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Transcript

Your Fear Of Perception Is Holding You Back · The imuRgency Room

• 0:00
  This is going to sound weird but I don't like being perceived
• 0:03
  like. I don't like people having any
• 0:05
  type of image of me in their head like.
• 0:07
  Oh my God, my Spotify rap. Is so as like Spotify play with
• 0:11
  my? Spotify rap.
• 0:12
  Oh my God. You built that shit brick by
• 0:16
  brick by. Brick.
• 0:17
  I say this with so much love and so much kindness.
• 0:21
  People are going to judge you. They are going to judge you no
• 0:25
  matter what you do, and there's a nothing that you can do to
• 0:29
  stop that. The time has come and gone, and
• 0:31
  while the holiday season is imminent, the Gladiator event of
• 0:34
  the year has passed. Spotify Wrapped has officially
• 0:38
  Wrapped. And whether you're on the front
• 0:39
  lines posting your out then abashedly on your story or
• 0:42
  carefully blocking some stats because you do suspect foul play
• 0:45
  in the Spotify data binding centers more than ever, this
• 0:47
  time of the year has become somewhat of a performance ritual
• 0:50
  or humiliation ritual. I mean, that's completely up to
• 0:53
  you and your listening habits and what you're comfortable with
• 0:55
  sharing or not. But whether this is your first
• 0:57
  wrap or just your most recent, this isn't by any means a new
• 1:00
  phenomena on the Internet. There is something to the
• 1:02
  feeling to want to share slash not want to share personal
• 1:05
  listening information on the Internet or just generally with
• 1:08
  your friends. So let's get into the role of
• 1:10
  authenticity and performance in social media and how it has
• 1:12
  evolved. And this conversation initially
• 1:14
  isn't going to be a shocker to anyone.
• 1:15
  Like, Oh my God, people being picked online.
• 1:18
  Who would have thought? But dare I add, somebody wants
• 1:20
  this conversation? Now, while I was singing with
• 1:21
  this little noggin about what I wanted to talk about this week
• 1:23
  on this channel, a complete separate train of thought got
• 1:25
  this idea flowing. And it was actually the
• 1:27
  conversation of the performative man.
• 1:29
  Yes. And while I already know that
• 1:31
  he, along with that whole discourse, are long dead in the
• 1:33
  social media zeitgeist, you have to understand and empathize with
• 1:36
  my personal affliction of wanting to continuously beat a
• 1:39
  dead horse. Because if there's a dead horse
• 1:42
  you can trust, I'm going to beat it.
• 1:44
  No, but seriously, this discourse brought up a very
• 1:47
  interesting secret third conversation and none that have
• 1:49
  really anything to do with the performative man himself.
• 1:52
  So bear with me. The important thing this
• 1:54
  conversation brought up were the questions around what is
• 1:57
  authenticity and aren't we all just always performing,
• 1:59
  particularly online? And genuinely, I am so sorry if
• 2:02
  you're looking for more performative man discourse.
• 2:04
  So if that was the reason you're watching this video, I am so
• 2:06
  sorry. There are other places to find
• 2:08
  that. So where did Gina Rodriguez do
• 2:10
  some research, Mama? Because we got to move on.
• 2:12
  Now back to the question, is it possible to be authentic at all?
• 2:15
  Or more so, were we ever authentic in the online space to
• 2:18
  begin with? 1st, to have this conversation,
• 2:20
  we have to define authenticity. And according to the Oxford
• 2:22
  Dictionary, it's defined as the quality of being authentic,
• 2:25
  right? Still very informative.
• 2:26
  Oxford. Thanks for using the word and
• 2:28
  definition. What?
• 2:32
  Anyway, so. Jokes aside, though, in
• 2:34
  philosophical quarters of the Internet, personal authenticity
• 2:36
  is often defined as being true and honest with oneself and
• 2:40
  others, having a credibility in one's words and behavior, and an
• 2:43
  absence of presence. And its meaning is then often
• 2:45
  clarified by contrasting it to an authenticity, similarly to
• 2:48
  how you'd compare light to darkness.
