{"id":17531,"date":"2013-11-04T02:00:25","date_gmt":"2013-11-04T06:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=17531"},"modified":"2013-11-05T11:30:44","modified_gmt":"2013-11-05T15:30:44","slug":"re-imagined-authenticity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2013\/11\/04\/re-imagined-authenticity\/","title":{"rendered":"Re-imagined Authenticity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"On the Road: Photographer proves strangers are friends you haven&#039;t met yet\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SELDTUaHRxQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Over the last couple of weeks, a <a href=\"http:\/\/elitedaily.com\/news\/world\/photographer-puts-two-strangers-together-for-intimate-photographs-and-the-results-are-surprising\/\">YouTube video<\/a> (above) of New York artist Richard Renaldi has continued to populate my Facebook News Feed. Renaldi\u2019s project<i>\u00a0Touching Strangers<\/i>\u00a0is such that he positions strangers together in an intimate poses and photographs them. Despite lack of prior contact, these photographs depict what look to be quite sincere expressions of emotion. Moreover, the subjects interviewed in the video say that they feel some sort of connection towards those with whom they posed. This is certainly moving, admittedly interesting, but as a trained social psychologist, not very surprising. It does, however, offer interesting implications for people\u2019s oft-spouted rants against in-authenticity and identity work on social media.<\/p>\n<p>Let me begin by discussing the sociology of the work. I will them move on the implications for authenticity in light of new technologies.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The punch of the work is particularly punch-y due its location in New York City. NYC is among the most bustling, cement-clad, anonymous places in the world. Sociologist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.esperdy.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/Simmel_21.pdf\">Georg Simmel<\/a> famously wrote about the city that stimulations here are so great, the only way to sustain sanity is by maintaining utter isolation of the self, even when\u2014perhaps especially when\u2014in tight bodily proximity to innumerable others. In this city of strangers, Renaldi creates friends. They look studiously into each other\u2019s eyes, rest comfortably on one another\u2019s shoulders, embrace, laugh, exchange names.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/11\/renaldi1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-17536\" alt=\"renaldi1\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/11\/renaldi1-320x400.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/11\/renaldi1-320x400.jpg 320w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/11\/renaldi1-200x250.jpg 200w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/11\/renaldi1-400x500.jpg 400w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/11\/renaldi1.jpg 601w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That these strangers, placed awkwardly into each other\u2019s arms and locked uncomfortably in each other\u2019s gazes, come to lose the awkwardness, and reportedly, find comfort and genuine connection over the course of the photo shoot, is indeed quite moving. Social psychologically, though, it\u2019s quite predictable. One of the key ways in which people come to know themselves is by seeing what they do, by watching their own behaviors. George Herbert Mead calls this \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/mead\/\">taking the self as an object<\/a>,\u201d and Charles H. Cooley calls this the \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charles_Cooley\">looking glass self<\/a>.\u201d Psychologists have an entire <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cognitive_dissonance\">dissonance theory<\/a> which essentially says that if you see yourself doing something unexpected, you do some cognitive work so that your surprising action makes sense. In the case of Renaldi\u2019s project, this cognitive labor may come in the form of what Arlie Hochschild calls \u201c<a href=\"ftp:\/\/217.219.25.27\/Install\/social%20structure\/TEORHochschild.pdf\">emotion work<\/a>,\u201d or the ways in which people call out desired emotions in themselves, such that they not only <i>seem<\/i> to feel a particular way, but indeed, <i>do <\/i>come to feel that way.<\/p>\n<p>In short, what we see here are people engaging in unusual behaviors. They see themselves doing so, and it creates dissonance. They engage in emotion work to bridge the gap, and wind up genuinely feeling attached to their fellow subject(s).<\/p>\n<p>This cool little trick\u2014seeing yourself do something to make yourself become something\u2014has interesting implications for social media. Bernie Hogan points out that our digital profiles act as <a href=\"http:\/\/bst.sagepub.com\/content\/30\/6\/377.abstract\">exhibitions<\/a> of performative acts. Our pictures, status updates, tags, tweets, blog posts etc. are the interactional crumbs which, collectively, reveal a partial story about who we are. What if we focus instead, on making those crumbs tell the story of who we want to be? Theoretically, we should be able to project future ideal selves and eventually fulfill these projections.<a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/11\/renaldi2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-17537\" alt=\"renaldi2\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/11\/renaldi2.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/11\/renaldi2.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/11\/renaldi2-204x250.jpg 204w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/11\/renaldi2-140x170.jpg 140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The subjects in Renaldi\u2019s photographs bridged their cognitive dissonance and experienced true connection in a short amount of time. No doubt,\u00a0 Renaldi\u2019s camera, and the artifacts it created, had something to do with this, as the ephemeral performative act was frozen, captured, and immortalized. Social media affords the recreation of this process\u2014act, capture, reflexively respond\u2014on a continuous and long term basis. As such, social media potentially affords a fruitful path to future-self accomplishment.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, it\u2019s not all quite so easy. In addition to knowing who we are by seeing what we do, we also know who we are by seeing how others respond to us. As such, our ideal selves can only manifest to the extent to which our networks allow it. And our networks, it seems, are kind of sticklers when it comes to authenticity. In many of my interviews with social media users, the theme of authenticity\u2014desiring it for oneself and decrying a lack of it in others\u2014is a central theme. In particular, people are annoyed when others\u2019 identity work is visible, when they \u201ctry too hard.\u201d This is such a common theme, in fact, that I wrote an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0747563212001458\">entire article about it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But what if we shifted our focus? I don\u2019t know how. And to be honest, I also get annoyed when others\u2019 identity work shows. But\u2026what if we did? What if we somehow recognized the potential of allowing identity play? What if we re-imagined the social media platform not as a reflection of who we are, but of who we will be? Authenticity here is not found in the truthfulness or visibility of our deeply flawed characters, but rather, in the integrity of our intentions. The authentic social actor need not be a rugged outdoorsperson to post pictures of an off-trail hike, s\/he must simply truly aspire to be the kind of person who completes such a hike.<\/p>\n<p>The mistake of early internet theorists was their assumption that The Web provided an alternate space in which social actors were free to be who they wanted, rather than who they were, without accounting for the socially and structurally embedded nature of digitally mediated interaction. What I\u2019m suggesting, as a Utopian thought experiment, is a shift in structural realities, such that fluidity of self and identity play are not threats to authenticity, but opportunities for growth. A structural reality in which the self is a recognized project over which we tactfully grant each actor the trust of good intentions and the space to develop.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Follow Jenny on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jenny_L_Davis\">@Jenny_L_Davis<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Pics via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.renaldi.com\/archive\/#id=album-29&amp;num=content-1194\">Renaldi.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Over the last couple of weeks, a YouTube video (above) of New York artist Richard Renaldi has continued to populate my Facebook News Feed. Renaldi\u2019s project\u00a0Touching Strangers\u00a0is such that he positions strangers together in an intimate poses and photographs them. Despite lack of prior contact, these photographs depict what look to be quite sincere [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1753,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967],"tags":[36424,2326,26478,347,3250,26476,3455,732,26477],"class_list":["post-17531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-art","tag-authenticity","tag-future-self","tag-identity","tag-photography","tag-renaldi","tag-self","tag-social-media","tag-touching-strangers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17531"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17541,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17531\/revisions\/17541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}