Rhetoric online detailing the preoccupation with being perceived is inseparable from the relationship between social media algorithms and overconsumption.
In recent years, there has been an increase of online discussions about the fear of being perceived by others. From countless TikTok videos from users imploring others not to perceive them and claiming they are “not real,” to Instagram memes making light of the fear of being perceived or wishing to be regarded as “a concept” instead of a dynamic person, it is clear that many social media users have become too aware of how others perceive them.
Though these fears are expressed on social media, our presence on online platforms is the very mechanism driving the fear of perception.
With the rise of influencer culture, social media advertisements and consumption driven by online aesthetics, much of the content on platforms like TikTok or Instagram is created for the sole purpose of generating revenue. Whether through a direct (though sometimes inconspicuous) advertisement posted by a social media influencer, or through algorithms promoting a new trending aesthetic, the relationship between social media and consumption has become too tightly wound together.
Now, social media was not always driven by consumerism; social media sites used to feel as though they revolved around encouraging connection, keeping in touch with others and detailing one’s daily life. In fact, there has been a recent wave of nostalgia content posted on platforms like TikTok and Instagram reflecting on the early days of social media, when one’s “aesthetic” wasn’t the forefront of their online presence.
When social media was still relatively new, platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr were used as intended: to share photos of one’s life. Take for example one of the numerous early 2010s nostalgia videos posted on TikTok. Though they include various images that evoke the iconography of this era — pastel-filtered photos of fairy lights, city skylines and inspirational messaging — the key difference is that this type of content did not outright attach the feelings evoked by the images to a specific product.
Sure, seeing this type of content in 2013 might’ve influenced you to buy a set of fairy lights or led you to daydream about your hypothetical future life in New York City, but it didn’t necessarily sell you these feelings through rapidly changing product trends using affiliate links.
Where 2012 Tumblr might’ve seen the fall season commemorated by pictures of fallen leaves on the sidewalk or a cup of coffee and an open book, this fall season on TikTok was kicked off by raving about the new EOS Pumpkin Chai scent and all the newest autumnal Winner’s finds.
I would be lying if I said that the first thing I thought of to celebrate the beginning of fall was going to the pumpkin patch or doing some fall baking. Instead, my first autumn endeavour was perusing my local Winners and HomeSense to find candles and body scrubs that evoke an autumnal feeling. I’d also be lying if I said that this endeavour wasn’t influenced by watching others do the same thing online.
Though it may seem like we’ve veered away from the discussion of perceiving others, ultimately, the algorithmic push for consumption relies on understanding where we stand in relation to the categories we perceive others to be in.
TikTok user @lindsiann commented on internet users’ fear of being perceived, noting that social media has vastly changed how we build our identities and internalize beliefs about ourselves:
“For most of human history, you existed in a relatively small circle: your family, your friends, your community, the people who actually knew the texture of your life. But now, you can wake up and expose yourself to hundreds of opinions before you even get out of bed. […] When perception becomes constant, you start anticipating it everywhere.”
In the video, she compared modern social media to Michel Foucault’s metaphor of the Panopticon.
The Panopticon was a prison design originally created by Jeremy Bentham, where the cells reside in a circle surrounding a watch tower that encases the prison guards. Theoretically, the prisoners could not see into the watch tower, meaning that they could never know whether the guards were watching them. However, the threat of surveillance was thought to be enough to keep prisoners controlled.
For Foucault, the Panopticon served as a metaphor to exemplify why we conform to the dominant social order even though we aren’t under constant force: the threat of being watched and subsequent punishment if we disturb the social order is enough.
To build on @lindsiann’s argument, I would argue that consumption plays a critical role in building the fear of being perceived. There is a constant exhaustion that comes from having to keep up with ever-changing trends and sought after aesthetics; it is far more difficult to be satisfied with our identities when one of their major influences — our imagined “audiences” that root from social media consumption — always has changing standards for how to belong.
This exhaustion undoubtedly incites fear within us that we are somehow presenting “wrong,” leading to an urge to disappear, to escape the constant audience we feel surrounding us. To yearn to be “not real” is really a yearning to escape from the ever-changing expectations of how we should “be.”
It is important to remember, however, that consumerism is the major force that is driving these expectations. As discussed previously, identity is not found through consumerism, but conceived within. The standards of the market should not be the standards through which we understand ourselves.