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After Authenticity (2018)
Under authenticity, the value of a thing decreases as more and more people like it. This is clearly no longer the case.
Recently, Venkatesh Rao has put a name to the insipid version of this aesthetic visible in the commodity detritus left over from the rampage through major US cities as clueless brand strategists discovered authenticity five years too late: “ premium mediocre.” The enthusiastic and notably global response to his essay suggests that awareness of exactly what has happened is finally dawning on mainstream culture. Among many other major international cities, the Shoreditch area of London developed its own version of Contemporary Conformism, as did Daikanyama in Tokyo (where the “Brooklyn” brand possesses cultural cachet as an update to the Americana aesthetic Japanese subcultures have fetishized for 70 years). Unfortunately, when your new WeWork office displays the same hand-lettered signage as your neighborhood coffee shop, has the same brick walls as your fast casual farm-to-table lunch spot, and advocates the same “do what you love” message celebrity entrepreneurs have told you since grade school, it becomes impossible to think outside of authenticity politics.
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