• 2:50
  But in the absence for any clear criteria of judging
• 2:52
  authenticity, the boundaries between being authentic and
• 2:55
  being inauthentic are more amorphous and uncertain, and
• 2:58
  often porous. These things are often seen in a
• 3:00
  very black or white manner, leaving no space for true
• 3:03
  nuance. There are distinct definitions
• 3:04
  and philosophies by Heidegger, Chemist, Seder and the like and
• 3:07
  we could really get into the weeds as to why authenticity is
• 3:09
  not just being real and honest, but also these characteristics
• 3:13
  necessary for authenticity include capabilities for
• 3:15
  unbiased self examination and accurate self knowledge,
• 3:18
  reflective judgment, personal responsibility, humility,
• 3:21
  empathy for an understanding of the other person, as well as a
• 3:24
  willingness to listen to feedback from others.
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  Achieving personal authenticity is complicated by the presence
• 3:28
  of illusions and biases, including self deception,
• 3:31
  wishful thinking, and the tendency to behave differently
• 3:33
  while under observation. But for the sake of this video,
• 3:35
  let's keep it cute, light and fresh and have all this in mind.
• 3:38
  But like, use the SparkNotes version.
• 3:40
  Authenticity is being real and true to oneself and others as
• 3:43
  well. And I think authenticity is
• 3:45
  complicated by behaving differently while under
• 3:47
  observation, or as we like to call it nowadays, being
• 3:49
  perceived. Which is especially relevant in
• 3:51
  the age of social media. Which poses the question we've
• 3:54
  been asking. If you're posting to be
• 3:56
  perceived, can anything be truly authentic online?
• 3:59
  Something to think about. OK, authenticity.
• 4:01
  Maybe yes, maybe no. But what about performance?
• 4:03
  This creator explains it really well.
• 4:05
  That's like whole notion of performance alliance of this
• 4:08
  sociologist dramaturgical theory.
• 4:11
  I'll tell you what that is. So Goffman basically compared
• 4:13
  like our interactions in life to stage performances, like drama,
• 4:18
  like theatre. So we have like front stage
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  interactions where you're like publicly visible interacting
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  with people where you are choosing how you want to be
• 4:25
  perceived. And then backstage is like your
• 4:28
  downtime where you're not public facing and you can like plan
• 4:32
  essentially if you want to be as a person.
• 4:35
  And I always had thought of like social media, like posting on
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  social media as like an active performance of self, like very
• 4:40
  front stage. But then I read this journal
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  that said that people who post on social media do not perform
• 4:46
  on stage, but create artifacts and exhibition spaces like these
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  aren't active performances in real time.
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  They're like artifacts from previous performances that we've
• 4:57
  captured and I've put up in a gallery, which is social media.
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  And I quite like this view of social media as like a curated
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  collection of artifacts, which in itself functions as a further
• 5:09
  performance. Like it's kind of a curated
• 5:11
  version of the curation in itself.
• 5:13
  Social media is the highest form of fakery.
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  And I think that even applies to like, normal people as well.
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  No one's post in their backstage.
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  I mean way too much but and we said never to be on the bus and
• 5:26
  it makes sense in my head. So I just like share that.
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  Even if you have 0 aspirations of becoming a content creator
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  and influencer, there is a level of curation that you cannot
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  deny. This sort of front that we all
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  put on social, it's the version of ourselves through a
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  perceptive lens. The version of ourselves that we
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  like other people to see and think of us as opposed to who we
• 5:44
  really and truly are, which may be the same or may not be.
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  Now when we're talking about the concept of online authenticity
• 5:49
  versus things like performance being at odds with each other,
• 5:52
  what does that exactly mean in the online space and how's it
• 5:54
  evolved? And kind of be honest with you
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  first, OK? Would y'all be mad at me?
• 5:56
  Y'all gonna fight me? Stay back OK?
• 6:00
  But I need to speak real right now and y'all might not like
• 6:02
  what I have to say. I hate to be the one to say it
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  because y'all keep asking for real and authentic content
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  creators and just real content online.
• 6:07
  But the fact of the matter is the majority of viewers and
• 6:10
  consumers generally would be very bored if everyone online
• 6:13
  was authentic all the time. Or at least as authentic as you
• 6:16
  can get online. People are on their phones to
• 6:18
  begin with because they want to be entertained whether they know
• 6:19
  it or not. And to entertain you have to
• 6:22
  have an awareness of drama, flair, scripting, faking the a
• 6:25
  little if you will. Because expecting people to be
• 6:27
  on all the time is cynical and diabolical.
