Ahhh… this is one of those hot subjects, right? Authenticity on social media. It’s a word that so many people use, but in the quest to compete and bag those ‘likes’, have we lost what authentic really is? When you can filter out your wrinkles, reduce the size of your waist in a couple of clicks and magically smooth your cellulite on… have we lost what it means? And does it matter than real authenticity and a kind of faux version have got a bit confused? And are we being pushed towards being not quite as authentic as we would like because we won’t get the likes otherwise?
I want to talk about REAL authenticity
Now, before we get started, I want to be straight with you. I don’t filter any of my images and I don’t do any form of harsh editing, airbrushing, slimming, anything. I very rarely do anything beyond cropping an image to fit the space. If I have an image that’s a tad dark or too bright or the colours my phone has picked up aren’t an accurate reflection of what I saw, I might tweak those levels – but when I say rarely, I’d say 99% of the time I post as the images appear on my phone without any editing.
I go on Instagram Stories most days, I produce videos each week, and I plaster my unfiltered and unmade up face on social media very frequently. Am I comfortable with these things? Not especially. I have a ‘sheep wrinkle’ between my eyes (I call it this because you know when you see a ram with wrinkles up his nose? Yeah, that), I have other lines, bags and wrinkles that I would rather not have, and I could pick out all the flaws on my face until the cows come home.
But I don’t filter my images. Because when I meet you in real life, I want you to know it’s me.
Why I stay unfiltered
In my personal experience (and I might be alone here), if I meet someone who heavily filters and edits out every perceived flaw on social, I almost feel like they’re different people when we get face to face, because they don’t look the same. I don’t care what you look like, but I kind of expect you to look the same whenever I see you – or largely the same. We all have days when our sheep wrinkle is more pronounced (!), but you know what I mean. If you have laughter lines in real life but your face is smoother than a polished surface on Instagram, it’ll take me a while to process the fact that what I’ve seen online isn’t actually who you really are. And then I’ll start thinking about how deep that runs- this is all done in a split second.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t use filters. If you want to use filters, do it. I appreciate that appearances are such a huge part of our identity and I completely get that in a time of airbrushing, filtering, celebrities defying aging and everything else, there is a lot of pressure. My point here is that showing the ‘real’ you is the most authentic thing you can do. And if you want to be authentic on your social media, please think about it. If you don’t and you want to show a highly aspirational, curated and edited side of your world, you do that. But please don’t say it’s something it isn’t. Own it. Please. By owning it you’re actually being a whole heap more authentic. Do you know what I mean?
But being authentic is not just about your face, it’s what you say
On social media, being authentic isn’t just about how you look. It’s about far more than that. I get that. But in my opinion, it kind of starts there. Because if you’re wearing a highly filtered mask, where does that stop?
Now, being authentic doesn’t mean that I want to know your deepest darkest secrets – we all have things that we don’t necessarily want to share, and that’s absolutely fine. I am NOT telling you to share anything you’re uncomfortable about and don’t want to share, OK? You don’t have to share your whole life on social media.
But authenticity, to me, is about telling the truth. It’s about the filter one applies to the language we share in our captions. If you’ve had a crap day (and you want to share it), do. If you’ve had an amazing day (and you want to share it), do. But don’t have a crap day and tell the world it’s all sunshine and lollipops (or visa versa), either share the truth, don’t share anything, or share a tip or something else you want to talk about. You don’t have to share your crap days, but I believe you have a duty to your fans and followers not to lie to them. Because if you’re fibbing… well… what are you achieving? If people like what you’re saying and doing, your fans and followers are liking things that aren’t connected to the real you. And if they don’t, IT’S STILL NOT YOU.
So maybe authenticity and filters are connected?
The definition of authentic contains the words genuine and real, not false or copied. And if you’re ‘filtering’ your words to make them more happy/sad/deep/WHATEVER than you really feel, and you’re filtering the heck out of your images to make them more shiny/wrinkle free/smooth than you actually are… are you being authentic and true to yourself?
And a final thought…
There was a post on Jenna Kutcher’s Instagram feed on 8th July of her standing in an animal print bikini. The image is taken from the side, she’s wearing sunglasses and has her hair in a half up/half down top knot. I’m being this descriptive as I WANT you to go and look at it. She looks amazing. Swipe right to left and it’s still Jenna but thinner. Actually, she’s removed and adjusted quite a few features that make her more…I’m not sure what actually. Attractive? Nope. Conventional? Nope. Real? Nope. Adjusted? Yes. Would I have known she’d edited it if I hadn’t seen the two next to each other (and in the next swipe she shows you what she did)? Maybe not. But if I were to meet Jenna, would I? Maybe? And if she’s not being authentic with her appearance… see what I mean?
What about editing?
Maybe this is a grey area, right? Because is a filter just an edit? Well I don’t think it is actually. Careful editing, that helps show the subjects in a way that’s more like their true likeness (as in, where the skin tone is right, and light issues have been adjusted, and the image has been edited to make it more true) I think it positive. I really do. Because light, shadow and so much else can do very strange things to an image. But highly edited images (unless for some artistic reason) don’t do it for me. Because I don’t think they’re a true reflection of what’s going on and they are a long way from authentic.
Talk to me about real authenticity – what does it mean to you? Come on over to my Instagram and leave a comment!
