Authenticity used to be a balancing act on the internet. To gain a certain level of notoriety, you had to reveal enough about yourself to stand out from everyone else, but not too much to the point where it would become unhealthy or unsafe. We all grew up hearing that we shouldn’t believe everything we see on the internet, and that we should be careful what we say to people we don’t know, but that all changed with social media, and individual video content became more prominent. 

People started sharing their real lives, and in doing so, created a world where people felt more connected than ever before. What started out as a relatively wholesome era of content slowly began to change as people saw the attention you could get with internet fame. It was no longer about doing “cool” or “good” things to get attention. It was just about doing something that could capture people’s attention amidst the sea of content and gaining a following. 

While going viral isn’t necessarily “easy”, I do think people have developed a certain attitude of “oh, if I do something like this, I’m sure I’ll get some level of attention”. I do it when I’m posting something on my personal Instagram. I subconsciously think about what caption is going to get me the most likes on my post. I think about what photo I should put first in a carousel so it looks the most aesthetically pleasing on my feed. On websites like Twitter and Reddit, I think about what I can post to get the most amount of likes and comments, and I know I’m not the only one who does this.

The stuff I’m writing is from me, but a version of me. A digital version. 

We already play different versions of ourselves in our everyday lives. Do you feel fulfilled playing a version of yourself on the internet as well? It’s a question I’ve been struggling to answer myself.