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  And the whole nature of social media, especially now, is built
• 6:33
  on very emotionally pulling and emotionally tugging content.
• 6:36
  Even content that is framed to be authentic is still curated to
• 6:39
  a certain sense, because even authentic content creators are
• 6:41
  playing into the content strategies of storytelling to
• 6:44
  best convey their message to the most amount of people.
• 6:46
  But if you want to hear more about this specifically, we did
• 6:48
  make a video a while ago about our self surveillance and always
• 6:51
  feeling perceived so you should have to go check that out.
• 6:53
  I honestly hate how fucking fake people are on the Internet.
• 6:57
  And you might think I'm talking about the influencers, and no,
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  I'm not. I'm talking about the audience.
• 7:01
  I hate the way that the audience in general demands authenticity
• 7:06
  from people. Oh, you have to be natural.
• 7:08
  If you talk in a certain way, you're too PR trained.
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  We want to see authenticity. You have to be relatable.
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  Whatever. And then whenever somebody is an
• 7:15
  actual human being with independent thought and their
• 7:19
  own ideas and opinions, people jump down their throat and
• 7:22
  harass them. Because we have such a punitive
• 7:24
  mob mentality on the Internet, there's no real space for actual
• 7:27
  authenticity. Because with authenticity comes
• 7:29
  flaws and unlikeableness. The fact of the matter is, not
• 7:32
  everyone is palatable, but people are made palatable as to
• 7:35
  not be cancelled or to just be brand friendly.
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  But there are a number of reasons why people choose not to
• 7:40
  be 100% themselves online. And also, if we refer back to
• 7:42
  the definition of authenticity, it can be seemingly impossible
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  to be so. Like, sure, there are some
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  people that are more comfortable showing their grace on the other
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  than others allow. That in the course of this
• 7:52
  campaign, that you. Do, but there still is an almost
• 7:57
  unachievable standard. Like you'll need a sense of
• 7:59
  naturalness or else you will get caught trying.
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  And the whole idea of being caught trying is definitely more
• 8:03
  self-imposed than anything. We have to admit it exists for a
• 8:06
  reason. If you're scared to be caught
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  trying, it's because you've been judgmental of catching someone
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  else trying. Like these standards don't exist
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  in isolation, people. Now we as a community and as a
• 8:14
  society just got our edit and revise it.
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  It's just a giant sense of digital imposter syndrome at the
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  end of the. Day I've been posting on the
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  Internet for like two years, and as someone who used to have post
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  anxiety, the advice that I have for anyone who like wants to
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  post but is scared to is that like that goes away.
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  Like that literally disappears when you do it and when you keep
• 8:38
  doing it. When you realize that this isn't
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  real, and that if you are really thinking so much about how
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  you're perceived through the lens of this screen, you need to
• 8:47
  get off of the Internet because you're likely creating judgments
• 8:50
  and perceptions about other people based on your activity
• 8:54
  and your presence online. More and more these days there
• 8:56
  are more conversations about being afraid of being perceived.
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  And I say perceived like that not because I'm making fun of
• 9:01
  it. I also very much struggle with
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  the fear of perception, even though I do this as a job.
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  But do I think that any of us are the first to experience
• 9:08
  this? No.
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  But I do definitely think this is heightened when we live in
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  this sort of weird self surveillance panopticon where
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  everything can end up on the Internet.
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  Like be so for real. I don't mean to call you out,
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  but like, are you really mysterious and nonchalant and
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  like just don't care about social media?
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  Or are you just afraid of being perceived and struck with
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  overwhelming decision paralysis? So you have it posted at all
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  this year, right? And when it comes to things like
• 9:29
  posting, the more we build it up in our heads, the scarier it is
• 9:32
  and then the more we have to edit and curate ourselves and
• 9:34
  our whole experience to post at all.
• 9:36
  Now this all might sound sort of ridiculous or just not that
• 9:38
  serious, but I do see and hear conversation about it all the
• 9:41
  time, both in person and on social media.
• 9:43
  And hey shocker, social media is now a reality of our lives.
