You’re Not Authentic, You’re Just Well-Rehearsed

Authenticity, sincerity and the beautiful lie of being yourself

The Authentic Self. Muzej Optičkih Iluzija, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hersegovina. October 2023.

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Authenticity is having a moment. A big, bloated bastard of a moment.

Once upon a time, being authentic meant something ­– probably. Now? It’s a marketing strategy, a lifestyle brand, a curated aesthetic designed to convince the world (and ourselves) that we are unfiltered, unscripted and utterly real. Be yourself. Speak your truth. Live authentically. But make sure it looks good on Instagram, yeah? Nothing says “authentic”, like a vulnerable selfie with perfect lighting and a caption about personal growth, preferably in a tasteful serif font.

We are drowning in authenticity influencers ­– people whose entire existence is built around monetising their own “realness.” The self-help grifters, the TED Talk philosophers, the TikTok confessionalists turning their latest existential crisis into engagement metrics. “I used to be fake, but now I’m real,” they say, over and over, their transformation into a fully realised human being occurring with the same regularity as seasonal rebrands. It’s the authenticity-industrial complex ­– a sprawling, self-cannibalising ouroboros of people performing their own non-performance.

The problem is: the second you try to “be authentic,” you’ve already lost.

That’s the paradox. The minute you think about being yourself, you are performing yourself. Authenticity, in its purest form, is instinctual. It happens when you’re not looking. The second you try to bottle it ­– when you shape it, refine it, tweak it for public consumption ­– it mutates into an act. And the worst part? The act still feels real.

Take a second and think: Have you ever “let your guard down” in a way that was just controlled enough to be compelling? Ever been self-deprecating because you knew it made you more likeable? Ever played up an eccentricity because it made you seem quirky rather than unhinged? Congratulations, you’re in good company. We are all frauds, clinging desperately to the illusion that we are not.

Sartre would call this bad faith: convincing yourself you’re being real while quietly editing the parts that don’t fit. Baudrillard would take it a step further, arguing that the "authentic self" is just a simulacrum, a copy of something that was never real to begin with. Of course, capitalism is in on the joke. At what point does "being yourself" just mean selling the most polished, market-friendly version of who you think you’re supposed to be?

The truth is, there’s no single “authentic self.” Just different versions: personas we slip into depending on the room, the company, the unspoken rules of the moment. The self isn’t some fixed, unchanging essence. It’s a shifting, contradictory thing, only noticeable when we try too hard to pin it down.

So, can the authentic self be insincere? Of course it can! Maybe that’s all it ever was.

The Lie – Authenticity as Performance

Face it: nobody is out there radiating pure, unadulterated authenticity. Imagine it. Someone who never adapts, never filters, never thinks hmm, maybe now’s not the time isn’t some enlightened truth-teller. They’d be a fucking menace. The kind of person who, when asked “How are you?” responds with “Spiritually bankrupt, mildly constipated, I need a wank and I am seriously considering a career in petty theft.”

Authenticity, in its mythical “pure” form, is as impractical as it is impossible. We are all performing all the time. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Consider this: The version of you that shows up at work, smiling politely through a meeting that could have been an email, is not the same guy that once sank free piss at the Uni Bar and launched into a profanity-laden rant about why “Blister in the Sun” by Violent Femmes is actually, truly, very fucken shit. Your “family gathering” self is different from your “talking to the bloke at the bakery” self, which is different from your “seductively trying to appear effortless while texting someone you fancy” self.

Which one is the real you? Trick question. They all are.

We don’t have a single, fixed self ­– we have a collection of personas we cycle through depending on the context. You wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) talk to your boss the way you talk to your dog. That’s not being “fake.” That’s being socially competent. Performance isn’t the opposite of authenticity; it’s the mechanism that allows it to exist.

Here’s where it gets interesting: If you perform something long enough, does it eventually become real?

Think about how actors, in the process of inhabiting a role, sometimes lose themselves in it. Think about how people who “fake confidence” eventually start feeling confident. Even politicians ­– the most insincere creatures that roam the earth ­– begin to believe their own bullshit after repeating it enough times.

What begins as a conscious act ­– the carefully rehearsed charm, the feigned interest, the curated persona ­– often settles into something indistinguishable from sincerity. You lean into a version of yourself so frequently that it becomes second nature. The performance seeps into the bones.

This is where things get murky. If an act becomes instinctive, does it stop being an act? If you believe your own performance, does that make it real? Or does it just mean you’ve managed to con yourself as well as everyone else?

