noun [aw-thuh-en-tis-uh-tee]
The capacity to demonstrate genuine vulnerability and consistently align your values, attitudes, and actions.

When I first started gaining traction on social media, people would approach me and say, “Oh my gosh, I love your content. You’re just SO authentic.”

Being called authentic meant a lot to me. For someone who constantly strives to be real and vulnerable online, I felt a sense of accomplishment every time someone said those words. Lately, though, I’ve found myself giving a half smile and, of course, saying thank you—but walking away feeling confused.

What does that word even mean?

So what changed?

In short—the internet.

The world feels darker than ever, and I find that the energy we feel online often matches what we’re seeing in real life. And right now, we’re seeing a lot of hate.

We’ve all been there. We see a “hot take” or a negative video about a certain creator, and we fall down the rabbit hole. We start seeing more and more videos about said creator. And then, eventually, we form our own opinion.

And as someone who has been on the receiving end of these videos—it’s not fun.

What I find interesting about these rabbit holes, though, is that so much of the negativity centers around a creator’s personality. Who they are. What they post. Their “vibe.”

No one really cares if that creator is actually being themselves or being genuine. They just care if they find the creator likable.

And that’s when it hit me.

Authenticity does NOT equal likability.

Take a moment and think about some people you cannot stand. I predict there are some people you don’t like because you genuinely find them fake, performative, or inauthentic. But I’m also sure there are some people you don’t like simply because they just aren’t your cup of tea.

I’ll give you an example. Actually, I’ll give you two.

Donald Trump and Dave Portnoy.

I hate these two men with every fiber of my being. I find them arrogant, hateful, misogynistic, and just intolerable.

However, the reason I dislike them is the same reason a lot of people praise them: for better or worse, they are loudly and proudly themselves.

They are authentic.

Authentically assholes, but nonetheless authentic.

When people say they prefer to follow “authentic” people online, I really think what they mean is, “I follow creators that I find real.”

The issue here is that “real” is subjective. “Likability” is subjective.

Do we really want to follow someone who is authentic if their authentic self is someone we don’t align with?

I think what we really want is to follow people we find relatable and entertaining. Even if that’s only part of the picture.

Because no one is relatable 24/7. No one is authentic 24/7.

My best and worst qualities are all still my qualities. I can be authentically kind, authentically insightful, and sometimes authentically bitchy.

Of course I choose to share more of my good qualities than my bad ones. Because I want to make my community feel safe. I want to spread more positivity than negativity on my platform, even on the days when I’m not feeling like sunshine and rainbows.

Does that make me inauthentic?

Perhaps.

But I think there’s something more complicated happening here.

The version of ourselves that we show online can be completely real—and still not be the whole truth.

We choose what to post. We choose what to leave out. We choose which stories to tell, which opinions to share, which parts of our personalities to emphasize, and which parts to keep private.

That doesn’t necessarily make us fake.

It makes us human.

The problem is that, online, we often confuse access with intimacy. Because we see someone every day, we start to feel like we know them. Because they share vulnerable stories, we feel like we understand them. Because they seem authentic, we assume we know who they really are.

But we’re only seeing the version of themselves they’ve chosen to show us.

And when we step outside of that version—even slightly—the connection can feel broken. The illusion of authenticity is shattered.

Maybe that’s what authenticity really is online:

Not a lie. Not necessarily a performance. But an illusion created by showing someone enough of yourself that they feel like they know all of you.