• 9:47
  And no, I don't think this conversation is only useful so
• 9:49
  you can go out and post and pop butt and become the latest
• 9:51
  influencer. I think we live in a digital
• 9:53
  social media oriented world where many jobs, especially in
• 9:55
  creative fields, use social media as a sort of portfolio,
• 9:58
  which theoretically is great because more people can get
• 10:00
  their foot through the door. But on the other hand, you do
• 10:03
  also got a post to be able to do that.
• 10:05
  And a lot of freelance work is set up that way.
• 10:07
  And oftentimes when we have the conversation around authenticity
• 10:09
  online, a lot of people point to the past as being the sort of
• 10:12
  like golden era of authenticity, right?
• 10:14
  But truly, was there ever really an authentic period online?
• 10:17
  I feel like we've strayed so far away from God's light on social
• 10:20
  media and are more in a hellhole than ever with things like AI
• 10:23
  slop. I mean, see my last video
• 10:25
  talking about. It the reason why Instagram
• 10:27
  sucks now is because everything y'all post got to be a drop.
• 10:32
  Everything got to be a drop. A professional DSLR camera photo
• 10:37
  drop. We're not rappers.
• 10:40
  I promise it is OK to go out to eat and post a picture on your
• 10:43
  page like we used to have to do that.
• 10:45
  We didn't have no story option before.
• 10:47
  Everything was posted on your page.
• 10:49
  The lunch you ate posted on your page.
• 10:50
  Your outfit posted on your page. Quick mirror flick.
• 10:53
  Post it on your page like maybe we need less features so we can
• 10:57
  go back to normalizing the main part of the platform.
• 11:00
  But there, if only for a moment, existed a period online where
• 11:03
  nothing was truly that serious. Posting online may have been
• 11:06
  just that. Flashing back 10 years to 2016,
• 11:09
  you'd open that Instagram brown camera app, open the built in
• 11:12
  camera and take a picture, maybe of your food, maybe of your
• 11:15
  avocado toast, maybe of your dog, or maybe just of yourself
• 11:18
  that day. And you'd post that shit, the
• 11:21
  Rio or Paris or some other God forsaken purplish orangish
• 11:24
  filter. And call it a day and the
• 11:27
  caption just saying what it is. No thoughts at all.
• 11:29
  Just clicking, typing and posting.
• 11:31
  Now I'm aware this description is definitely looking at things
• 11:34
  through rose colored glasses because that era was also the
• 11:37
  height of like the Instagram like clouded up era where
• 11:40
  everyone was trying to look super professional or whatever.
• 11:42
  But it wasn't to the levels of like aestheticization.
• 11:45
  Aestheticization. You get what I'm trying to say.
• 11:49
  Or have you being algorithm to death.
• 11:50
  Like no one was really thinking about posting a certain time for
• 11:52
  engagement and how you can even look at what your favorite
• 11:55
  celebrities or your crush was commenting on in the activity
• 11:57
  tab. Like the gap between consumer
• 11:59
  and creator had not yet formed. Gen.
• 12:02
  Z is obsessed with 2016. We're seeing a huge shift in
• 12:05
  nostalgic content, reminiscing on the King Kylie era, the once
• 12:08
  viral Mannequin challenge, Drake's One dance Coachella, the
• 12:12
  iPhone 6S hoverboards. And it's not a coincidence the
• 12:15
  2016 Tiktok filter has over 200 million posts.
• 12:19
  The year is being repackaged as an aesthetic.
• 12:21
  Many are yearning for the time before the algorithm became what
• 12:25
  it is today. It's a reminder of the Internet
• 12:27
  before overly curated photo dumps.
• 12:29
  From a marketing perspective, nostalgia is one of the most
• 12:32
  reliable trends you can predict. And brands know this.
• 12:35
  The beauty brand Lancome recently tapped Kelly Rowland to
• 12:38
  recreate some of her iconic looks, albeit pre 2016.
• 12:42
  It allows us to romanticize the past with rose tinted glasses.
• 12:46
  It's not just about pretending to relive your Starbucks run.
• 12:48
  Nine years ago for Gen. Z2016 meant being carefree with
• 12:53
  less performative social content and not being so chronically
• 12:56
  online. Now, do not mistake these
• 12:58
  thoughts and observations with criticism over here.
