Digital Personas: The Fake You

greer184 (59)in #society • 6 years ago

Behind each account lies a human being. One with authentic thoughts and authentic feelings. One with motivations and desires. Often in the pursuit of happiness. But rarely does another individual truly get to know that person. Instead they interact with their persona. The thoughts, feelings, and desires that the individual selectively filters into the world. In the physical world, this filter is thin. We are good at empathizing with other people when we are in their presence. And we connect with their feelings and through intuition can separate the fake from the reality.

But in the digital world, where are connections are made through ones and zeros, such filters are hard to decompose and it is easier to hide behind the masks that paint us in a good light. Our interactions become fake and our digital persona does the talking rather than our underlying authentic self.

What is the point of acting fake? To make friends, to make connections, to build networks, to appeal to as many people as possible. It is hard to get mad at some who preaches positivity and wishes everyone bright futures and much success. And maybe a part of us finds such optimism refreshing in a world filled with lots of cynicism and pessimism. So we eat that positive shit up.

But at the end of the day, it does little for anybody. What happens is that a shallow relationship is forged. Instead of getting to know the real person, you instead get to know the public persona of that individual. You might agree with their message and perhaps it distracts you from the underlying problems and issues within your life. But at the end of the day, no problems are ever solved.

With your digital persona, such interactions are taken to a higher level of disassociation from the actual person. You only show the best you. The good you. The positive you. You create a digital puppet and pull the strings from a distance. By doing this you shield yourself from direct attacks against the authentic you. And you will make lots of friends and followers that treat you very kindly and nicely.

But these relationships are even more shallow. These so-called "friends" and "followers" are projecting their digital personas in order to build their networks. They say nice things and build your esteem in order to use your network to build theirs. Nobody wants to be alone in digital world, so they play this game with their digital puppets.

It is no wonder that people don't know each other anymore. In this digital age, we have been taught to become master puppeteers. Wearing masks and building fake versions of ourselves to present to the public. We all have flaws, but flaws don't make friends and they certainly lower your status in social and professional networks. So we pretend they don't exist.

More often people commit acts that betray their personas. Some acts are destructive to themselves and some acts are destructive to others. And when bad things happen, the people supposedly closest to them never knew how they felt, what they desired, and why they acted the way they did. Perhaps, it was they interacted with a persona rather than a real human being. Perhaps, they were friends with an imaginary person that the underlying human being underneath was encouraged to create.

I'm just tired of being encouraged to be fake. I could really care less. And sure, I'm writing to you through my persona, and I've certainly interacted with many people behind a mask with a smiling face permanently carved into it. But I can tell you that the real me is tired of people pretending to people they are not and acting as a means of building themselves up. Because you are not. You are building a fake person up. You are fake.

I know there are so many reasons to be fake and I sympathize with those faking it to make it because we built an environment that encourages such silly behavior. Our role models are designer toys and their puppeteers are miserable people trying to keep up their façade.

But perhaps you disagree with me and believe such social structures build happy and healthy societies. Perhaps you believe the puppet you've built is the real you. I'm sure you feel authentic as hell going through the motions performing those actions you do in order to please the most people as possible. I only have one thing to say to you:

Fuc... um, Have a nice day!