Remember when I talked about Bo Burnham’s, Inside two newsletters in a row and said “and I’ll do it again!”? Well my friends, the day has come :)
I’ve been thinking about Inside again because
of this tweet Hank Green hasn’t yet followed up on. I will be patiently waiting for his thoughts as I nod my head in aggressive resonation with John’s. “Resistant to simple interpretations” is the most concise and accurate review I’ve heard of Inside, and exactly why I also can’t stop thinking about it.
of Bo’s All Eyes On Me grammy win for Best Song Written For Visual Media, as well as his Best Music Film nomination. The Grammys deemed Inside ineligible for the Best Comedy Album category, which led to a win for Louis CK. Coooool cool coolcoolcoolcool (:
and of a very recent obsession with Lorde’s 2021 album Solar Power, which I did NOT connect to upon its initial release, despite my best efforts. It’s a frequent phenomenon for me to listen to a new album a few times and not enjoy it at all, only to revisit it months, sometimes years later, and fall completely in love. The other most notable album this happened with was reputation (also a satirical album about fame and growing up in the public eye, huh), which is now possibly my most listened to Taylor Swift album. To be fair, she was ahead of her time with that one. And also to be fair, Lorde released Solar Power way too late in the summer for me to crave those beachy vibes like I do now. Still, sometimes an album just won’t hit until you’re ready for it.
The Green brothers, Bo Burnham, and Lorde all have a very intense relationship with performance, having chosen (fallen into?) careers in the performing arts - specifically, performing arts that are deeply integrated with the internet.
One of the rare victims of early internet fame, Bo Burnham’s career began on Youtube in 2006. Although he ultimately moved away from the digital stage in favor of a more orthodox kind of performance, Bo’s understanding of the internet and its affect on our health and culture is what makes him so relatable to both his generation, and those younger than him, who’ve had to grow up in an online space that’s less experimental and more capitalized than that of their pioneering Gen X and Millennial predecessors.
After starting their Vlogbrothers channel in 2007, Hank and John Green have played significant, active roles in shaping the internet. The Green brothers have two of the longest, most consistent, and increasingly successful internet careers I can think of. They’ve spent over a decade garnering respect in both internet communities and “real” life, managing to stay culturally relevant for longer than many “traditional” entertainment industry celebrities. Both brothers were born on the cusp between Gen X and Millennials, so it makes sense that they were among the first to figure out real world success via online presence, and real world change via online community. Founders of Vidcon, the Green brothers challenged the world to take online creators seriously, paving the way for the massive, yet still not fully realized influencer market we have today. Yes, these same influencers who seem so far removed from Hank and John’s honest and benevolent and down-to-earth online personas, I believe owe their careers in part to those two goofy men.
Lorde - less a pioneer, but just as much a product of the internet - was among the first generation of pop stars to grow up facing criticism and worship and invasion primarily from social media rather than tabloids/published media. Her Pure Heroine album came out in 2013 - Tumblr’s golden age of black cherry lipstick, teen angst, romanticized introversion, internalized misogyny, and obsessive fandom. The attitude Lorde captured in this debut album was fuel for that fire, which fostered a deeply devoted fanbase. After her Melodrama album, I specifically remember one (very thorough) viral powerpoint (lol, of all things) detailing a fan’s theory that her and Jack Antanoff were sleeping together. Coming from a fan, that kind of speculation and intrusion has got to feel worse than any magazine smear campaign. In this most recent album, Solar Power, Lorde not only addresses struggles she had growing up in the public eye, but moral struggles she has now with the power and money and fame she’s accrued. On the opening track of the album, she sings, “now if you're looking for a saviour, well, that's not me.” She both relates to her fans, and distances herself from them by making it known that she’s just as lost and heartbroken as everyone else, while also acknowledging that many of the hardships the world has faced in recent years do not affect her in the same way. In Fallen Fruit (watch! this! music! video!), Lorde looks ahead at the dystopian future she imagines we’ll reach as we fail to address climate change. She expresses her anger at those who trashed the Earth with such little regard for their children’s future, while also grappling with her own guilt because she knows she has the wealth and ability to escape, while her non-millionaire fans will suffer the consequences of the neglectful actions of those in power.
All three (four, sorry for lumping you together, Green brothers) celebrities have been outspoken in their own way about the uncomfortable weight they feel when people look to them for guidance. Bo, through satirical bits and moments of dark honesty throughout his many comedy specials; Lorde, more and more as she matures, through subtly haunting lyricism; and John and Hank Green, quite directly and very frequently, often via Twitter.
Although they don’t necessarily want that responsibility, I think what makes them such strong and magnetic role models is the fact that, unlike many newcomers to the entertainment industry, performance is primarily an outlet and a means of processing for them, and secondarily a career. Fame and wealth and power are byproducts of their art, rather than the reason they create in the first place.
Great fame has been a detriment to many artists’ careers, because they reach a point where fans can no longer relate to them or the art they feel inspired to make. Since the even playing field of social media has been introduced, this seems to be changing. Now, on some level, everyone can relate to the feeling that they’re always under a microscope, so it’s not entirely out of touch for an artist to complain about fame. Additionally, when they choose to exist in online spaces, celebrities experience the same overstimulating, doom-inducing, never-ending stream of content as everyone else. For many of us, our carefully crafted (or not) online persona has become a weight-bearing pillar of our personality, like how I imagine a celebrity’s media representation shapes their behaviors and psyche.
When we watch actors and singers and other public figures, we feel like we can distinguish a hard line between when they’re performing and when they’re not. We see them on stage and think “what a great act.” And then we see them off stage, but still aware that they’re being watched, and think “they carry themselves so well.” And then we have this idea in our heads of who they are at home. The real them. The them that’s not acting.
