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Do You Ignore The Alluring Invitation of Fakery?
Travel with me back to early March — a period pre-social distancing— to a situation that many of us experienced:
We’re in a group of peers and someone asks us how we’re doing. No one wants to answer. The person brave enough to speak first actually isn’t so brave: they utter “I’m fine” as if the world isn’t unraveling before our eyes, as if thousands of people aren’t dying from an invisible enemy we know nothing about — as if the normalcy isn’t eroding.
Mostly everyone in your group is not fine. Maybe they’re not scared but upset by a perceived ubiquity of fear-mongering from the media and others.
At that moment, what was your response? Were you more likely to echo the first “brave” soul and wear a mask of nonchalance? Or did you feel encouraged to speak your truth? I don’t know your answer, but here’s what I do know:
Fakery is an invitation, one we all have unwittingly accepted at some point.
As a resident of Los Angeles, fakery is an inevitable lived experience of mine. Hollywood culture breeds superficiality and plasticity. Botox beauty produces plastic smiles which breed a contagion of pseudo happiness.
The inviting nature of fakery isn’t relegated to Hollywood; social media is the…