If 2016 is Post-truth, 2017 is Niche-Reality
Yes, Post-truth was THE word of 2016. The year that fact gave way to fake, sense to nonsense, news to Orwellian Newspeak. WHY? We don’t claim to have the answer, but in all our musings one recurring theme won’t die: logic isn’t enough anymore. Logic doesn’t ease the pain of a paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, your decaying rust-belt town, or sugarcoat the inevitability of melting ice caps. So we all grasp for a belief in something bigger than ourselves. Whether that be religion, The Donald, The Alt Right, The Secret or Simulated Reality. We are yearning for something to give us an alternative explanation for a future that is more to our liking. We create our own niche reality: This is my truth. My magic way out — even if only I can see it.
Dark Net: In the Internet Dark Ages, 2016 = 1216
In the Dark Ages, the average person was an illiterate serf. Truth was handed down by a few people at the top to the unwashed masses at the bottom. Because of this, the Dark Ages are known as a time when emotion guided our decision-making, the scarcity of fact forcing the majority to trust instinct. As we reflect on America in 2016, we see a weird similarity between now and then. Okay so we may not have a high priest telling us what to believe, but instead we’re living an algorithmic serfdom — clicking deeper into a manufactured point of view grown from a small seed of our own personal bias. So what does enlightenment look like in a post-factual world? Whatever you want it to look like. Welcome to the big question of 2017: what is your truth?
Liar, Liar
Platforms reward your inner fake
We’ve been making up our own personal post-truths since early AOL chatroom days (who truthfully answered a/s/l?). The internet makes it all too easy to fudge who we are, what we look like, or who we know. In 2016, the Snapchat dog filter is regarded as a “push-up bra for a hungover face.” LinkedIn begs us to check off an endless list of skills and generously “endorse” connections we may not know. Tinder fact-checking should be a paid profession, and Catfishing has become a staple phrase since Manti-Te’o’s scrape with post-truth romance in 2009. Yet for all this manufactured reality, the emotion we feel for our fake Facebook friends is real. As is the surge of dopamine earned from a stream of Instagram likes on a doctored pic or post of a meme we didn’t create. What if we like our Instagram feed of fakes more than we like reality? Perhaps we’ve been living our own post-truth for some time, and we’re only realizing that our slow acceptance of it has impacted the world beyond our feeds.
Gen “My”
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My truth vs THE truth ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We’ve created a world that is hyper-opinionated. The art of “knowing your moments” has been lost. Perhaps our parents let us speak our minds one too many times as kids, or perhaps we got so tired of hearing other people’s opinions that we revolted with our own IN ALL CAPS or via ✨viral memes✨ or on Tumblr under an anon username or in that Post Secret book full of stupid secrets that was sold at Urban Outfitters in middle school. Whatever the reason, we have finally reached peak-post-truth on Twitter. We speak our truths boldly, often. But somewhere along the way, the real truth lost legitimacy. We say it with fervor for a favorite — even if it’s not fact. After all, the worst that could happen is a retweet with #LiesToldOnTwitter. Remember those teachers that told you not to tweet everything your ~~future employer~~ might find? They can’t tell the difference between the true truth and your truth. And your future employer? They don’t know what’s fact and what’s your opinion anymore, either. Reality and your TL are converging. Or are they completely disassociating? You can use your opinion on that one.
#Relatable
Cure for the common content
“Distinguishing between when is it my life and when am I creating content is a really big burden,” said some influencer once. In the mythical world of Insta-influencers, hype and reality have converged into “hyped-reality.” Whether it be Kristin Cavalari’s partnership with Bounty or Chiara Ferragni selfies in Tulum, a Crema-filtered sheen of hyper-constructed content weaves a glossy story for the masses to fetishize. Yet for every swing of the pendulum the counter-swing emerges, and so enter #relatable. Started by teens on Tumblr in 2012, #relatable is about revealing vulnerability. It breaks through the gilded, fake influencer world by being basic and hyper-niche, going to the heart of individual realness. Which of these extremes we identify with, depends on our desired reality. Said Nietzsche, “All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power, not truth.”
Royally Faked
Royals invented “Niche Reality”
Niche Reality may be our prediction for 2017, but for one elitist group, it’s been a way of life for centuries. Enter the British Royal Family, a team whose relevance relies on the obfuscation between fact and fiction. Take Henry VIII: the syphilis-wielding, wild boar-killing icon whose legacy includes 5 dead wives, 2 of whom he executed. Or Charles I, whose head was allegedly sewn back onto his body after he was beheaded in the civil war. Don’t ask. And we have the scandal that launched a thousand tabloid covers: the inconvenient resemblance between Prince Harry and Diana’s lover James Hewitt. Which brings us to our latest post factual speciality of 2016: the recent news that Princess Beatrice managed to stab Ed Sheerhan in the face while “fake knighting James Blunt”. As (King) Edward VIII proclaimed in The Crown (watch it if you haven’t) “Why believe in transparency when you can believe in magic?”
Meme Alert
A round up of some of the internet’s favorite content
We’re finally all on the same page about the move away from meme culture 1.0 aesthetics aka eBaum’s World.
Congrats to Drake for officially being the most-streamed artist of both 2015 AND 2016 (yes, he’s throwing up a 6).
Meme culture has been a key way for youth to process social topics.
