The Death of Authenticity

Remember when “being real” actually meant something?

There was a time, not even that long ago, when being authentic meant showing up as yourself. Flaws and all. You didn’t need a brand strategy or a quirky social media manager. You just needed a pulse and a personality. It was raw. It was messy. But it was real.

Now? Authenticity’s gone corporate.

It’s become a buzzword, a sales tactic, a shiny mask glued to the hollow face of a brand. Wendy’s isn’t a fast food chain pumping out dollar burgers, it’s your sassy bestie on Twitter. Duolingo isn’t a language app, it’s an unhinged owl threatening you with memes. Everyone’s trying to “keep it real,” but it’s starting to look suspiciously fake.

And here’s the worst part: it’s working.

We’re in a weird, post-irony hellscape where brands pretend to be people and influencers pretend to be brands. They met somewhere in the middle, a land of pretend. And it’s paying off. The influencer learns to talk like a polished CEO. The company hires a 23-year-old with a TikTok addiction and a meme folder. Together, they build a new kind of marketing: one that feels like a friend, but functions like a billboard.

Why? Because being seen is the new being respected. You don’t have to be good, or right, or trustworthy. You just have to show up and be loud enough.

We’ve been lied to by brands for decades. So they evolved. They stopped talking at us and started trying to talk like us. But it’s not genuine, it’s calculated. When I see one of those “relatable” posts, I don’t think, “Ha! Wendy’s is so quirky.” I think, “How many people were in the room when this got approved?” I imagine the brainstorm meeting, the whiteboard, the strategy deck. It’s not spontaneous. It’s manufactured authenticity.

Same with influencers. I look for the cracks. The tiny smirk after a “casual” hot take. The jump cut in a “raw” confession video. I imagine them hitting record on their 10th take, climbing into bed after setting up the camera to pretend they just woke up at 3 a.m. for their grindset routine. I break the fourth wall in my mind, and once you do that, the illusion falls apart.

Real sincerity? It’s still out there. But it’s invisible.

It’s the person posting their average art without hashtags. It’s the low-effort, high-heart YouTube vlog filmed in a car. It’s the tweet with bad grammar and no clout-chasing angle. The stuff the algorithm ignores. The stuff we ignore, because we’ve been trained like Pavlov’s dogs to crave chaos, drama, and dopamine.

The internet doesn’t reward depth. It punishes it. Vulnerability is only acceptable if it’s wrapped in trauma or tragedy. If you’re just trying to be earnest, no jokes, no irony, no clickbait, you risk getting ignored. Or worse, mocked.

So people armor up with absurdity. They hide behind memes and brainrot. They post like it doesn’t matter, because if no one takes it seriously, then no one can hurt them. It’s creative self-defense. And it’s everywhere.

But this performance can’t last forever.

AI’s already entering the chat, trying to mimic emotion and quirk and hot takes. Soon, even the chaos won’t be human. And when everything feels artificial, people are going to start searching for signs of actual life. Maybe that means going even deeper into randomness to escape the machines. Maybe it means getting toxic, since AI can’t follow us there (yet). Or maybe, just maybe, we start swinging back the other way. Toward something quieter. Something real.

Either way, we’ll find a way to be different. Because deep down, we all know: authenticity isn’t something you use. It’s something you are.

And once everyone’s wearing the same mask, the only thing left that’s rare… is taking it off.