This is part 2 of an unfinished conversation in a blog called Unfinished Conversations. How very meta, lol. Read part 1 here.
I turn thirty in a couple of weeks.
I haven’t spent much time thinking about it — mostly because my twenties didn’t leave me with much to reflect on. No neat ending, no sense of arrival. Just a decade that blurred into the next, unfinished. I know I’m not the only one. The mess of the last several years (pandemic, lockdowns, a shaky economy) has left most people my age feeling slightly confused.
I go back and forth between accepting my thirties for what they are and feeling quietly resentful about what I’m leaving behind. And nowhere does this back-and-forth feel more immediate than when I’m scrolling through Instagram.
And since I see no point in suffering alone, I’m taking y’all with me for the ride.
It’ll be fun, I promise.
The amplification of identity in the digital age
The person you choose to be online probably doesn’t feel like a big decision most of the time. You post what you feel like, skip what you don’t, maybe share a meme, maybe go quiet for a few months — it feels casual. But even when it doesn’t seem that serious, it kind of is. You’re still deciding how you want to show up, what you’re okay with people seeing, and what you’d rather keep to yourself. Whether you’re posting all the time or barely at all, those habits do say something. Not in a big, over-the-top way, but quietly, they reveal how you see yourself and what parts of you feel safe to put out there.
I’ve always found it interesting how the people who post the least — like that random guy you follow who’s got, what, three posts since 2016? — are usually the ones who think the most about what they’re sharing. Those posts (or the choice not to post) are rarely casual.
They’re thought through, probably overthought, and definitely more intentional than they seem. We treat these spaces like they’re just for fun, but they always carry a little more weight than we like to admit.
According to Qulture Agency, “Identity is about more than how you look; it’s about who you are. Our identity is how we want the world to see us and how we see ourselves. With most of us now spending 8 hours a day online, who we are is being amplified through our avatars, social posts, and profile pictures.”
If you existed online in the early 2000s, it was probably on email, MSN, or platforms like MySpace that allowed you to choose a username, which created a sense of anonymity. But in 2006, Mark Zuckerberg pulled a move on us all by forcing us to use our real names on Facebook. It was like he took our actual selves and glued them to our online personas.
Sure, it made sense then, but it was a significant shift because now, our online profiles follow us around like loyal shadows.
What choices do millennials make online?
In my last blog, I got into the whole thing about the millennial pause and a few other little internet habits that make us so painfully, unmistakably millennial. But underneath those surface-level quirks, there’s a bigger pattern I can’t really ignore.
Millennials — myself included, obviously — have this thing where we try a little too hard to appear put together online. Not saying every single one of us, but it’s there. Even if we pretend it’s not.
We put a lot of effort into how we show up. Picking the best pictures, thinking too much about captions, making sure everything looks like we’ve got it together. We didn’t really post unless it felt like it was worth it. And if you think about it, that’s kind of how we were taught to do things.
We didn’t grow up with “normal” online spaces. The stuff we watched growing up wasn’t casual or messy — it was over-the-top. Reality TV was supposed to feel real, but it never actually was. It was dramatic, competitive, all about winning or losing, getting it right or getting roasted on national TV. There was no middle ground.
So when social media came around, I think we just copied that without even realizing. If you were going to post something, it better be good. Like, really good. Because people were watching, and you didn’t want to mess it up.
Basically, we took what we knew — which was “always look polished” — and ran with it.
And honestly, it worked until it started feeling exhausting. Until it felt like we’d built these perfect little versions of ourselves, and then got stuck inside them. Suddenly, posting wasn’t fun anymore. It was a task. You couldn’t just share something random or silly without feeling like you were messing up your whole “image.”
People love to say it’s the younger crowd who are obsessed with performing online. And yeah, fair enough — they are the ones doing the most dance challenges.
But if we’re being really honest, I think millennials kind of set the stage for all this way before Gen Z showed up. We were the ones who went all in on the whole “look perfect at all times” thing. Like, we took that personally.
