getting to a point where the art reflects that. It is easy to get caught up in the hardships of life, and easier still to give up. This is where you need to remind yourself to keep going, keep living, and by doing that, you’ll likely (whether intentionally or not) discover what all the great, authentic art in the world has always been about, which is the cliché, but true, idea that life is beautiful— and get this, it’s real, too.

Written by Aidan Little

Edited by Sarah Lerner, Hope Fell

Graphic Design by Suzanne Allen