• 13:00
  We're in the camp of doing whatever you want with your
• 13:02
  social media presence online. Like, I'm not buying people to
• 13:04
  be more or less authentic. I'm just making observations
• 13:06
  that things have shifted. Now we're going to the section
• 13:08
  of video we're calling each other out a little bit more.
• 13:10
  And what I mean by this, that we're talking about the need to
• 13:12
  perform for others. While social media may have
• 13:14
  started out as a tool for us to connect, it has now become
• 13:17
  almost an extension of ourselves where we ourselves have
• 13:20
  somewhere along the way become tools for social media.
• 13:23
  It's a form of social currency and a way of gathering Intel and
• 13:26
  info. Whether we're doing it knowingly
• 13:27
  or not, and whether we care to admit this or not is not up to
• 13:30
  me. But I do know that people are
• 13:31
  aware of this because of the awareness that they have for
• 13:34
  when they post on their profiles.
• 13:36
  It's almost as if we've collectively put posting on some
• 13:39
  kind of pedestal and now it holds an enormous amount of
• 13:41
  pressure of what anyone thing can mean about us.
• 13:43
  And of course, there's always going to be exceptions to this
• 13:45
  rule. And if you're listening to this
• 13:46
  and I sound insane, this is obviously not for you.
• 13:48
  And truly so happy for you. Wish we could all get there.
• 13:51
  But throughout conversations that I've had with friends and
• 13:53
  on TikTok, I'm seeing more and more of this.
• 13:55
  It really seems that there's a gap turned chasm between
• 13:57
  creators and audience. And if you do post as regular
• 14:00
  person, it's very algorithmic. And even if you wouldn't
• 14:02
  consider yourself a creator, there's a specific format to
• 14:04
  optimize aesthetic. So even that feels very planned
• 14:06
  now. Your 20 picture photodump is
• 14:08
  just as curated and just as performative as the next person
• 14:11
  that's doing aesthetic photo. Like, I'm so sorry.
• 14:13
  You guys are two sides of the same coin.
• 14:15
  And guys, I say that as someone that has two accounts on
• 14:17
  Instagram, like 1 main one that's for cute photos and then
• 14:20
  one that's for photodoms. Like I'm guilty.
• 14:22
  OK? Like for example, I was getting
• 14:23
  dinner with my friend the other day, right?
• 14:25
  And I thought my outfit looked really cute.
• 14:26
  So I was like, oh, can you take a photo of my camera for my
• 14:28
  Instagram? And she goes, oh, I thought you
• 14:30
  tried too hard on your feed. And guys, by the way, this is
• 14:32
  not like a hating friend, like shady friend situation,
• 14:34
  whatever. And I literally told her, I know
• 14:36
  you're not talking like I've seen you craft your photodoms to
• 14:38
  be the perfect ratio of like selfie to friends to nature, to
• 14:41
  food. Like please stop, just take the
• 14:43
  further. Like whether you're casually
• 14:44
  posting or not, we have to admit that social media becomes
• 14:47
  increasingly for show regardless of authenticity or even truth
• 14:50
  for that matter. And a more Black Mirror ish
• 14:52
  instance of this was earlier this year when it came out that
• 14:55
  people were paying for. Let me check my notes right
• 14:57
  Strava mules? Hello.
• 15:00
  This is a hard video to make, but I have to confess that for
• 15:03
  over a year now I have been a Strava mule.
• 15:06
  So basically somebody will pay me to run a race with their
• 15:09
  Strava account on my phone. I did this with the Brooklyn
• 15:11
  Mile last year and that was my mule PR.
• 15:14
  I track my stats on my watch and then they get the results on the
• 15:17
  phone. Sometimes they give me their
• 15:19
  phone. So like this right here is a
• 15:21
  mule phone for today. Today's actually a slow mule
• 15:23
  day. This is a guy who's probably
• 15:25
  going to run a 240 marathon, but he keeps posting slow times.
• 15:28
  So then when he does run the marathon, his friends will be
• 15:30
  like what? No way, that's impossible.
• 15:33
  A common misconception is that everyone wants a fast mule.
