Have you ever wanted to wear a headband to class, but been worried that people will know that you are not a ‘real’ headband-wearer? Or have you ever been scrolling on TikTok and seen a guy drinking matcha and pretending to read feminist literature books, or whatever?
If you have done/encountered either of these things, then you are already familiar with the concept of “performativity.”
This is not a surprise, though. In the past year, the word “performative” has been run so far into the ground that you would need a shovel to dig it out. Online, especially, you can be called performative for just about anything—from the types of books you read to the color of the water bottle you carry around.
As funny as this trend is, it seems to have grown into a beast of its own within the last few months. More and more, I have started to see people on my For You Page make posts about being ‘able to tell when someone’s [something] isn’t indicative of their true nature’—and you can fill in the blank with anything, really.
At first glance, this seems like the natural progression of a random trend, but I think it can be much more than that. What makes us so prone to judging others? And why are we so obsessed with who is ‘real’ versus who is ‘performative?’
In an age of rampant trends and the ceaseless barrage of social media, young people have begun to crave originality. People have started pushing back against trendiness in favor of individualism. This is all well and good—I am all for exploring different styles and trying to figure out who you want to be, outside of the influence of social media. The negativity begins, though, when people begin to weaponize uniqueness as a source of superiority over people who follow trends. Instead of celebrating individuality, we begin to commodify identity and make it something that someone has to prove. In some ways, the push for originality and the refusal to follow trends is a trend in itself.
Individuality itself is a loaded concept. As a country, America places a lot of value on self-reliance and independence. This ingrained independence leads to an intense desire to be extraordinary. However, in the age of social media, we have all also become dependent on external validation. These two ideas, of course, struggle to co-exist—how can you be completely self-assured while also needing the validation of others? This mixing of ideas results in the desire to be viewed as a unique individual, and the need to have your individuality affirmed by those around you.
And so, we take to social media again. People post their outfits, or their reading lists, or their daily life, all for the purpose of having the comments assure them of their uniqueness. Which, again, is not entirely an issue. But, this need to establish authenticity leads to stagnation. Once you have been validated as an individual, you find yourself straining not to change too much from the persona you have curated. If you do stray from this public image, you are liable to be called performative or a trend-hopper. In a way, individuality itself becomes performative.
So if we are all performing all of the time—whether we are performing to follow a trend, or in an attempt to establish total uniqueness—are any of us really ‘performative?’ Or, at the minimum, are any of us more or less performative than anyone else?
At the root of the ‘performative’ trend, is the desire to be unique, and to establish ourselves as individuals in a society where it is easy to feel indistinguishable or ignored. It is important to remember, though, that there is no inherent value in the clothes you wear being more ‘rare’ than someone else’s, or if your water bottle matches your ‘true spirit’—our material goods do not indicate our personalities, or our authenticity. So, trying to figure out or judge who is ‘real’ and who is ‘performative’ is a total witch hunt, and it is one that stifles our connections with each other.
In other words, wear whatever you want, and drink or read whatever you want—there is no purpose in putting pressure on ourselves to be individualistic, especially when doing so inhibits change.
