Pseudo-Authenticity

[Cognisant]

If you're not familiar with the concept of wabi-sabi please watch this video, it's not essential to understand what I'm talking about but I think it will give you a more complete picture:

Spoiler

I think it is the contrast between perfection and imperfection that makes the imperfections appealing, in many modern art galleries you will find "sculptures" that if you saw them at a dump it would never occur to you that they're meant to be art, likewise I believe more or less any item of garbage could be a sublime expression of the human condition in the context of an art gallery.

Being alone is fun when you're not lonely, fasting is fun when you know you can stop anytime you wish, a roller-coaster is thrilling but only because you know you are safe.

People want a kind of pseudo-authenticity, there's a fancy restaurant in my home city that serves overpriced food on cutting boards and wrapped in newspaper (not actual newspaper, that wouldn't be sanitary) and they serve their drinks in supposedly recycled glass jars which have glass handles, not handles tacked on after the fact rather these "jars" are actually purpose made mugs made to look like jars for the authenticity.

You want authenticity? Go to Bangkok and eat the street food the locals eat then spend the next three days shitting your guts out and swear never to return, that's an actual authentic experience.

Am I recommending you go to Bangkok and repeat my mistake? Of course not, it's amazing that you could even think that, it was one of the worst experiences of my life and I nearly fucking died so of course I'm not telling you to do it too what the hell kind of advice would that be?

But nor am I saying that authenticity is overrated, rather to truly appreciate authenticity we need to do so from an inauthentic context, that for example to truly appreciate the beauty of impermanence you need to possess permanence (or at least some degree of it). For example the impermanence of a flower is easy to appreciate because they wither and die so quickly, likewise someone who has been around for 800 years is going to be much better equipped to appreciate people imperfections and all because to someone who has seen generations come and go such imperfections are merely charming expressions of individuality.

The glass mug/jars are conceptually silly but to someone who hasn't known the kind of poverty that has someone washing out jars to use as glassware it's quite charming, albeit a bit out of touch.

 

[Cognisant]

Then there's the matter of pseudo-authenticity that is an outright fiction, drinking out of a glass that is ostensibly a jar may be fashionable because it alludes to a kind of cultural fiction of "the street culture", as if people use jars rather than actual glassware to make some kind of ecologically conscious statement and then hilariously because there's that perception that's exactly what some people do!

It's like reality itself is a fucking theme park!

Indeed speaking of theme parks does pseudo-authenticity need any basis in reality or is a sufficiently compelling fiction reality enough? So you know how there's every nationality of restaurant, open an alien restaurant that sells food (made on Earth) based on (fictional) alien recipes. I wonder if the success of such a restaurant would hinge more upon the quality/flavor of the food or the effectiveness of the marketing in bullshitting people into believing the founder might actually possibly potentially have been abducted by aliens and taught how to cook alien food.

 

[Black Rose]

I drink from a jar. Am I poor?

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

I drink from a jar. Am I poor?

Only if it's a masonjar.

 

[Cognisant]

I drink from a jar. Am I poor?

Do you use the jar because you have to or because you want to?

Your question was very confronting, but I think that confrontation is important, I think the crux of many of society's problems is that we shy away from the truth when it is unpleasant, we look for the silver linings but I think an unpleasant truth should be unpleasant both to hear and to say.

As a species we will never heal until we know where it hurts.

 

[washti]

Is this supposed to trigger someone?
here I am :-)
There was a time when Nutella jars were cool. Is the fad over?
I must have missed its end...

I think I get your point, as far as the example isn't glass vs jar. That's just silly.

Regardless, material and functional value (jar meets those criteria perfectly)aren't much considered by people who swallow up marketing stories (today that's what you are paying for mostly) and like to flex on.

Like: YOU MUST HAVE A GLASS NOT A JAR! I'M SO SORRY FOR YOU (AND FULL OF COMPASSION OMG!) IF THAT 'S THE CASE. <loads of pity>

Ppl who do this also expect you to have other 'essentials'. SOMEONE COULD VISIT AND WHAT THEY WILL THINK (ABOUT YOU)? ... They don't get that it's a blessing: 'Hopefully, it will be their last visit.'

in my book, jar users are smarter. they double on pickles and don't buy useless shit.

How about a lettuce dryer? I'm not gonna lie, if you have one, there is no respect for you, degenerate.

 

[BurnedOut]

You are only referring to authencity-objects in the light of social proofing (which sadly dominates the authenticity perception of most objects.

Actually, what is wrong with authenticity derived by social proofing? And what is not wrong with suchlike? It is a very hard question to answer which if answered can explained a lot of events in the history of mankind.

I think you that you think that authenticity's real derivation is its absolute utility and a unique selling point that persists across all contexts but then if in a particular context, its utility does not hold, does it become a mere trangam? Can you hold its authencity value emotionally if it is not giving you dopamine hits of accomplishments? Very hard to answer.

I personally think that authenticity has its own niche where it really belongs and yes, it is relative because of the way we tend to attach to things.

 

[scorpiomover]

If you're not familiar with the concept of wabi-sabi please watch this video, it's not essential to understand what I'm talking about but I think it will give you a more complete picture:

I think it is the contrast between perfection and imperfection that makes the imperfections appealing,

The French have an appreciation for this. In French films, the most physically flawless woman is usually not the woman that most of the guys are interested in. The woman most desired, is usually flawed in some way.

