The moment we try to be authentic, haven’t we already lost it?
There was a time when each screen had its own life.
Our Pokémon-loaded Nintendo sat in the corner of our room. We quickly texted from our Nokia while our Pet Society avatar waved on our laptop. We edited our #OOTD collages on Pizap or Retrica. These were worlds we could enter and leave freely.
Back then, time and space belonged to us. Now, they’re condensed into one black mirror: the smartphone. It allowed us to document every moment until we slowly set standards for what was worth sharing: our interests, trends, and the moments we marked online.
We used to aim for the picture-perfect feed. But nowadays, it’s the subtle touches of an “effortless” photo dump—hobo bags, Salcedo sidewalks, matcha drinks, and thrifted books that outshine any polished photo.
Gen Z’s pursuit of authenticity is twofold: reactive to predictable, overly polished trends that flatten experience, and negotiating identity in spaces that constantly police what is desirable and shareable. But the moment we try to be authentic, haven’t we already lost it?
Performative males vs. ‘pick me’ girls
The expectations of authenticity online are endless: we share, garner praise, and get questioned. We joke about being “performative” in everything, like the “performative male” meme, where men sip matcha, listen to female artists with wired earphones, or take up hobbies such as journaling, reading, or playing an instrument. Supposedly, “performative males” aren’t genuinely interested in Murakami or ceremonial matcha for their own sake but purely to attract the “female gaze.”
In an interview with Young STAR, the enigmatic voice behind the satirical and social commentary Facebook page “Third-World Bakla Prophetess 2.0” calls the “performative male” a case of “patriarchal opportunism”: “Men deploy femininity to seduce women. In other words, it’s an act of sex opportunism where gender is effectively utilized.”
While the meme economy rewards “performative males” as a comedic cultural moment, “pick-me girls”—women who likewise downplay femininity and act as “one of the boys” to appeal to men—are dragged harder for a comparable act of gender appropriation; a double standard that shows the workings of internal misogyny.
Prophetess 2.0 adds, “Everyone negotiates their gender in some way—cherry-picking masculinity or femininity to gain social recognition. The difference is that men often get away with it, while women are publicly humiliated.”
Critiques of “performative males” make sense. But once-ordinary hobbies—like reading classic authors, wearing trinkets, creating playlists, and cafe-hopping—are now reclassified under this “performative” label. On social media, some people admit to muting down their interests, avoiding reading in public, and second-guessing their own tastes to avoid accusations of being performative.
Long before the internet turned individuality into a contest, we were happily inconsistent nerds and enthusiasts.
Weaponizing cultural capital
Crow, one of the founders of another local Facebook meme and pop culture page, “Babaeng nagyoyosi sa gilid,” tells Young STAR, “Individuality, in general, makes a person stand out, starting from how much they post themselves, what bands they listen to, or just how they express themselves online.”
I remember people sharing their “20 media or articles I consumed this week instead of doomscrolling” lists. One content creator also started a wholesome trend by recording himself saying, “You need to nerd out.” Other people adopted this audio to flex their nerdy interests: action cartoons, niche childhood games, old anime, etc. When the trend was fresh, these videos got love for being uplifting and relatable.
Then, as the videos went mainstream and more people joined in, the comment sections turned snarky: “Bro discovered anime yesterday.” “Casuals, stay in your lane.” “Not nerdy enough.” But who suddenly got to decide the authenticity scale, and why are people now being crucified for doing exactly what was once lauded?
So we end up reinforcing an entitled, self-righteous culture that monitors others’ authenticity, disguised as concern. We distinguish ourselves while accusing each other of hopping on the same microtrends and aesthetics—imitating variety in the name of difference.
This “middle-class individuality Olympics” is a larger symptom of neoliberalism, where people optimize their cultural capital to assert individuality. Prophetess 2.0 states, “This material life shaped by capitalism creates persons attracted to this neoliberal ethos. (It does not just pervade in economic policies) but also (in the) production of 'personalities’ drawn to this economic life.”
Salcedo Girl, Cubao Expo Girl, BGC Girl—who cares?
Much of the conversation about the “death of individuality” shakily assumes that curation is inherently dishonest, disregarding our agency and depriving us of the chance to let what resonates with us from surfacing naturally (i.e., the opening of this essay, but stay with me).
Yet, as Prophetess 2.0 concludes, digital spaces often exaggerate this myth of innate authenticity: “I disagree with this framework, because not only does it mystify personhood in the fictive creation of ‘inner self,’ it also forecloses the ‘self’ to be approached as socially constructed, because only in this way can we have a scientific understanding of individuality.”
Long before the internet turned individuality into a contest, we were happily inconsistent nerds and enthusiasts. We threw on our cringiest outfits, posted on DeviantArt, collected action figures, customized our MySpace, yet never really probed whether these acts were performative. We were all someone growing up: the weird friend, the defender of outsiders, the chameleon who could also fit in anywhere. We argued with bandwagoners, welcomed newbies, and side-eyed bullies and popular cliques for discovering anime or K-pop years too late.
Younger generations are pushing back against the pressure of proving authenticity online: setting phone limits, journaling, scrapbooking, building personal reading curricula, and curating vintage tech to bring back a nostalgic 2000s feel. Of course, these activities will still get called performative—once upon a time, the cool word was just “posers.”
But identity resists neat categorization. It is mutable and defies the rigid binaries of “authentic” and “fake.” The internet will keep coining absurd stereotypes, but it doesn’t mean departing from our expected narrative makes us any less complex or authentic. Through exploring our performative selves, we eventually arrive at an authenticity we can fully claim.
Labels stick, but at least choosing our interests is still ours, even if it screams fake to someone else. We’re able to float between weekend pop-ups, book clubs, and cosplay cons, indulge in nostalgia, and shapeshift across other communities without compromising the authenticity of our passions.
In Prophetess 2.0’s words, “Every kind of identity, even if you manage to ‘literalize' it to a material body, is still an act of performance. Everyone is performing in the play of life, but not everyone is pretending, (so) we shouldn't conflate performativity with pretending.”
