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Gen Z and gen Alpha brought a raw, messy aesthetic to social media. Why does it feel as inauthentic as ever? | Eugene Healey | The Guardian

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The glossy perfection of millennial content gave way to something that felt more ‘real’. But that was a mirage – and brands quickly caught on Eugene Healey is a brand strategy consultant, educator and creator A uthenticity is the great mirage of the modern age. Its promise – to live unmediated, in full accordance with our values and beliefs – feels like the ideal we’re always reaching for before it vanishes beyond the horizon. And ironically, the more we try to prove we’re authentic online, the more we seem to accelerate its disappearance. As Generations Z and Alpha joined social media, they responded to the cultural demand for perfection with chaos – raw, unfiltered, deliberately messy content. The curated feed of flatlays gave way to the sloppy photo dump; the finstas; the bedrotting. Finally, our real lives represented on screen. Finally, something real. Except that this quickly became another role to be performed, a generation-defining content genre that has itself become subject t

‘We become alienated from our own actions when every moment is filtered through the question of how it will be received.’ Photograph: Kaspars Grinvalds/Shutterstock View image in fullscreen ‘We become alienated from our own actions when every moment is filtered through the question of how it will be received.’ Photograph: Kaspars Grinvalds/Shutterstock Opinion Social media This article is more than 1 year old Gen Z and gen Alpha brought a raw, messy aesthetic to social media. Why does it feel as inauthentic as ever? This article is more than 1 year old Eugene Healey The glossy perfection of mi

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