On the Authenticity Fetish

Brian YS Wong July 10, 2024 06:00

A recent piece of news caught my eye.

More precisely, it was a video fragment that managed to arrest my attention. In the video, three, bushy-tailed and bright-eyed Hong Kong primary school students were interviewed over their performances in the secondary school entry examinations. That such news was deemed ‘worthy’ for reporting is a curious encapsulation and giveaway to how awfully competitive our education system has become over the years.

Yet it was not so much the fact that these young lads had made it to their dream secondary schools that rendered the interview particularly striking. It was instead the comments made by the gentleman in the center, as he – despite his boyish looks – offered remarkably composed answers to the questions thrown at him.

“It is our duty… to study hard. As for how strenuous it all was… I certainly wouldn’t quite use “strenuous” to describe the process, but it certainly was taxing – all the tutoring after school, for one.” (I am paraphrasing and translating concurrently here)

The attention of Hong Kong netizens was drawn not only to the precociousness of this young pre-teen; they also took amusement to the reactions and expressions of the two young classmates of his: one of them (to the left) made scowls of incredulity and bewilderment, whilst the other strained to contain his visible bemusement. The protagonist, on the other hand, was castigated for being “inauthentic” and “over-mature”, with the more cynical commentators hopping on the bandwagon of portraying him as some aspiring politician-wannabe.

It is evident that it’s tough to be a kid in Hong Kong these days. Not only must one deal with constant pressures from one’s school, teachers, and parents – one must also put up with covetous, vitriolic, and judgmental speculators who enjoy crunching their popcorn whilst pontificating over the characters and fates of strangers aged a quarter of their ages. Then again, this is a city with much pent-up frustration and exasperated individuals in search of venting outlets – punching down on those who are seen as ‘harmless’ in political terms, has hence become a cathartic pastime for many.

The bigger picture should not be obscured, however. Undergirding much of the fanfare and hoo-hah, the scathing criticisms and cynical objections, is the fetish over authenticity that has taken over contemporary social discourses across the world – especially the developed world and Global North. Social media platforms and online discourses have only exacerbated this fundamental tendency.

We are told that we must live ‘authentically’ – Be true to ourselves! Tell the truth! Don’t conceal! Don’t embellish! Yet we are also instructed to present ourselves in ways that lend maximal credibility to ourselves – to be presentable, look good, or risk being rejected for failing to conform with societal standards and aesthetics concerning ‘presentability’. Hence the successful individual must on one hand present themselves as honest, candid, and untarnished by vainglorious cosmetic refinements, as well as manifest themselves as likeable, loveable individuals – a tall order, even (and perhaps especially) for adults. Sadly, such pressures have spilled over to the education system – including primary and secondary schools, especially in a city with competition as cutthroat as Hong Kong.

A deeper problem, still, is that in our process of seeking to reclaim our agency and a sense of the ‘real’, we have developed all sorts of codified check boxes and shibboleths that we take to be necessary prerequisites and signs of authenticity. Someone posting long, angry tirades against powerful actors? That’s valourised as authentic. Someone putting together coherent, long, prosaic articles that do not feature populist, inflammatory rhetoric? That must be ‘fake’. The lines between the authentic and the inauthentic are complex, sprawling, crisscrossing – yet through the half-truths and half-lies fabricated and churned out through the social media rumour mill, we have come to embrace fixed images and stereotypes of what ‘authenticity’ should ideally look like.

Ironically, in so doing, we have hence come to neglect the possibility that different individuals can and should approach and engage with their authentic selves in different ways. Who is to say that the pre-teen was not, in fact, speaking his mind? Who are we to conclude that those who are precocious (and I admittedly speak from first-hand, potentially bias-inducing experience) are thus coached and manufactured products that are devoid of soul and agency of their own? And who are we to say that those who come across as unvarnished – however noble their intentions or rhetoric may be – are in fact true to themselves?

The truth of the matter is: what counts for true or false, genuine or disingenuous, is a deeply personal and intimate question. For others to opine, declare, and dictate from afar, is no different from imposing one’s conception of the good life on non-consenting others. The authenticity fetish has thus spurred the tendency to over-share, over-narrativise, and exaggerate – in a melodramatic and pronounced fashion – each anecdotal or trivial aspect of our lives. It is this urge to convey and impart the authentic, that has in turn rendered the individual vulnerable and susceptible to those jeering and leering on from the sidelines.

I do not know if we are raising our children to become leaders of tomorrow. But if there’s one thing that I do know, almost for sure, is that we are neither raising children to be authentic, nor equipping them for a world that expects too much of, and gives too little room, for authenticity.

Brian YS Wong

Assistant Professor, HKU