It's also very important to grasp, to help move on from Western perfectionism.

in many modern art galleries you will find "sculptures" that if you saw them at a dump it would never occur to you that they're meant to be art, likewise I believe more or less any item of garbage could be a sublime expression of the human condition in the context of an art gallery.

To quote the film: Ratatouille

In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto, 'Anyone can cook. ' But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist *can* come from *anywhere*.

Great art can be made from almost anything. But not everything is great art.

Being alone is fun when you're not lonely, fasting is fun when you know you can stop anytime you wish, a roller-coaster is thrilling but only because you know you are safe.

People want a kind of pseudo-authenticity, there's a fancy restaurant in my home city that serves overpriced food on cutting boards and wrapped in newspaper (not actual newspaper, that wouldn't be sanitary) and they serve their drinks in supposedly recycled glass jars which have glass handles, not handles tacked on after the fact rather these "jars" are actually purpose made mugs made to look like jars for the authenticity.

Wealth signalling and virtue signalling.

Louis Vitton luggage can cost thousands of pounds. The point of uber-expensive stuff like that, is to show off your wealth and power, which tells people (a) not to cross you, and (b) that you are a person to be dealt with nicely, as you can very easily be nice back to them.

Each of the social classes has their own version of wealth signalling.

Today, because of movements such as environmental movements, virtue signalling is also required to maintain wealth.

At the moment, owning an electric car gives people the impression that (a) you care about the environment, and (b) you have enough money to buy a more expensive car like an electric car.

If electric cars were cheap, then owning an electric car would be virtue signalling, but not wealth signalling.

In the same way, to have the cache that middle-class people seek, those recycled jars actually have to cost more than regular jars, or the customers wouldn't be wealth signalling by eating in a cheap restaurant.

You want authenticity? Go to Bangkok and eat the street food the locals eat then spend the next three days shitting your guts out and swear never to return, that's an actual authentic experience.

Am I recommending you go to Bangkok and repeat my mistake? Of course not, it's amazing that you could even think that, it was one of the worst experiences of my life and I nearly fucking died so of course I'm not telling you to do it too what the hell kind of advice would that be?

People who want authenticity and like brutal honesty, happily sit in front of a guy who criticises them constantly for an hour a day, or do something else that equally exposes the faults they want to hide from.

But nor am I saying that authenticity is overrated, rather to truly appreciate authenticity we need to do so from an inauthentic context, that for example to truly appreciate the beauty of impermanence you need to possess permanence (or at least some degree of it). For example the impermanence of a flower is easy to appreciate because they wither and die so quickly, likewise someone who has been around for 800 years is going to be much better equipped to appreciate people imperfections and all because to someone who has seen generations come and go such imperfections are merely charming expressions of individuality.

In general, most people are more complimentary about their own lifestyle than someone else's.

However, it's generally observed that when someone has been homeless for a while, they gain a whole new appreciation for having a roof over their heads, when before they were homeless, they took their home for granted.

That short time of inauthenticity gives us a fresh appreciation for the things we take for granted.

 

[Black Rose]

Do you use the jar because you have to or because you want to?

It's not a status item the OP meant. I have glasses but my mom always buys jars and we just sort of use them.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

You want authenticity? Go to Bangkok and eat the street food the locals eat then spend the next three days shitting your guts out and swear never to return, that's an actual authentic experience.

Am I recommending you go to Bangkok and repeat my mistake? Of course not, it's amazing that you could even think that, it was one of the worst experiences of my life and I nearly fucking died so of course I'm not telling you to do it too what the hell kind of advice would that be?

Based on my experience with Korean and Chinese cultures. The locals almost definitely don't eat street food, at least not the poisonous kind. Street food in poorer countries exists for the tourists and is usually an expensive, fried, overly sugary or fatty and low quality version of what the locals can make themselves if they even cook something similar to street food in the first place.

So eating street food is much closer to your fake glass jar restaurant than it is to authentic working class cuisine , though in this case you pay for a near-death experience.

 

[Cognisant]

@washti you seem to be accusing me of being fixated on jars vs glassware as somehow being the sole indicator of whether or not someone is poor, but I’m not, I’ve already explained that it could also be a matter of fashion or ecological contentiousness. The fixation is entirely yours and you admit to being triggered so I guess I hit a nerve and, well, I’m not apologizing you unironically jar using peasant

 

[EndogenousRebel]

This authenticity craze comes from the new unprecedented ability to see the context that we are in. Authenticity is very much a theme among newer generations. Marketers have been catching on, but being the broadly most educated generation, many see right through these attempts.

This one TikTok has been going around, a girl crying over her dead snake. While there were many people who I'm sure were moved, there was a lot of criticism that went around too, on TikTok itself and other social media. (this video is one I found by just searching the Tiktok, not one that appeared in my feed)

So what exactly is authentic?

Authenticity is a hard thing to hijack, and any attempt at it with any infusion and hint of alterior motive will just highlight how unauthentic something is. But then, some people won't care, and there will be a prevailing message, with some "unknown" origin that will attempt to justify and change what it means to be authentic. "Everyone grieves differently for example" It just so happens that this young lady grives in a way that gets her social media points.

Are dishes with origins from Thai made by Thai chefs for a American multinational corporations authentic?

I don't know, it's not for me to say. I think that it comes from being able to reason why something isn't authentic rather than why something is.