Calculated authenticity

I thought this NY Times article about the changing definition of "authentic," as the "it" value amongst those trendsetters and powerbrokers that command the most of our collective attention.

“I THINK what people see in me is that I’m a real person,” Representative Michele Bachmann told ABC News, after her victory in Iowa last month. “I’m authentic.”

Discussing his new daytime television show, Anderson Cooper told The Vancouver Sun that “in everything I’ve done, I’ve always tried to just be authentic and real.”

Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in July that “if you fear what people think about you, then you are not being authentic.”
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“What you can’t do is be told by a social media guru to act authentic and still be authentic,” said Jeff Pooley, an associate professor of media and communication at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. He said authenticity today is more accurately described as “calculated authenticity” — a k a stage management.

“The best way to sell yourself is to not appear to be selling yourself,” Professor Pooley said. Politicians do it. Celebrities do it. And you, reader, do it every time you tap out a status update on Twitter, Facebook, Google+.

Where has authenticity led Andereson Cooper? Spray tanning with Snooki. But it is interesting that a skill that sociopaths have long been cultivating, the art of calculated authenticity ("you mean the world to me"), has become a necessary survival skill in a world of social media.