(IN)AUTHENTICITY

The Era of Inauthenticity: When Life Becomes One Long Performance

Sometimes I look around—online, offline, everywhere—and wonder if authenticity has quietly died while we were all busy polishing our curated lives. People have become performers, not participants. They feel one thing and present another. They’re hurting but post selfies with fake smiles. They’re empty but share inspirational quotes. They’re lost but pretend they’re thriving. And somehow this has become normal. Acceptable. Even admirable.

But what kind of world are we building with this level of emotional dishonesty?

The Grand Performance Society

We live in an age where people hide behind screens—these tiny rectangles called cell phones that have become stages for showing off a life they don’t actually live. It's all filters, captions, and carefully chosen angles. They say things they don’t mean, laugh when they’re falling apart, pretend to be wise when they haven’t even sat with their own truth.

It’s escapism, but dressed up as “confidence.” It’s avoidance, but labeled as “strength.”
But what it really is… is emptiness.

What Kind of Person Does This?

I ask myself this all the time: What kind of person feels something deeply, but chooses to put on a show instead?
Someone craving approval? Someone terrified of facing themselves?
Or someone so disconnected they don’t even know what their real self looks like anymore?

Where is the ground beneath these people? Where is their core?
If your identity is built on performances, how do you live with yourself?

Because here’s the real irony—they say they hate fake people. They preach about “authenticity.” They complain about dishonesty in others. Yet they themselves are the very embodiment of it. They become the thing they claim to despise.

The Facade of Fulfillment

Let’s be brutally honest:
Many people today are walking around like emotional holograms—visible but hollow. Their self-worth depends on views, likes, compliments from strangers. Their happiness is borrowed. Their identity is a highlight reel.

And underneath it all?
A black hole of insecurity.
A fear of being ordinary.
A terror of being unseen.

So they build façades.
And the façades get bigger.
And the real self gets smaller.

My Eternal Question

How do they live with themselves?
How do they wake up every day knowing they’re living someone else’s version of life?
How do they feel anything real when all they offer is an illusion?

Maybe the scariest part is not that they lie to others.
It’s that they lie to themselves so much they forget what truth feels like.

And maybe that’s why authenticity is rare now—because it requires facing your shadows, not running from them; showing your cracks, not hiding them; choosing honesty over applause.

But here’s the thing:
A life built on performances may impress people…
But it will never satisfy your soul.

And I’d rather live a life that’s real—even if it’s messy—than one that’s staged and soulless.