Authenticity

Authenticity is a tough nut to crack, particularly when approached from the perspective of a 21st-century internet-obsessed whitestraightmale more likely to associate it with a Portland hipster describing his latest vinyl finds than a sincere attempt to root out personal identity. But there it is: In the case of both the Hipster Scum and the individual looking for an authentic experience, the essentiality of authenticity appears to be bound up with a conceptual superiority. "Listen to this," it says, "give this more importance, not because it's actually better or more convincing or more real, but because it has some virtual quality, non-transferable and unique, which makes it better than it would be without it." The privileging of the origins of a message over the message itself seems baffling and unreasonable, a small-scale version of the inarguable Word of God.

Of course, as I implied earlier saying this makes me feel like I'm quoting a Facebook libertarian or privilege denying guy meme; always a good sign that you're being an ass. As a white male aged 18 to 49, I'm used to having my suggestions listened to. Perhaps authenticity of this sort is necessary in the sense of a sort of ideological affirmative action, to give additional weight to those ideas which might be easily dismissed as not fitting with the norm. It's all well and good to say that an idea should be judged on entirely its merits, but we fallible mortals can't seperate the message from the messenger.

But then what is to be made of the idea that authenticity can be revoked? Again we fall back on the analogy of the hipster sneering and dismissing a work based not on its failings as a work, but its makers later "selling out", retroactively tarnishing their entire catalogie. The devolution of the debate on value into a game of "authentickier than thou" is an obvious and cheap joke in the context of the bearded wunderkinds, in which authenticity and quality are considered necessary in some conditionality or other. This is good because it's authentic, or this can be good because it's authentic. This is bad because it's inauthentic, or vice versa.

The association of inauthenticity and a lack of quality seems to have had its origins in exploitation and mass-production; a work created by an inauthentic source was almost certain to misrepresent or abuse its subjects in some way, be those subjects rock music and its devotees or native americans or what-all. In the creation of popular culture, it is in the nature of the beast to give up the male persona recreate the trappings of a successful formula without any awareness to what made the original effective. There's a claim to be made that the difference between a rip-off and an homage is down to this awareness. The point again comes down to what's enough respect, enough tolerance, enough research to legitimately represent a group to which one doensn't belong. Perhaps there is no such point, and thus no circumstance under which once can write with another's voice without illegitimately appropriating. On the other hand, once can't give carte blanche to appropriate, nor am I claiming that there is nothing wrong in claiming authentic membership in a group to which you have no connection; merely that the flaw is in the lie or the abuse, not the inauthenticity.

The recent "lesbian blogger" scandals provide an excellent example. By portraying members of a group to which they do not belong, these bloggers have managed to trivialize what they set out to draw attention to, making themselves the story rather than their subject matter. Inauthentic or not, shouldn't we be outraged that Tom MacMaster made up a story about a woman being kidnapped to cover for his vacation? If he actually was a lesbian in Damascus and needed to take a break, presumably she would have realized that the false-vanishing story was heinously inappropriate. If she had been who and what she said she was, and still put up the same (false) story, it would have still been unacceptable, and damaged her authenticity to speak for the gay population of the Middle East.

And, my presentation partner reminds me, all this is fundamentally based on a point of privilege in which the honky overlord is essentially telling other people what they should and shouldn't be mad about. I think this is why I've written so many posts about Twilight: There are no uncomfortable undertones to ripping on a socially conservative Mormon housewife's vampire fantasies. Of course, merely saying this makes me wonder if I'm just swanning right past them...