• 15:36
  And I would say a good chunk of my clients want a slow mule and
• 15:39
  then the majority of the clients are just one off mule
• 15:42
  experiences. They just want the glory for one
• 15:45
  day, one Instagram story. Essentially what this means is
• 15:48
  that people would be paying other people to fake their runs
• 15:50
  on the app Strava. If you're not familiar, there's
• 15:52
  app called Strava, which is essentially like runners
• 15:54
  Instagram almost. You can like log your runs,
• 15:56
  share pictures, there's followers and all that.
• 15:59
  Also follow me on Strava if you haven't already.
• 16:01
  But people will be paying other people who fake their runs to
• 16:03
  consistently look like they're working out and to secure those
• 16:05
  Strava kudos and keep up appearances, but only seemingly
• 16:08
  for the Strava community and friends.
• 16:10
  Interesting and the shocking part is that this is not like an
• 16:12
  there have been many different reports to Channel News Asia of
• 16:15
  teenagers in Indonesia becoming stropa jockeys for pay like this
• 16:19
  is insane. The fact that any of this
• 16:21
  potentially happened more than once is for one jarring but also
• 16:25
  almost too perfect of an example of that everything online is in
• 16:28
  fact a performance and can and will be faked.
• 16:31
  And to a lesser extent to this social media managers and the
• 16:33
  like, like you're being paid to curate someone's or a business's
• 16:36
  existence because it carries a sense of cultural importance to
• 16:39
  maintain the page and performance.
• 16:41
  Now we got to talk about our the biggest case study for this
• 16:43
  video, the recent hot topic that is Spotify raft.
• 16:46
  As mentioned, one of the biggest performances online of the past
• 16:49
  few years released the other week, that being Spotify rapped.
• 16:52
  And do I think that most people take it seriously to heart like
• 16:54
  their Spotify Raft is their personal identity for all future
• 16:57
  days to come? I don't know, and I don't think
• 16:59
  so. But I do think that the
• 17:00
  internalized gaze of like big raft definitely plagues some
• 17:03
  people throughout their streaming.
• 17:04
  I would say sometimes at the very least, especially given how
• 17:06
  seriously people take Raft and how there's a whole culture
• 17:09
  around posting and not posting and how both of those things say
• 17:11
  something or how some people conceal parts of the rapt out of
• 17:14
  shame or embarrassment. And it's because we know that
• 17:16
  these metrics say something about ourselves and add more
• 17:19
  context to rap specifically. And y'all know that I love to
• 17:21
  sit down and chat with people that are actually pertaining to
• 17:23
  the video topic. So for this video, we had the
• 17:25
  honor of speaking with Cecilia Winter, who is the editorial
• 17:27
  lead of Global Hits at Spotify to talk more about this year's
• 17:30
  Rapt. And if you're interested in
• 17:31
  seeing people whenever you can, check that out over on my
• 17:33
  Spotify podcast, The Emergency Room, which will be linked down
• 17:35
  in the description below. But I honestly think of this
• 17:37
  year's Raptor was a big improvement from previous years.
• 17:39
  Like we got albums this year on Wrapped and it seemed like this
• 17:41
  year was really building upon a lot of the criticisms of prior
• 17:44
  years. Unwrapped.
• 17:45
  I think when rap first came into the zeitgeist back in like 2015
• 17:47
  or 2016, it was very fun and light hearted by the community.
• 17:50
  But as with most things that happen online on platforms, it
• 17:53
  turned into something more serious and strict.
• 17:55
  It became much more than just a cute way to look back and
• 17:58
  instead became something much bigger, a cultural signifier
• 18:01
  that feels like something a little more high stakes.
• 18:03
  Like people swap streaming platforms and disregard like
• 18:06
  years and years of their music libraries on other platforms
• 18:08
  just to have Wrapped. You have people that private
• 18:11
  some of their listening sessions just to not have certain songs
• 18:14
  included in their Rapt. And you even have people that
• 18:16
  behave differently at times for their rapt.
• 18:19
  Like people want a specific outcome for the rapt because for
• 18:21
  some reason we've internalized that as it's saying something
• 18:24
  about us socially or culturally. Like I said before, it's now a
• 18:27
  social signifier. And hey, I'm not saying I'm
• 18:29
  above it. I posted the hell out of my
• 18:31
  Spotify rapped and I'm very proud of mine.
