What do we mean by authenticity?
Social media gurus tell us that social media privileges authenticity. We PR people are told that if we want to engage, we need to do so with an authentic voice. And we tell our CEOs and such that if they are going to blog or tweet or, heck, communicate with anyone other than other CEOs then they need to be real about it.
This call for authenticity is entirely understandable. The language of work has been horribly abused and calcified (and yet has been absurdly prone to faddishness e.g. buzz words) ever since managerial capitalism ascended in the mid 20th century.
But what do we really mean by authenticity?
In my experience, what is generally meant is a mix of informal (conversational) grammar and syntax, hip vocabulary and pop cultural references, strong undercurrents of irony and self-deprecation (but with doses of sincerity) all combined with an opinionated, knowing approach to whatever field is being discussed. It is the lingua franca of educated Gen Xers. It is best represented these days by Twitter, I think, (previously blogging) but it has its roots in the bulletin boards, usenet groups, listservs, etc. of the early (rather libertarian in tone) years of the Internet. Thus, authentic discourse is strongly anti-authoritarian, anti-hierarchal, anti-ignorance, and anti-consumerist (or at least anti-mindless consumerism — it’s hip to what’s cool, though).
To be authentic is to mix the expert with the personal. It’s not the wholly personal — there must be some level of skillz exhibited; otherwise, it’s merely a puerile discourse of self-indulgent display (c.f. the incomprehensible entirely ungrammatical ramblings of MySpace comments), and I don’t believe that most marketers, social media gurus etc. value stuff that’s wholly puerile. After all, the authentic can only gain social currency when it shows that it provides something of value — either it’s entertaining or informative or interesting or preferably all three.
So what happens when this type of authenticity becomes the status quo?
Perhaps it never will considering how slow corporations and other organizations are slow to embrace it or how ham-fisted the results often are when they do. And perhaps authenticity is a broad enough concept to encompass and value a range of discourses. But it’s not entirely clear to me that the authentic voice as it is presently constituted is going to last and going to appeal to multiple generations even though it’s the mode of discourse I (being one of those educated, blogging Gen Xers) feel most comfortable working in.
(And perhaps what comes next is some sort of neo-formalism. If so, I’m screwed.)
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