Would Jean-Paul Sartre like BeReal?
Words by Billie Angus (they/she)
Existentialism is not just your Sunday crisis at 3 a.m. It’s the weekend comedown: you have to go to work tomorrow, you’re out of frozen dumplings, you’re spiralling. Nothing matters, nothing has any meaning, you have no purpose. To the existentialists, this is great!
Existentialism is a popular philosophy, first coined in the 1940s. The internet is threatening to make existentialism dated and obsolete. So why not imagine how the existentialists themselves would use the internet?
French philosophers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre believed we’re born first and make up who we are later (oddly reminiscent of notable oil fracker RuPaul’s “We’re all born naked, and the rest is drag...”). We’re then consumed with the problem of trying to live authentically in a war-torn, ever-modernising world. Existentialism believes we should stop letting others tell us what we are and how to live, and fight for the rights for everyone to do the same.
Beauvoir believed authenticity was synonymous with freedom. Her magnum opus, The Second Sex (1949), detailed how women (gender, as a term, only started being used years later) were considered secondary to men. She believed only once we were truly free from the effects of the patriarchy would we be able to begin to live authentically. This was later extended to cover all forms of oppression, including, unfortunately, signing a petition to lower the age of consent in France, believing children should be free too. Whoops.
Sartre was an incredibly anxious man, and focused more on how others viewed him. His most famous example of the concept he coined “bad faith” comes from his book Being and Nothingness (1943), describing a waiter. Since the waiter’s movements are too precise, it’s almost as if he was playing a role, trying to convince himself he is a waiter, nothing more. Satre believes to avoid bad faith we need to accept everything we do is a choice we make.
These two are not the only existentialists, but they are the most famous, and their ideas are still relevant. Social media has become completely inauthentic. But can we fix it? How can we authentically use Instagram, Twitter (I refuse to call it X), or even BeReal?
1. Authenticity is not synonymous with the absence of privacy.
Being authentic on Instagram doesn’t have to mean pictures of your sink filled with dirty dishes. Authenticity is not sharing every single aspect of your life with the public. I would encourage you to do the opposite. Social media wants you to post more so they can advertise to you more effectively. Existentialism encourages us to take our lives into our own hands, rather than blindly following what you’re told. You don’t “have to” post anything, and should feel okay keeping some things to yourself. Unfortunately, this means BeReal is off the table, as it forces you to post your environment at a specific time!
2. Authenticity is not permission to be hateful.
Just because that’s what transphobes think, does not mean they should use their platform to share it. We can only be authentic once we’re free from oppression, and our social media platforms need to be free from it too. People like to use free speech as an excuse to be bigoted, but bigotry is a form of oppression, especially when it cultivates negative attitudes towards those trying to live their lives authentically. Think twice before responding to a transphobic Facebook post, as it further amplifies their voice. Try blocking it instead. Negativity thrives off of attention. Give it none.
3. Authenticity is not marketed.
This one is more of my push for you to install ad-block on every single device you own. Beauvoir believed capitalism is a distraction that doesn’t allow us to be authentic. We’re bombarded with ads every moment of every day, telling us what to eat, wear, buy, and even think. How are you supposed to figure out what makes you your own person when you’re being sold an image of how you should be? I never felt bad about my hairy legs until I saw one too many razor ads as a tween. We can never be truly authentic under social media sites plastering ads everywhere we look.
The existentialists would tell us to rebel. Forget about engagement, likes, and followers, and post about the stuff you find interesting or don’t post at all. Use platforms in the way you want, rather than the designated way the companies want you to make money. And please, for me at least, install ad-block.