• 18:33
  I know what it's like to play some of my favorite songs on
• 18:35
  loop so I can get my favorite artists in that number one spot
• 18:37
  on my Rapt. OK shout out to Ariana Grande.
• 18:40
  I feel like every year, like clockwork, when Rapt dropped,
• 18:42
  you're gonna hear how bad people think it is, how good people
• 18:44
  think it is, some for valid reasons and some just because
• 18:46
  they feel like they either did or didn't get represented in the
• 18:50
  way that they thought they deserved to.
• 18:51
  And however these metrics are decided, they're still based
• 18:53
  upon data of things that we've listened to.
• 18:55
  And we just can't show that version of ourselves online what
• 18:57
  everyone else is. And in regards to this, I think
• 18:59
  a smaller, maybe not as expressed issue is this idea of
• 19:02
  quantifying our lives in selves to numbers.
• 19:05
  Like this is less so about Spotify, but just how everything
• 19:07
  across all platforms with all of these Rapt adjacents for almost
• 19:11
  every single app are just metrics ourselves from our
• 19:13
  steps, data and music. We truly can find anything about
• 19:15
  ourselves and have it quantified.
• 19:17
  And I don't necessarily think it's the case for everyone, but
• 19:19
  I do think some people are fatigued with having even their
• 19:21
  socials quantified. And given how as a culture we're
• 19:23
  kind of shamed for our screen times, I think this does cause
• 19:26
  some friction between the two things.
• 19:27
  I really do think that because our online presence strives to
• 19:30
  be a curated performance of ourselves, when we have
• 19:32
  platforms quantify us statistically outside of our
• 19:35
  performance, we're either going to be pleased or outraged.
• 19:38
  And in most instances across all platforms, we see something that
• 19:40
  doesn't reflect our self-imposed image of our ourselves back to
• 19:43
  us, especially if it's something we don't agree with.
• 19:45
  I don't really think we take kindly to something telling us
• 19:47
  about ourselves, although we also do yearn to have more
• 19:50
  information about ourselves. Hence all the personality tests,
• 19:52
  the BuzzFeed quizzes, your monthly music receipts, what
• 19:54
  will you look like when you're old, filters, et cetera, et
• 19:56
  cetera. And of course, in these
• 19:58
  conversations with Cecilia, the golden age of social media, more
• 20:00
  specifically Instagram and the nostalgia for 2016 came up.
• 20:03
  And like we've talked about, these were all times of
• 20:05
  authenticity, cringe and living freely and posting whatever.
• 20:08
  But to route of this conversation, we talk a lot
• 20:10
  about nostalgia at this point in society.
• 20:11
  Are we even? Able to go back to being normal
• 20:13
  on the Internet again? Well no, I think we've claimed a
• 20:16
  new normal. I think a new supreme has
• 20:18
  arisen. We are entirely too hyper aware
• 20:22
  of ourselves and others to ever go back to posting the
• 20:24
  millennial mustaches drawn on our fingers or just simply
• 20:27
  showing our meals or anything remotely holding notes of the
• 20:30
  Valencia filter. At this point unfortunately we
• 20:32
  are just too metric and algorithm obsessed and aware.
• 20:35
  And this isn't a inherently negative or positive thing, it's
• 20:38
  just the truth at this point. Social media was fun when it was
• 20:40
  a tool, but now it feels like we are all tools for social media
• 20:43
  giant. However, there is hope.
• 20:46
  As Cecilia said in her interview, nostalgia is
• 20:48
  categorized by 10 year gaps. And since we are right now
• 20:51
  strongly feeling that 2016 Instagram social media era, who
• 20:54
  knows, 2026 could issue a new era of online authenticity.
• 20:58
  And maybe it won't look the same as back then, but maybe we'll be
• 21:00
  able to incorporate more elements of that time.
• 21:02
  Less dumps, more single image photos, no overthought captions.
• 21:06
  Another reason why I think we might try to lead more authentic
• 21:08
  or go back to our old social media ways is because of AI
• 21:11
  fatigue. Bubble of AI will have popped by
• 21:14
  then and we'll see it for the slot that it is.
• 21:16
  And when that happens, we can go back to the times of posting
• 21:18
  just one photo of that autumnal tree or perhaps maybe even a
• 21:21
  casual selfie. Who truly knows?