If you search the Google Books NGram Viewer, which tracks word usage over the years, you’ll see that “authentic” has been steadily climbing since about 1920. It seems people are more interested in the concept and certainly since the 1990s, it’s become a buzzword.
It can be seen in the trend towards “semigration” from the big centres in search of a more authentic life, in people changing career midstream and in the preference for greener lifestyles as well as artisanal food and drink.
But in the 21st century, the word has undergone a change in meaning, according to Alice Sherwood, whose book Authenticity: Reclaiming Reality in a Counterfeit Culture was published earlier this year.
Whereas authentic used to mean “verisimilitude” or “an honest representation” it has acquired a second definition as personal authenticity; it is “about being true, not to external reality, but to your own, internal sense of self”, says Sherwood, “looking to feelings rather than facts, answering only to the voice within”. This kind of authenticity, she says, is “most of all, private”.
In some part echoing this idea, Hogsback-based life coach Rob Yates says authenticity is “ensuring every action you take is aligned to the future you’d like to have”. Being inauthentic, he adds, is “wanting X — to be the best parent, have more cash or become Mother Teresa — and then not taking proper action towards it”.
It is the promise of our age that authenticity equals self-fulfilment, says Sherwood. “It is a driving force ... that affects not just how we see ourselves, but our patterns of consumption, or job choices, how we relate to the world and its problems.”
However, in our digital era, the drive towards self-expression has taken a sinister turn, with individuals able to easily fake their identity online. “We live in a storm of make-believe and deception,” says Sherwood. “The lines between reality and illusion are increasingly blurred. A lie can find its way into a million social media feeds before the truth has got its boots on. We are searching for authenticity in a world that is ever more inauthentic.”
But despite the tales of phishing scams, doctored drug trials, bad Tinder dates, fake brands and fraudulent CVs, Sherwood insists that hope lies in the ability of the internet to also expose deception. “Technology can be harnessed to amplify the forces of fakery but it seems to me a counsel of despair to suggest we can’t fight back.”
Technology can become reality’s greatest friend, she says, “enabling and empowering those who are trying to turn the tide”. Sherwood cites the “armies of truth” taking down the conspiracies and cons, such as professional fact-checking organisations, fake-brand hunters, scam-spotting dating site entrepreneurs and “savvy school kids exposing online fraud”. Journalists and open-source intelligence professionals, she adds, have a special role in combating inauthenticity and are “inviting you to join in”.
It seems that, for our own wellbeing, we should. So vital is authenticity to the human condition, says Charles Webster, a Hilton-based musician and philosophy scholar, that many great thinkers have grappled with the idea. “Philosophy’s main view on authenticity is that it is vital to human happiness. So important that it’s a part of what we call existentialist philosophy, which explores the challenges of being human, and focuses on things like the meaning of existence, and how we think, feel and act.
“Giants like Jean-Paul Sartre, Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche write about authenticity at length. Sartre, for example, says some people don’t know why their actions don’t line up with their thoughts. They ignore important realities to avoid unpleasant truths — their identities are too influenced by the outside world and that makes them inauthentic.”
Rather than being another sheep, it’s about diverging and being a wolf instead.
— Angelica Hattingh
It was a moment of intense personal authenticity that inspired Cape Town-based performer Angelica Hattingh to write The Authentic Way to Fake It in collaboration with production partner Bianca Rasmussen.
Based on an experience Hattingh had at a corporate event, the play is about Fern, a shy writer who, too afraid to face the crowd at a function, locks herself in the loo. “As the minutes tick by, she comes to realise that the door is her obstacle rather than her saviour,” says Hattingh. Fern can either remain in the background, or come out as herself.
Maybe it is easier for Gen Zs to resonate with the second definition of authenticity. Hattingh says: “To me, being authentic means being absolutely true to yourself, even when being yourself feels like the worst option you could think of. Somehow, all my best moments and craziest ideas have come out of being honest and vulnerable. It means sticking to your guns, admitting when you’re not feeling your greatest, but also recognising what makes you different and how it’s a strength. Rather than being another sheep, it’s about diverging and being a wolf instead.”
Audiences have related to the twentysomethings’ timely play; having first sold out at Johannesburg’s Redhill Arts Theatre, it is set for Cape Town’s Galloway Theatre in September and a run next year at Sandton’s Theatre on the Square.
Yates, who helps executives up their game, says: “You can’t please everyone, so why try? If you’re different, deal with being different. But then, be a unicorn: stand out. I should be in a Sandton office, suited and booted, but here I am in Hogsback, mucking out chickens, driving a bakkie. It has become my USP [unique selling proposition] — teaching you to live like I do.”
Webster and his wife, Tarrin, also left the city in search of the benefits of rural life. He says his search began “because I sensed my own lack of authenticity” and he questioned his religious faith. “I wanted to answer every question with what I know, or what I think, based on the best available evidence and reason. I didn’t want to edit my answers to fit my theology.”
When he and his wife turned 35, they questioned why they were living in Johannesburg. He began remote work as a writer in 2003. “In Johannesburg’s corporate world I was climbing the ladder, but I was put off by the all-too-common workaholism. Together, we weighed the impact of the concrete jungle on our lives and looked at what life could be like in a friendlier, smaller place with different values. We decided to semigrate to Hilton in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.”
It wasn’t a case of moving home and all is wine and roses: “Honestly, I must acknowledge the shortcomings of small-town living along with its benefits. But in general, we would do it again.”
He believes being truly authentic “almost always comes at a cost — even if it's just the emotional cost of taking the risk that people might reject you. For example, a gay person might be kicked out of home, or rejected by religious conservatives. In my case, I lost most of my friends and some of my family while leaving the faith.”
Webster believes he and his family are living a more authentic life now: “More importantly, I feel that Tarrin and I have given our kids the tools to be introspective. Authenticity almost always demands some sort of change, and change isn’t generally comfortable. The most important tools in the authenticity box: the capacity to ask the right questions, a value system that rewards acknowledgment of mistakes, and a mindset that is comfortable with changing when confronted with new and better evidence and reason.”
As some of us shrug off ideologies that once suited us to embrace a more agnostic ethos, or even a further orthodoxy, the meaning of personal authenticity is ever-changing. Whereas authentic used to mean one “real thing”’ it now has as many meanings as people on the planet. And so the word is destined to retain its position on Ngram as writers, and readers, continue to try to figure out what makes us humans feel connected and real.
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