In a past blog I spoke about performativity and performing your gender, how you actually act out being male or female according to societies customs that are coordinated and drafted to each gender, therefore gender is a social construct rather than a biological one. When looking at gender it is easy to see how this is true but when we look at a person’s character this can be somewhat difficult. But you cannot deny that in many circumstances people perform who they want to seem like, rather than being who they actually are. It’s a common practice amongst many teenagers and young adults and at times is addressed as being a part of growing up, but the reality of this is that we in turn tend to fake who we are.

Now I know we are not one to judge peoples decisions, but rather celebrate the fact that people should have a right to be whoever they want to be. But at the end of the day, isn’t being who we actually are our greatest gift to not only the world around us but also to ourselves?

You see my problem does not lie with people who try and become something, even if it isn’t who they are naturally, my problem is when someone conforms to the ways of society, to what’s “hip” and “cool” in order to seem above the rest or in tune with whatever they deem to be acceptable. Being afraid of who you were or are to be is not an excuse for anyone to become something that they see as superior to anyone else, and that in itself is a common trait amongst people who perform society’s wishes as oppose to being who they are. Music, pop culture and icons are all celebrated for the most part by their uniqueness, and when people thoroughly support or admire any of those followings they tend to band together and express a set hierarchy to decide whether or not other people can fit in. And that’s were society has its massive flaw. We rely too much on the approval of others and in turn, we forget that what we immerse ourselves in in the first place is not something that actually reflects who we are. In an effort to seem “better” than the rest, we stay true to it because that’s all we want. To look down at people and pretend that whatever we are obsessed with is actually who we are.

I know a lot of examples spring to mind, the main one for me is when people obsess about Kanye when they’ve only listened to his last two albums and found him out through his breakout behaviour in popular media. Or how people adapt specific traits from celebrities like Rihanna and Nicki Minaj in order to seem like a bad bitch as an excuse to demean and step over other people. In truth it’s all a large performance. These people aren’t actually like that, they pretend or they exaggerate just so they can seem better and in tune with whatever it is around them, rather than stay true to themselves and just be passionate about something, they choose to adapt and abuse there own influence in order to be apart of what is effectively known as the influential part of society.

 

In my time in this world I’ve realised that fake people don’t make it at all. You may like or love things and live according to those principles, but the moment you use whatever you have to try and get a leg up to seem above the rest, is when you no longer stay true to who you are. Its all well and good to lie to other people, because at the end of the day no one really cares, but the real disservice comes to how you treat your own persona, by lying to yourself.