There are moments in Bo’s Inside that challenge this idea of a distinct “on” and “off”. I’m thinking of this scene in particular (1:09:28)
It looks like an uncomfortably candid moment, but we know it’s scripted. Or is it real, and he only decided in post to keep it in? But he knew the camera was rolling, so even if he never planned on using that footage, it still can’t be considered truly candid. Right?
If we examine our own relationship with, in John’s words, “the performed self and the experienced self”, we discover that there’s not such a clear line after all.
Although I haven’t chosen Performance as a Life, I still feel like I’m never not performing*. Every conversation I have and every decision I make feels like a performance. It’s almost like there’s so many different and conflicting thoughts and feelings happening inside me at once, that there are a million truthful ways I could respond to someone, or dress myself, or ___(insert any life task)___, and choosing just one (which a person has to do) feels disingenuous. I often worry that I don’t know the true me, but what if there’s no such thing? Our personalities don’t exist in a vacuum, their only function is to respond to their surroundings. So in a sense, everything we do and every decision we make is a performance. The only way I think I’d feel like I wasn’t walking through life as if it were a stage is if I could live as all the versions of me all at once.
*Maybe it’s because so much of how I relate to the world is through the consumption of other people’s performances (albums, movies, youtube videos, etc.)? And now I’ve just adopted that performer persona as my own personality? Like when we gaze out the window on the bus and pretend we’re in a music video. That specific and universal behavior didn’t exist before the invention of the music video. Has social media created a generation of people who feel like they’re always performing? Or is that just part of the human experience? Or are none of you are relating to this at all, and I need to expedite my search for a therapist?
I made this poll yesterday (thanks if you participated!) to get a loose sense of how my peers think about authenticity online. Is this as heavy a weight on everyone as it feels on me? How authentic am I perceived to be by my friends? (I’m flattered, but I promise you guys it’s not 10/10 honesty and disclosure over here) How do we view Instagram - what I consider the main platform - in relation to other social media apps?
Here are all the responses as of 8:something pm Friday night.
I’ll spare you (and myself) a full analysis of the data, but I will say I was surprised by the range of answers for most of the questions. On how much authenticity matters, which apps encourage the most authenticity, etc., there’s less of an overwhelming consensus than I would have guessed. (Once again, the internet has tricked me into polarized thinking!) There also seems to be a good mix of optimistic and pessimistic outlooks on the internet’s role in our lives, and whether its potential as a tool outweighs its addictive and otherwise negative aspects.
It seems to me that the evolution of this relatively new “digital space” has drawn our collective attention to figuring out and addressing what is “real” and what is “fake”. We scrutinize everything from pixels to personalities in a desperate search for the Truth - a North pointing needle of proof in the haystack of digital noise that this is what we should believe. In the last few years, “performative” has become one of the most pointed insults you can throw at someone. (not saying performative social justice isn’t shitty. more so trying to make the point that our current collective consciousness seems to have a really vocal problem with anything that appears less than fully authentic.)
My little “fuck you” to the internet today is to remind myself, and anyone reading this, that it’s possible to have a healthy and beneficial relationship with performance. And also that performance is not necessarily the opposite of authenticity.
In examining my own relationship with performance, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I thrive on attention. I like being perceived! I feel more focused when I’m working at a busy coffee shop than in an empty apartment. I run faster and enjoy myself more when I route through the city, where I can pretend people are watching me. I fell in love with coxing in part because it became my little stage every morning - my creative performance outlet. (I had a microphone and everything.) It seems that an audience of the right size and indifference seems to release a micro-dose of adrenaline in me that sharpens my mind and keeps my head in the game.
While most of us have not chosen hobbies or careers that place us on a stage, there’s still a thousand ways we play pretend and perform for other people every day. It’s a subtle form of artistic expression, and an integral step in figuring out who we are.
I saw a tweet years ago that I don’t remember verbatim, but I do think about often. It was something along the lines of “in order to fall asleep, you have to pretend to be sleeping.” Sleep is such a literal example that it becomes comical, but I think this principle is true for most things. And that knowledge can keep you up at night, or it can make life a little easier.
For example: affirmations. If you’ve ever found yourself so desperate for change that you stand in front of a mirror and lie (outloud) to yourself, in hopes that your subconscious will start to manifest those lies into truths, you’re familiar with this concept. Affirmations sound and feel so silly, but they’re a proven (and pretty mainstream) way to improve your confidence, and therefore your life. If we can accept that our lives are really just acts, then we can pretend to be the people we want to be, until enough onlookers believe our performance that it becomes true. Just think about how many times you’ve started saying a word ironically, only to get addicted to it and eventually realize its use has become genuine. It’s kind of like that, but on purpose.
Well friends, we’ve come a long way from talking about Solar Power. I started this newsletter earlier in the week than I usually do, and kinda just kept writing. But now I’m tired, and I’m not super sure how to wrap this up. So let’s end the thought spiral there and get to the card.
While last week we talked about death, this week we talk about resurrection, specifically the resurrection of an evolved, healthy ego.
The title of this card has more to do with Judgement Day, than the judgement of our living, human peers. Still, it deals with the idea of a collective consciousness, and reminds us there’s no such thing as personal liberation. By working on ourselves, we improve the lives of those around us. It’s a call to rise to a more meaningful existence, an indication of a crossroads, and a good sign that you’re on the right track.
~god bless you~ if you made it this far,
hope your saturday is every bit as lovely as it looks online,
:) Jordan