If you’ve been on social media any time in the last year, I’m sure you have heard the term “performative”. What started as satirical internet slang poking fun at the matcha-drinking, Clairo-listening, performative male has escalated into something much more concerning.
Of course, to an extent, everything is a performance. Whether that be for social validation for your new tote bag, to impress people with your amateur DJing, or to make sure everyone knows how much you LOVE Benson Boone.
However, when people prioritise this social validation, they begin to replace self-expression with performative behaviour; simply existing becomes a strategic performance aimed at curating an image. Performative social media ‘identities’ have become a serious concern.
Social media constantly defines ‘genres’ of people, reducing the complexities of the self to neat, curated archetypes that are deemed either socially desirable or undesirable.
In the digital era, social media has an overwhelming influence with over 5.4 billion users. On social media, identity content and aesthetics are extensive. Whether it’s OOTDs and fashion inspiration, or social labels and personality categories, identity is constantly categorised and evaluated online.
“Online social networks constitute such sites of self-presentation and identity negotiation.”
Papacharissi, 2010, p. 304
This content positions different identities as ‘trendy’: Pilates princess, it girl, cool girl, clean girl, nonchalant, whimsy, candid girlfriend, old money… the list is never-ending.
These performative ‘identities’ each have a precise look and core personality traits, telling impressionable audiences who they should and shouldn’t be. And, as if that isn’t concerning enough, such labels often centre the infamous ‘nonchalant ethos’. In other words, they reward indifference and emotional detachment.
Moreover, brands rely on our constant attempts to fit into different labels so they can sell matching hyper-specific wardrobes and accessories. Guaranteeing constant consumption. Let’s be honest, do you really need a Labubu bag charm for your maximalist aesthetic?
Performativity has escalated way beyond internet satire; performative social media identities have become a serious concern.
This constant pressure to adopt the latest predefined identity cannot be healthy. It’s one thing to experiment with style; it’s another to actively suppress your self-expression in favour of curating an image. Thus, if your entire sense of self is built upon social media trends, maybe it’s time to put down the Labubu and engage in some self-discovery offline.
Debbie Choo 
Bethany Miguel 
Tarkyn Sharples
Not to be dramatic, but maybe the nature of the internet to categorize and reduce people into trends/aesthetics is part of the way that computer’s operate in their logical processes and the new LLM trends are an extension of the computerification of the world :3