And if authenticity is something that can be learned ­– if it can be studied, rehearsed, and refined ­– is it even authenticity anymore? Or just another carefully maintained illusion?

Maybe that’s all we’ve ever been. A series of self-mythologies performed so well that we mistake them for truth.

The Truth – Sincerity Is a Trick of the Light

Alright, so if authenticity is a performance, where does that leave sincerity? Because we like to imagine sincerity as something pure, untainted, an uncut diamond of human emotion shining in the filth of modernity. Something we can recognise instantly ­– like the difference between a genuine smile and the brittle grimace of customer service despair.

But here’s the problem: sincerity is just as slippery as authenticity, just as much of a conjuring act. Sincerity is not something you are; it’s something you project. It’s not internal ­– it’s relational. You don’t get to decide if you’re being sincere. Other people do. It’s a social currency, and like all currencies, it can be manipulated.

Again, think about politicians. The ones who get called “authentic” are usually just the ones who have mastered a particular kind of studied casualness ­– a loosened tie, a well-timed anecdote about their working-class roots, a strategic swear word in a radio interview to seem “real.” Their authenticity is as carefully manufactured as a McDonald’s burger. Yet, people fall for it. Because it feels sincere. And that’s all sincerity needs to be ­– something that looks real enough to buy into.

And it’s not just public figures. We do this shit too.

Ever "opened up" to someone, but only in a way that made you look like the misunderstood hero? Ever told a story that technically happened but got a slight rewrite to make you sound wittier, wiser or just the right amount of tragic? Ever pulled the "I’m just being honest" card when, let’s face it, you were just being a prick?

Sincerity is a trick of the light. It’s about perception, not truth. You can be utterly convinced of your own sincerity while still peddling a self-image that’s been airbrushed just enough to be palatable.

And here’s the real mindfuck: even self-deception can feel sincere.

You don’t have to know you’re lying to be full of shit, you just have to believe it. We’re all expert editors of our own life stories, trimming the awkward bits, punching up the dialogue, making sure we come off as the plucky underdog rather than the guy who jumped the gun or cut corners along the way.

So, where does that leave us? If authenticity is just a well-rehearsed act and sincerity is whatever sells in the moment, then what’s left? Are we just stuck in an endless loop of performance, self-delusion, waiting for someone to clap?

Maybe. But maybe that’s not the death sentence it sounds like. Perhaps the problem isn’t that we perform ­– it’s that we’re so desperate to pretend we don’t.

So What The Hell Do We Do?

So here we are. Authenticity is a performance. Sincerity is a mirage. The “real you” is a shifting, self-mythologising construct you only notice when it starts slipping. Congratulations ­– your entire personality is a house of cards held together by muscle memory and well-practised facial expressions.

Now what?

Well, for starters, maybe stop trying so hard to be “real.”

Because here’s the thing: the problem isn’t that we perform. The problem is that we spend so much time pretending we don’t. We cling to this naïve, childish idea that somewhere, deep inside, there’s a static, untarnished “true self” that we could unleash if only the world would let us. A self untouched by social conditioning, by circumstance, by the thousand little compromises that make us bearable to be around.

But there isn’t. That self was never real. Never has been. And honestly? Who cares. Authenticity isn’t about stripping yourself down to some raw, unfiltered essence; it’s about alignment.

Not whether you’re performing (because you are, always), but whether the performance still makes sense to you. Whether the roles you play feel like yours. Whether you can look at how you move through the world and think, "Yeah, that still tracks".

Because let’s be honest ­– you don’t want to be a purely unfiltered version of yourself. Nobody does. The unfiltered self is a fucking liability ­– impulsive, inconsistent, embarrassing, prone to shouting “YOU TOO” when a waiter says “Enjoy your meal.” The unfiltered self is who you were at fifteen ­– earnest, wildly self-important, unable to comprehend the concept of shutting up.

The goal isn’t to strip yourself down to some mythical essence. The goal is to own the mask. To understand that selfhood is a process, a negotiation, an ever-evolving set of choices about who you want to be at any given moment.

So, can the authentic self be insincere? Of course. But does it matter?

Maybe the real con isn’t in the performance ­– it’s in pretending we don’t need one.

Here’s the good news: if everything is a performance, you still get to decide how you play it. You choose what parts of yourself you lean into, what truths you tell, how much honesty, transparency, and sincerity you bring into the act. You might not have some untouchable, “real” self hidden under all the layers, but you can still decide which version of you feels the most right. And maybe, just maybe, that’s the closest thing to authenticity we’ve got.