As the internet started to feel more and more connected to our actual identities, it just got harder to let go of that. Keeping it all together, making sure everything looked polished — it quietly turned into a full-time job. Without meaning to, we basically raised the bar so high that even we couldn’t keep up with it anymore.
And at some point, it just started to feel like too much. It’s no surprise that the generation who grew up under that kind of pressure eventually got tired of it and started to push back.
But what actually changed? I keep coming back to that.
What led to the change?
There’s a longstanding rule in social media called the 90-9-1 rule:
90% of users are lurkers who never contribute (yeah, the rule literally calls them lurkers, harsh but okay)
9% of users contribute sometimes
And 1% of users account for almost all the content posted
Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter – all these platforms have constantly been nudging people to create. From Facebook and Twitter’s ‘What’s on your mind?’ status bar to Instagram driving people to make reels with its practically done-for-you template.
Then TikTok showed up and kind of blew all of that out of the water. More than half of TikTok users actually make content. 55% of TikTok users are ‘content creators.’
It’s a shift from people watching stuff on the internet to people creating stuff on the internet. It’s participatory. It’s a transition from consumer to creator. This is of massive importance! In fact, it gives me the confidence to go from reading other people’s amazing blogs to writing an arguably average one myself.
So what is TikTok’s content creation culture like? TikTok promised something different from the platforms that came before it. It became a space where a disillusioned younger generation embraced imperfection and irreverence over Instagram’s obsession with styling. TikTok content is everything that Instagram content is not.
Tiktok videos are scrappy. They don’t feel engineered or optimized. They scream genuine, in-the-moment, and they’re convincingly human. This isn’t a byproduct of TikTok, it’s the whole point of the app itself. And it appeals to Gen Z for this exact reason.
The choices Gen Z makes online are different.
Now, if you’re not one of the kids on the internet anymore, you might wonder: Does ‘keeping up’ honestly matter? Why must we bother keeping up with the times if they’re always a-changing?
If you’re not exactly one of the kids on the internet anymore, you might wonder if any of this is even worth paying attention to. Like, does it really matter? Are we seriously expected to keep up with trends that change every other week?
And honestly, I get that. I really do. It’s completely fair to not care about what’s trending on TikTok, or what’s being debated on Vox or Refinery29, or what your neighbor’s college-age cousin is screaming into the void.
You’re well within your rights to sit it out.
But personally, I like keeping an eye on it — partly for fun, partly to see where things are heading. There’s something about it that feels like a useful pulse check. And maybe that’s because I sit awkwardly close to the generational cut-off points, where I still feel connected to what’s coming next, but not so close that I’m fully in it.
Gen Z is already here, anyway. They’re in the workforce, in our families, shaping conversations, and they’re only going to get louder. So even if you don’t want to let them dictate how you move through the world, it feels worth at least paying attention.
At the very least, so we don’t make the same mistake older generations made with us, brushing it all off like it doesn’t matter.
So yes, I care about what Gen Z has to say about where the internet culture is headed. I may or may not care enough to let it influence how I act, but I’m keen on the commentary. And here’s what the commentary says: Gen Z is all about authenticity.
Let’s unpack this authenticity thing
Especially since regular folks, businesses, actors, influencers, and their cats and canines are all trying to be more authentic online. I’ve noticed an Instagram trend recently, and I didn’t know what it was called – it’s the thing where people put up a bunch of random pictures, some good, some weird, and blurry. I learned that they’re called ‘photo dumps.’
A carousel of low-key candids, maybe a meme to show some personality. A sunflower. Clouds. An effortless selfie in the middle. They point to throwaway moments curated in a random sequence to provide a peeky-peek into one’s recent life events. Photo dumps are a rejection of perfect Instagram grids and flawless pictures, and I love them.
Photo dumps are actually part of a larger, well-documented trend called ‘Casual Instagram.’ Casual Instagram is a deliberate move away from perfection and performance. It’s all about in-the-moment, unfiltered, unedited glimpses into someone’s life. Sounds super refreshing.
