They call attention to a headline I hadn't noticed and don't feel I even need to understand: "Three Ways To Tap Into Taylor Swift’s Authenticity And Build An Eras-Like Workplace."
Take Hannah Shirley, a 23-year-old tech worker who recently went viral for pointing out that her job was “like a full-time acting gig.” She tik-toked one consequence of this: feeling “drained — especially mentally, sometimes even physically — from the character that …we play at work.”...
A Taylor Swift lyric is quoted: “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism? Like some kind of congressman?”
Forbes goes on:
What happens during an Eras event that makes it so engaging? There is realness, empathy, kindness, listening, a narrative (or journey-like) space big enough for all to partake and feel whole with oneself and others. The whole experience is devoid of pretension. Take this recipe and break it into three precepts – avoid alienation, increase authentic living and balance external pressure – and you have a roadmap for creating an Eras-like workplace culture....
I don't see how merger with a huge crowd is a feeling that you could — or would want — to take into the workplace. Even if I did, I wouldn't think of it as "authenticity."
***
I've written about the word "authentic" many times on this blog. A few examples.... (and the first thing I see, strangely enough, has Taylor Swift in it):
On March 20, 2010, I quoted John Hinderaker saying "Much as Bob Dylan was the most authentic spokesman for his generation, Taylor Swift is the most authentic spokesman for hers." I say: "that's a trick assertion, since Bob Dylan was never about authenticity." I quoted Sean Wilentz:
During the first half of the concert, after singing "Gates of Eden," Dylan got into a little riff about how the song shouldn't scare anybody, that it was only Halloween, and that he had his Bob Dylan mask on. "I'm masquerading!" he joked, elongating the second word into a laugh. The joke was serious. Bob Dylan, né Zimmerman, brilliantly cultivated his celebrity, but he was really an artist and entertainer, a man behind a mask, a great entertainer, maybe, but basically just that—someone who threw words together, astounding as they were. The burden of being something else — a guru, a political theorist, "the voice of a generation," as he facetiously put it in an interview a few years ago — was too much to ask of anyone.
On June 17, 2015, I talked about a Slate writer's advice to Hillary Clinton that she should "offer voters her authentic, geeky self. I said "We've been seeing the word 'authentic' a lot lately — what with Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal. There's this idea we seem to like that everyone has a real identity inside and that if we've got an inconsistent outward presentation of ourselves it would be wonderful for the inner being to cast off that phony shell. But 'authenticity' can be another phony shell...."
On December 19, 2017, I wrote about Facebook's purported goal of "authentic engagement." I said:
Facebook wants you to engage... with Facebook. They want the direct interface with the authentic person, not for some other operation to leverage itself through Facebook. And it makes sense to say that the exclusion of these interposers makes the experience better for the authentic people who use Facebook....
On a more metaphysical level: What is authentic anymore? What is the authentic/artificial distinction that Facebook claims — authentically/artificially — to be the police of? Is there an authentic authentic/artificial distinction or is the authentic/artificial distinction artificial?
AND: I'm reading a book that I think has a lot to say about the authentic/artificial distinction. You can tell by the title: "Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself" (Subtitle: "A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace"). But the word "authentic" never appears in the book, and the word "artificial" only appears in the context of "artificial spit" ("it’s called Zero-Lube. It’s an actual pharmaceutical product").
On March 9, 2018, I blogged about something Nancy Pelosi said about "RuPaul's Drag Race." According to The Hollywood Reporter, she "suggested that politicians could learn a thing or two from Ru's girls: 'Authenticity. Taking pride in who you are. Knowing your power....'" Reading the comments on my post, I added:
Everyone jumps on that word "authenticity." "I mean, I'm all for people doing what they want -- except for misusing words like 'authenticity'" (fivewheels); "Authenticity? A man dressed as an over-the-top woman is authentic?" (Annie C); and the inevitable "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" (Ignorance is Bliss). Yeah? Well, when a person putting on a show is in costume and makeup, you could say he's an authentic showperson. And, anyway, what makes you think you're so authentic?
My mind drifted back to this 1967 song by Jake Holmes, "Genuine Imitation Life":
chameleons changing colors while a crocodile cries
people rubbing elbows but never touching eyes
taking off their masks revealing still another guise
genuine imitation life
people buying happiness and manufactured fun
everybody doing everybody done
people count on people who can only count to one
genuine imitation life
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41 comments:
Authentic Althouse analysis.
