Entertainment

Authenticity On The Internet Is Impossible

You can’t be honest and real in a dishonest, unreal space.

Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash

I was thinking about Rock Hudson earlier this morning over my cup of tea, as one will, and I thought about the incredibly elaborate ruse he lived. A gay man in Hollywood, protecting his real self from the eyes of the world so he could be a movie star.

Sad? Kind of. But in return he got a whole lot of money, and his secret wasn’t all that secret anyway. Pre-internet, privacy was still a thing.

Today, the mantra is AUTHENTICITY.

Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Justin Bieber, all the rest of the Mouseketeers “laying it all out there” for their fans. Making a buck off being “real”. People baying at their doors to hear the true story about their bodies, their pain, their mistakes, what they had for breakfast, how they feel about God. You name it.

To satisfy their fans’ bloodlust and keep their face in the press, celebrities submit to countless interviews, mostly by phone.

But here’s something you might not know.

They have a handler listening in at all times.