I think we have made too much out of ‘authenticity’. In fact, we may have made more out of it than we should have. We are told to be authentic on social media, but ask yourself, do you really want to see people’s authentic selves? I know I don’t. I want to see good people’s authentic self. I don’t want to see the authentic selves of fascists and casteists and homophobes and transphobes. They can stay in the closet till they fucking die.

We harped on authenticity too much without really wondering if it was a good thing. We created an online culture that rewarded all that was ‘raw’. As a result, we now have raw bigotry and raw discrimination smeared all over our faces. Big Boss! Big Boss! Big Boss!

If it is all the same with you, I would very much like to return to the age where garbage human beings used to pretend to be civilised. An age before ceaseless chants of ‘be yourself’ and ‘show them who you truly are’ drew them out of their slimy burrows and unleashed them upon the rest of us. Fuck this shit forty-four times on Friday!

I am not saying authenticity isn’t a value worth pursuing. I am saying that it means nothing by itself. It has to be tempered with an awareness of what we are getting the most authentic version of. Because guess what? Gobar that is authentically gobar is still gobar.

I don’t know about you but I think that being ‘authentic’ so that you are more ‘relatable’ is an invitation to a future without any kind of value system guiding it. It is the kind of method that can only ever lead to a selfish society plagued by rage bait, abuse, and vile discriminatory attitudes on display by people who couldn’t care two hoots about anything greater than their social media view counts because that is all their mediocrity allows them to prioritise.

Half the dumbfucks pretending to be their most authentic self are anything but that. The list of class acts who swindled millions by putting on the ‘authentic’ act is not small either. They do it because it is easy and because apparently, people can tell when you are being authentic. Newsflash: No they can’t. People are terrible at recognising pretence. That’s why religion still exists. That’s why scam artists with the intellectual capacity of a boiled potato and the moral integrity of a literal pile of dog poo can put on costumes, get on a stage, and convince entire nations that they are the best thing to happen to the world since Ugabuga the caveman discovered fire and accidentally set his own balls aflame.

Don’t be yourself if you can’t be good. And don’t ask me what being good means like a god-damn centrist. You know what it means.