But is authenticity online even achievable, whether it’s TikTok or Instagram?
We say someone’s “authentic” when they’re being themselves. Not trying too hard. Not putting on a show. But now being low-effort has kind of become the show. Like, influencers are getting applauded for posting unfiltered selfies, or showing their laundry pile, or saying “lol I cried today” which is great! But also –– kind of weird that it takes that much effort to look like you’re not putting in any effort.
So then we have to ask: why are we all so into this? Why do we keep trying to prove we’re real people on an app designed to flatten us into ✨aesthetic content units✨?
And how did Gen Z get branded as the ambassadors of authenticity when literally everyone is using a filter that gives them baby deer eyes and lashes longer than their patience?
Authenticity is a fluid and evolving social construct that I’m still figuring out for myself daily. Still, with the little I understand, I know it can hardly be mediated through something as shallow and two-dimensional as a social media app.
I think this preoccupation with authenticity more likely points to our anxieties about how the internet eats away at our sense of self. That may be why we’re actively trying to drive home the message: This is who I am. This is what I like. This is what I stand for.
But this begs the question: Why are we so inclined to document ourselves on a commodified social media platform to prove what we already know? And since the internet flattens out most nuance, why do we care about authenticity online at all?
I’m asking too many annoying questions, I can sense it as I type them out. Here’s a comic.
Meet social media’s performative authenticity. Or AuthenticityLiteTM
Most millennials I know quietly poke fun at people that post silly dancing reels. Accounts like Influencers in the Wild highlight the ridiculous and bizarre behavior that people are comfortable with for the sake of good content. Or just content.
But once you get past the jokes, you realize that the people laughing at these ‘influencers in the wild’ are sometimes the ones that spend hours consuming their content.
We’re just too self-conscious to ever imagine being that out there ourselves. And honestly, it doesn’t even have to be dancing. It could be anything.
Most people I know (myself absolutely included) will overthink our way out of posting anything remotely unfiltered. We stick to safe bets — like posting memes that sort-of hint at our personality.
I sometimes get the feeling that we take ourselves way too seriously online. It’s not a good thing or a bad thing – it’s just an observation. I’m not here to discuss why we should or shouldn’t give people online access to our lives, I’m discussing why those that don’t-don’t and why those do-do.
As a former don’t-don’t that’s now a doodoo, what held me back from writing more freely online was the burden of having to be the ✅best at it✅. Everything I wrote HAD to make readers laugh and cry and call their ex all at the same time and the pressure was just too much. I was taking myself too seriously.
Meanwhile, people who grew up with social media seem to treat it more like a toy than a stage. They’re not so caught up in building a perfect version of themselves because, for them, the internet was never new or scary — it was just… normal. While millennials merely adopted social media, Gen Z was born into it, molded by it.
For them, digital is mainstream, which is where authenticity actually gets a little murky. If millennials are called out for self-consciousness, performative posting, and trying too hard, Gen Z knows all the dance moves to authenticity, which means it still is – a performance. They don’t use performative authenticity for the same reasons as millennials, but they use it with the same intent:
We were taught: You can’t fail if you do everything right.
They learned: You can’t fail if you never really try.
Same performance, different costume.
Personas vs. people
If you grew up watching American Idol or any kind of reality TV especially in the early 2000s, you’ll understand the parallel I’m making here. We know it’s all staged. The editing, the backstory montages, the dramatic lighting during eliminations. We know there’s a production team pulling the strings. But when we’re watching, we just go along with it. Because it’s fun. And because pretending it’s real somehow makes it feel better.
Same thing with social media. Don’t get me wrong, I actually think the push for more authenticity online is a good thing. It’s important for people to feel like they can show up as themselves, however messy or unpolished that looks. I’m figuring it out too. But there’s a fine line between being authentic and looking like you’re being authentic, and honestly, the internet doesn’t always make that line easy to see.
I learned this the hard way.