My authentic self hates fruits and vegetables. The kids are always offering me a melon slice or a smoothie or cabbage soup. I used to say yes to such fare because it's good for us. Now, I rebel. The toddler in me who was denied authenticity turns up her nose and refuses. Give me cheese.
The French are obsessed with the "authenticity" of American Indians. I heard them speak of it all-the-time. All I see, when I look at people, is hypocrisy amongst the conventional.
Since we’re doing lyrics, a reprise:
Ladies & Gennelmen... the president of the United States!
“Fellow Americans...”
(He's been sick)
(And I think his wife is gonna bring him some chicken soup)
Plastic people
Oh baby, now...
You're such a drag
(I know it's hard to defend an unpopular policy every once in a while...)
"Why would anyone want the workplace to feel like a pop concert?"
"Take Hannah Shirley, a 23-year-old tech worker..."
Asked and answered.
And the establishment continues to dance around known, proven concepts in its fruitless search for utopia. "Authentic" follows "privilege" and "TERF" and "cultural appropriation" in signaling a de facto retreat from social construct post-modernism.
With just a little more thought, they might reinvent the concepts of "nature," "essence," "competition," "failure," "error," "insanity," and "achievement." In facing the realities of pushing social justice, equal outcomes, and kumbaya all around, the radical language re-definers are being forced to recreate the wheel.
What is privilege but the outcome of a successful, competitive, multi-generational culture?
What is authenticity but an acceptance of innate, biological, in-born characteristics?
The recent cultural wandering through the intellectual labyrinth proved to be little more than wishful thinking and wandering. A snap back to moderate reality is in progress.
At the ranch in Montana a group of Chinese visitors declared a pile of horse shit very authentic. Perhaps the only time the declaration has been made…
If you have to work at being authentic, you aren’t.
You already know how to code, and you're miserable. Go work in a coal mine. At least you'll come home at the end of the day tired, having accomplished something real.
Theodor Adorno's "The Jargon of Authenticity" is a classic. He cites Christian Schutze's stencilled speech for all occasions
Most honored Mr. President, ministers, secretaries of state, mayors, advisors, administrators, and assistants, highly esteemed men and women of our cultural life, representitives of science, of industry, and of the self-employed middle-class, honored public of this festive gathering, ladies and gentlemen!
It is not by chance that we are gathered here today for the purpose of celebrating this day. In a time like ours, in which the true human values have more than ever to be our innermost concern, a statement is expected from us. I do not wish to present you with a patented solution, but I would merely like to bring up for discussion a series of hot potatoes which do after all face us. For we do not need ready-made opinions, which anyway do not touch us deeply, but what we need is rather the genuine dialogue which moves us in our humanity. What brought us together here is our knowledge of the power of encounter in the forming of the intrahuman sphere. The things which matter are settled in this intrahuman sphere. I do not need to tell you what I mean by this. You will all understand me, for in a particular and extraordinary sense you all have to do with people.
In a time such as ours - I have mentioned it already - in which the perspective of things has everywhere begun to waver, everything depends more than ever on the individual who knows of the essence of things, of things as such, of things in their authenticity. We need openhearted people who are capable of this. Who are these people? - you will ask me - and I will answer you: You are they! By being gathered here you have proven more thoroughly than by words that you are prepared to put emphasis on your concern. That is what I would like to thank you for. But I would also like to thank you for energetically opposing, by your commitment to this good cause, the flood of materialism which threatens to drown everything around us. To say it in a nutshell from the start: you have come here to be given directions; you have come to listen. From this encounter, on an intrahuman level, you expect a contribution to the reestablishment of the interhuman climate. You expect a restoration of that homey warmth which seems to be lacking, in our modern industrial society, to such a terrifying degree ...
But what does this mean for our concrete situation here and now? To pronounce the the question means to pose it. But in fact it means much more than that. It means that we expose ourselves to it, that we surrender to it. That we must not forget. But in the rush and busy work of the day, modern man forgets it all too easily. But you who belong to the silent majority, you know of it. For our problems stem from a region which it is our vocation to preserve. The wholesome perplexity which comes from this situation opens perspectives which we should not simply block out by turning away in boredom. It is important to think with the heart and to tune in the human antenna to the same wave length. Today no one knows better than man that which is of importance in the end.
