Never get out of the boat: authenticity

Showing posts with label authenticity. Show all posts

Friday, March 27, 2015

the cult of authenticity [five minutes]

Sorry young millennials.
You are not special.

Your old Gen X mums and dads were just as confused as you, in their day.

'Ultimately, the uneasy relationship The Stranglers had with the punk scene reflected the need that the various protagonists within the movement had for 'authenticity'.

In 'The Culture Of Narcissism', Lasch had noticed that in the late-industrial cultures of the West, in which basic needs had become easily satisfied, and new wants had to be created by the propaganda....a “cult of authenticity” had emerged within “the spectacle” of consumerism that fetishised spontaneity and the confessional.

Punk’s most glaring, and therefore most sensitive, internal contradiction was that it was a largely manufactured movement that was intended to give vent to the organic, spontaneous rage of British youth.

The Stranglers weren’t marginalised because their “opportunism” made them less “real” than the other punk groups. They were marginalised because their established history drew attention to the inauthenticity of the others.'

Identity, Status, Structure and The Stranglers by Phil Knight.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

positional authenticity

Holding my hands up, I've been guilty in the past of wheeling out skunk words like 'authentic' in the past.

Luckily one has sobered up somewhat now.

Giddy on social media and 'prosocial' kool-aid is my only excuse m'lud.

There seems to be plenty of others still caning it, however.

Try this one for size.

"The Human Era is about a fundamental societal shift in relationships," explains Simon Glynn, Lippincott EMEA director in Warc. "As people lose confidence in institutions, and put greater trust even in total strangers, companies need to rethink how they connect with people,"

Full marks to Glynn for 'labelling' his 'thing' from the off.

But when have people ever had confidence in institutions?

Do we really place great trust in total strangers?

Have companies ever connected with people?

Glynn then goes on to describe the six characteristics of trusted brands in this Human Era, namely: customer empathy, behaving like real people, being open and real to the point of being flawed, not being boring, caring about the little things and empowering individuals 'to be the brand'.

[Yes you did read that correctly - 'empowering individuals to be the brand'.]

"Many brands talk about the importance of customers, but few actually deliver on their promise and make an authentic connection," he continues.

Putting the general babble to one side and turning down the volume on the kumbaya soundtrack for a second, just notice the liberal sprinkling of authentic and real.

We should always be mindful of the fact that any notions of authenticity in a market economy are by nature inauthentic.

They are purely positional.

In pretending that a goal of 'authentic connection with our customers' comes before shifting product this faux-pursuit of the authentic simply makes the output even more phony.

So what Glynn is talking about in the Human Era is really urging brands to demonstrate 'conspicuous authenticity'.

Because the market truth is that all consumption is about status. Sorry hipsters.

Authentic, flawed and real are pure positioning, and just as inauthentic as any other marketing.

And that's fine but let's not start trying to claim any higher ground.

And as Andrew Potter says in - his splendid tome on this kind of stuff The Authenticity Hoax - 'That’s all fine and good except for one thing: we don’t have a clue what we mean by authenticity, and even if we did, we wouldn’t know how to find it.'

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

pablo picasso was never called an asshole (or the futility of authenticity part 2)

When a mysterious and previously unlisted Picasso painting fell into the hands of one of his most serious (bourgoise) collectors, the lucky enthusiast took it to the artist himslf in order that Pablo could authenticate the piece in person.

Unfortunately, Picasso took one look at the painting and declared it an imposter.

Not to be deterred, the hapless collector purchased another piece and, again, took this to the artist for authentication.

Sadly, Picasso again declared that the piece was a fake.

In a last ditch attempt our collecter commissioned a bespoke work, and then proceeded to watch over Picasso himself as he made the painting, in order that he could be sure of its authenticity, by witnessing its creation with his own eyes.

Upon completion, Picasso yet again declared the new painting to be a fake.

The puzzled collector protested 'But I saw you paint this one with my own eyes?'.

To which the deadpan Pablo replied 'I can paint a fake Picasso better than anyone'.

the futility of authenticity

We've recently been reading Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

Goffman is considered to be perhaps the most influential sociologist of recent times.

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life - first published in 1959 -provides a detailed analysis of process and meaning in mundane interaction.

By mundane interaction Goffman means; ordinary face-to-face interactions among people in various social situations.

Goffman's method is the 'dramaturgical approach'.

He is principally concerned with the different modes of 'presentation' employed by people and therefore the meaning of each in its social context.

In essence, all human interactions are 'performance', shaped by by environment, audience, and constructed in order to provide others with 'impressions' that are consonant with the desired goals of the actor.

According to Goffman, one's social identity is a series of 'fronts'.

There is no 'authentic' 'self'.

All the world is a stage

Human social interactions are all performances conducted when on-stage, in social situations. Solitary moments - the closest thing to notions of 'self-ness' - being the equivalent of 'back-stage' pre and post performance.

What hope then for brands in finding an 'authentic voice' or being 'authentic'?
Or the much asserted millennial consumer quest for authenticity?

People are aways competing for status. Products and brands are signifiers of that status.

So, even being anti-consumption is still conspicuous, 'authenticity' is simply the new 'cool'
.
The fatal flaw is that even when one claims remove's oneself from the competition for status in the mainstream you are simply joining the competition for status in a different sphere.

'What? You mean you still actually BUY products? We only share and freecycle'

Sadly, the call for authentic brands, authentic voices is ultimately futile.

All social interaction is intrinsically inauthentic and performance.
In fact the performance itself is the only authenticity.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

two rules to live by

According to Andrew Potter, author of The Authenticity Hoax, it's simply the quest for authenticity itself, that causes the world to seem so unreal and phoney and therefore the quest is ultimately futile.

People can’t help themselves from competing for status (if the modern age was about the search for status via 'cool' the current paradigm is the search for status via 'authenticity'- organic, local, artisan etc) so when one removes oneself from the competition for status in the mainstream one just joins the competition for status in the counterculture.

Having said that, we haven't had a Malcolm quote in here for a while - and my sense is that if there can possibly be a difference between the authentic authentic and the commoditised authentic then it can be found here.

'There are two rules I've always tried to live by: turn left, if you're supposed to turn right; go through any door that you're not supposed to enter. It's the only way to fight your way through to any kind of authentic feeling in a world beset by fakery.'

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

authentic brand story

In The New Marketing Manifesto, John Grant noted 'Authenticity is the benchmark against which all brands are now judged'.

Also - in a moment of arch-ness - Seth Godin said in Permission Marketing: 'If you can fake authenticity, the rest will take care of itself.'

I'll take the word from the bird...

UPDATE: Some younger readers have expressed confusion over the 'bird' reference.
Charlie Parker was known as 'Bird', short for 'Yardbird'.
Yardbird is a jazzbo colloquialism for 'chicken', a young Parker is said to have hit a chicken with his car by accident while on tour with the Jay McShann Orchestra, and proceeded to cook and eat the unfortunate fowl later that evening post gig. Fact fans.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

authenticity

'In learning this path, it is only important to walk on the real ground, to act on the basis of reality. The slightest phoniness, and you fall into the realm of demons.'

from The Pocket Zen Reader