Lilly Hill

Within today’s society, everyone has to be able to brand their personalities. Whether that’s to a wider audience or just to your group of friends. You have to curate elements of your life to decide how you are perceived online.

I was born in 2003, just at the beginning of the internet, and was allowed uncensored access to the internet throughout my childhood. Luckily I was quite restrained with what I chose to consume, but what I didn’t avoid was the mounting pressure to have the perfect instagram feed. I was 12 years old trying to discover what branding I wanted to present to the world. A job that marketing executives had worked for years to perfect, and I was trying to achieve this with an iPod. I still have this mindset, and although I’m aware it’s unhealthy, I am now actually trying to figure out a brand for myself and my music. It’s a difficult line to walk.

A word that is thrown around consistently in university branding lectures is ‘authenticity’. How ‘authentic’ you come across as online is hugely important, especially with the rise of AI. Humanity is rewarded. But how can anyone be truly authentic when this generation has been groomed by algorithms to create perfection. I end up oversharing, because I feel as though I’m getting my ‘authentic self’ across when I bare my soul to strangers. But the soul-bearing is always wrapped up in pretty pink marketing and scheduled to reach the most accurate strangers. Because this is how I’ve learnt to present myself. That’s my ‘authentic brand’.

I think Instagram updating to show people’s likes and reposts is a fascinating study of the way people change when they’re aware they are being perceived. A like is selective now. Not only do I have to find it funny, I need to make sure that every friendship circle I have will also find it amusing. I can like ‘cringe’ content, but only ironically. Everything I present feels performative. But that’s not authentic? How can I be authentic under the scrutiny of hundreds of eyes?

Obviously there are bigger things in the world to worry about at the moment, but this is something I’ve become aware of. And I think going into the real world after university, I’m going to be more mindful of using the world authentic. My authenticity is defined by how I behave in the world with real people. My online presence will be as close to that as I can get to, but there will always be an element of curation and I think that’s okay. It’s my place for escapism. It’s my sickly pink world full of puppets and glitter. And I’m grateful it’s there, so that I can find other people also trying to escape their real lives for a little bit.