The saying was originally about politics, but it applies to entertainment, too: authenticity is the big thing, if you can fake that, you've got it made!
Who knew "authenticity" still had any cachet, in this age of transsexual grotesqueries.
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
The Apostle Paul wrote “ I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” Noting that at times “ For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”
King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon said “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love…”
So to those who sense that they have a dual nature, the question arises: which self of this duality do you think is authentic? Giving into which inclination that pops into your head, do you consider to be authentic?
If you can fake being authentic you've got it made.
Liberals have turned language into an Orwellian inauthentic headache. Ironic that Webster's now picks "authentic" as the word of the year for 2023. Swing and a miss.
Word of the year should have been "woman" since nobody seems to know what a woman is anymore and has completely lost its definition.
I nominate "bullshit" as the authentic word of all time. It's one of my favorite.
For a while, in the woke heyday, I was under the impression the word "authentic" meant non-white. Now, in the trans heyday, I don't hear that word much anymore. If I understand my gender dogma, picked up like Ayan Rand, the word authentic is transphobic.
How did that word get by the censors is a mystery, a puzzle we will probably not see completed.
"If you can fake being authentic you've got it made."
And thus the 20th century's concept of the Hollywood star. Fascinating that it's disintegrating now in real time as the iMemememememe generation sees Hollywood for the vapid, ungenuine and in-authentic creation it always was.
The kids these days don't need to pay someone to pretend to be authentic. They've got that covered all on their own.
"If you can fake being authentic you've got it made."
They're putting that on Elizabeth Warren's tombstone.
Blogger Quayle said...
So to those who sense that they have a dual nature, the question arises: which self of this duality do you think is authentic? Giving into which inclination that pops into your head, do you consider to be authentic?
I've always said, "The best part of living a double life, is the second one."
Rh @7:28, much obliged.
Kirk Parker said...
"The saying was originally about politics, but it applies to entertainment, too: authenticity is the big thing, if you can fake that, you've got it made!"
Marxism. Groucho Marxism.
Man that’s a lot of tags.
Anyone who is truly authentic is either too narcissistic, too lazy, or too dumb to think through all the options.
Althouse asks...
"Why would anyone want the workplace to feel like a pop concert? Why would the answer involve the concept of 'authenticity'?"
We sing about beauty and we sing about truth
At ten million dollars a show (right)
My vote was for Kakistocracy. Runner up. immiscible
The Crack Emcee said...The French are obsessed with the "authenticity" of American Indians
Ahh, yes. The much vaunted authenticity of the Noble Savage. Reminds me of this great scene from Malcolm in the Middle:
"What does it mean!?"
"It means if I hit it, I'm 5 inches away from the back of my carport."
Oh Hannah…is it just acting professional at work that you find so draining? That you can’t just behave how you want or in the way your parents have always tolerated? I can’t tell. I’ve certainly worked in large corporations that have an expectation of cookie-cutter personality. Wear that face and you get ahead. It’s your choice - but don’t mistake one for the other.
She tik-toked one consequence of this: feeling "drained — especially mentally, sometimes even physically — from the character that …we play at work."
I'd bet dollars to doughnuts - no wait, inflation screwed that...
I'd bet money that her character was the helpless damsel and she was 'drained' from letting her male coworkers do her share of the work.
--- "A high-volume look-up in most years"
?????
Oh Hannah…is it just acting professional at work that you find so draining? That you can’t just behave how you want or in the way your parents have always tolerated?
Uh yep! Those of us raised to BE polite internalized it, and in face to face interaction are reflexively so. That isn't how it's done now.
The Taylor Swift quote is witty, intelligent, and a bit cynical. Who knew that Taylor Swift was witty, intelligent, and a bit cynical? I don't know that much about her, but I don't think witty and cynical is part of her image. She makes a lot of money and seems like a nice person. I hope she doesn't turn to drugs or making pro-Hamas statements. I would sincerely like to root for a pop superstar. ....I don't know what the overlap is of "authentic" and "sincere". I think you get sincerity points with a slight stammer and an occasional struggle to find just the right word. It takes a lot of practice to master sincerity, but once you master it, the rewards are abiding. It's hard to sound sincere when you're witty and cynical.