I spent most of 2022 pregnant, and in a rare departure from my usual online behavior, I decided to be more open about my experience with it. Partly because I felt lonely and wanted to connect with people going through something similar, but mostly because I was terrified and needed an outlet for those feelings (you can read about my extreme dislike for these in-between or liminal spaces!)
Anyone that has followed me for a while (and paid a pointless amount of attention to my online activities) would’ve noticed the change in how and what I communicated. I poured my heart and soul out in posts like this one, and this one, and especially this one – sharing everything from my fears of becoming a mother, to my daughter’s birth and how I felt about my postpartum body.
I was surprised to find that people, strangers even, were incredibly kind and receptive to this honesty. I connected with the most wonderful parents that helped me navigate everything from packing a hospital bag to breastfeeding and coping with the unexpected. I found people I could talk to at 3 am when nobody apart from other nocturnal mothers were awake. It was an amazing experience, one that I’m grateful for to this day.
But it also made me question my authenticity more candidly. As I shared my postpartum journey, I struggled with the same murky questions that haunt anyone trying to be authentic online. What was my goal? Was it to inspire, to make people happy, to share my life, or to seek support?
And how do you even talk about motherhood — which, let’s be real, is pure chaos most days — without sounding smug when it’s good, or like you’re fishing for pity when it’s hard? Motherhood is a non-linear journey that makes it impossible to present a consistent picture of your life online. So many moments are wonderful, but others are downright brutal. It takes resilience and patience to handle it, but how do you talk about that without sounding preachy?
What I do know is that it’s way too easy to make snap judgments about people based on their online selves. We scroll past someone’s pretty profile picture or carefully written caption and think we’ve got them figured out. But behind every post is an actual person, living through all the messy, beautiful, complicated stuff that never fully fits in a square frame.
We’ve all been guilty of making assumptions based on someone’s online persona, and we miss out on many opportunities to connect with truly beautiful people because of it. The personas may be curated, but people are always real. It’s easy to forget that behind every pretty profile picture and witty caption is a real person with real-life experiences that are varied and colorful, like this comic that I relate to on a spiritual level.
So now, especially since starting this blog, I’ve kind of landed on my own version of AuthenticityLite. It’s not perfect (obviously), but it feels manageable. Low-pressure enough that I can keep showing up without stressing about what I’m going to say. Which honestly, is progress.
But even this so-called “lite” version keeps reminding me how complicated it all is. Like, being genuinely real online? It’s so much harder than it looks. Not because I’m a millennial. Not because of algorithms or whatever generational baggage we’ve all packed. Just because I’m a person. And people are complicated.
I still catch myself overthinking everything. Am I oversharing? Am I undersharing? Do I sound like I’m trying too hard not to try too hard? Have I quietly turned my life into content? (Honestly? Probably.) Is anyone even paying this much attention, or is it just me in here, overthinking in circles?
No clue.
Sometimes it feels like we’re all just throwing stuff into the void, hoping people see us the way we want to be seen — or maybe just hoping they see us at all.
I know I’m constantly carrying around this scrambled sense of self, shaped a little too much by the apps I use every day. And maybe we’ve just kind of accepted that the line between who we are and how we perform has totally blurred. Maybe it was always blurry. I don’t know.
What I do know is: I’m still figuring it out. And maybe I’ll never fully figure it out. I don’t think that’s even the goal. The goal is to stay in the weird in-between. Ask the questions. Keep the conversation unfinished.
That part, at least, I feel pretty sure about.
More reading if you’re interested!
A Guide to Gen Z Through TikTok Trends, Emojis, & Language
Gen Z vs. millennials: Why TikTok hates skinny jeans and side parts – Vox
Everything is trending all at once on TikTok. – Vox
Marketers continue to chase ‘authenticity,’ but what is it? – Digiday
“Who Are We Anyway?”- Performative Authenticity | by Laura Díaz de Arce
The Instagram Aesthetic Is Over
Is TikTok setting the scene for music on social media? – GWI
Everybody Hates Millennials: Gen Z and the TikTok Generation Wars | The Walrus
Memento Millenial – Ayesha A. Siddiqi
Unfinished Conversations 
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