My vote would go to “literally”.
'Take Hannah Shirley, a 23-year-old tech worker...'
I have far more years working in tech than she has being alive.
I will assume that she works in HR or marketing.
Back in the day you worked your ass off, had some fun, made some friends, and went home to your real life.
Work was not life. If you got a better offer you left and maybe took some work friends with you.
I tried to look her up (don't have LinkedIn), but apparently 'Hannah Shirley' is famous for being the oldest pygmy hippo in captivity.
So she's got that going for her...
PS: I found an article on insider.com. She is cute and will get by on her looks if she's using a video platform.
She complains about 'jargon,' as if tech in general and Silicon Valley in particular weren't built on jargon. It's the coin of the freaking realm, dear.
Seems that she has an undergrad degree from Cal Berkeley so she's probably not dumb, although she's probably 100% woke.
"As a Gen Zer especially, I'm questioning why we do a lot of these things," she said. "I felt like I was kind of putting on this mask and being uber-professional just because that's how all the other generations have set up the corporate world to be."
The reason she has a job is because someone else put in the hard work to build the company where she is/was employed.
I give her credit for leaving as most would just stay and complain.
If things don't work out, there's always marrying rich or OnlyFans...
Community Note"
PPS...didn't go to the Insider link as I thought it was TikTok...I ended up at the same article after a search.
: )
authentic (adj.)
mid-14c., autentik, "authoritative, duly authorized" (a sense now obsolete), from Old French autentique "authentic; canonical" (13c., Modern French authentique) and directly from Medieval Latin authenticus, from Greek authentikos "original, genuine, principal," from authentes "one acting on one's own authority," from autos "self" (see auto-) + hentes "doer, being" (from PIE root *sene- (2) "to accomplish, achieve"). The sense of "real, entitled to acceptance as factual" is recorded from mid-14c.
- etymonline.com
"it depends on what the meaning of the word is is"
Urbane drift.
William - that Taylor Swift quote is from the song Anti-Hero. Read the lyrics. They’re pretty brutal.
fidelity (n.)
early 15c., "faithfulness, devotion," from Old French fidélité (15c.), from Latin fidelitatem (nominative fidelitas) "faithfulness, adherence, trustiness," from fidelis "faithful, true, trusty, sincere," from fides "faith" (from PIE root *bheidh- "to trust, confide, persuade"). From 1530s as "faithful adherence to truth or reality;" specifically of sound reproduction from 1878.
- etymonline.com
William @ 9:44am,
Winston Churchill is reputed to have rehearsed and choreographed many of his speeches -- pausing, searching for a word, going "oh!", patting his jacket, reaching into the pocket and pulling out a paper, lots of those kind of extemporaneous looking theatrics were rehearsed.
What goes around comes around.
Authenticity, brought to you by Don Draper after spending a week at the Esalen Institute:
“I’D LIKE TO BUY THE WORLD A COKE”: THE “REAL THING” AND THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE 1960S (6/8)
The Real Thing
The Company’s attempts to harness contemporary youth’s cultural and political turn
In 1969 Coca-Cola released its new advertising campaign, “It’s the Real Thing,” which epitomized the Company’s attempts to harness contemporary youth’s cultural and political turn. Coca-Cola and McCann-Erickson sought out folk, rock and soul groups to sing song-form ads, while avoiding jingles and staged dramatic dialogue, which now sounded “phony” and fraudulent.[i] These songs – like this one from James Brown in 1969 - emphasized “the real”; “the genuine, the basic and the authentic qualities of Coke.” As a Company magazine explained,[ii] it “grew out of listening to pleas of the sixties. ‘Take us away from the plastics to basics.’”[iii] Over any “real” as in actual attribute of the product– it was a feeling of realness and an appeal to notions of authenticity that was being advertised. Such advertising played on the otherness of black artists and countercultural rock stars, whose sounds and styles seemed to implicitly challenge normative middle class culture, and suggest the raw, “real thing,” with which Coca-Cola was trying to associate. Print advertising mimicked the psychedelic style of sixties and seventies concert posters, with their planes of vivid, solid colors and wild, unrestrained images.
Every bullshit artist I have known uses that word.
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