I’m Perceived Therefore I am
Self-commodification, and Generation Z’s 21st Century Perception of Individuality
Similar to most people, I began to explore my identity in my early teenage years, around the time when most adolescents begin to feel like they are becoming people; with this typically comes the desire to be perceived and find community amongst people we feel aligned with. This desire certainly isn't new, as previous generations have had this formative experience. However, compared to prior generations, I and my peers (Generation Z) have a new and unique experience in regard to the exploration of identity, mainly due to the highly accessible and widespread use of social media amongst my generation. As I began dressing how I wanted to dress, listening to the kind of music I wanted to listen to, and engaging with the media I wanted to engage in, I began to immerse myself in different subcultures or seemingly niche groups in hopes of seeking refuge in online communities with people who share my interests.
Taking to the internet with the desire to be perceived being the fuel behind each of my searches that probably ended with core or aesthetic, I found myself trying to fit in certain molds to be perceived as a particular type of person. I felt immense pressure from the internet when engaging in subcultures similar to grunge or goth communities; I felt required to watch these ten films, dress this certain way, and listen to particular artists. I was overwhelmed by all the excessive labeling and was oversaturated with possibilities of who I could be; even with all the possibilities, I felt as though I was a caricature of an identity, rather than my authentic self. I was posing on the internet as who I wanted to be perceived as, rather than who I actually was.
I began to ask myself, why? This experience was not exclusive to just me. I observed my friends and my peer group as a whole doing the same thing. I started my research in search of an answer and what I came across was, surprisingly, not something I could have foretold: heightened surveillance. Now more than ever the possibility of being perceived has significantly increased whether that be someone looking at my online profile or watching me through their at-home surveillance systems.
We are being watched whether that be via social media, surveillance cameras catching us walking into a store, or in the background of some stranger's photo.
Approximately 97% of Americans have a smartphone which is always 325 million possible sets of eyes on us in the digital world. Roughly 93% of Gen Z use/post on social media. That is nearly an entire generation that can watch each other's every move. Besides interpersonal surveillance, there is the everyday surveillance that is so normalized we are rarely aware of it, such as 51 million homes having at-home surveillance systems, 80% of Americans sharing their location, and approximately 85 million CCTV cameras watching Americans. We are being watched whether that be via social media, surveillance cameras catching us walking into a store, or in the background of some stranger's photo. We exist within the digital world whether we like it or not.
This identity phenomenon and its connection to increased surveillance did not appear overnight. The portrayal of heightened surveillance in dystopian narratives amped up conversations of surveillance and identity in the 20th century in such works as Brave New World and 1984, were intensified by various narratives in the 21st century in works such as Black Mirror, Doctor Who, and The Hunger Games, and permeated into contemporary narratives such as Barbie.
The conversation around surveillance has been ever-evolving and adapting in relation to the media in which surveillance occurs; for example, the ubiquitous use of social media in our contemporary digital world. For some, when they hear the words “surveillance culture,” their thoughts may automatically go to the 1984-esque idea of surveillance which depicts a society that fears being surveilled, a society in which the government is blatantly surveilling its citizens. Though 1984 is a cornerstone of this conversation and brought this idea to wider attention, we seem to have moved past this fear. We have acquiesced, perhaps even succumbed, to constant surveillance. Gen Z seems to be doing the inverse of the surveillance depicted in 1984—they are surveilling themselves. Modern surveillance is the exploitation of ourselves. Self-surveillance is the commodification of human experience into a sellable consumable package stemming from the desire to be seen and perceived in an oversaturated digital world.
[Foucault] created the terms internalized authority and prison of the mind which refer to changing our behavior based on the belief that we are being watched
The idea of self-surveillance has its roots in the panopticonEd. Note: The Britannicapage for the Panopticon, a structure that has become infamous in this conversation. The panopticon, created by the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Betham in the early 1700s, was originally conceived of as an actual functioning prison system with one central observation tower with one watchman surrounded by prison cells. The purpose of this was for the prisoners to never know whether they were being watched. Later in the 1970s, Michel Foucault brought the idea to wider attention, discussing it as a metaphor. He created the terms internalized authority and prison of the mindEd. Note: The Brown Universitypage for the Internalized Authority and Prison of the Mind, which refer to changing our behavior based on the belief that we are being watched: “Foucault continues to reign supreme in surveillance studies and perhaps it’s time to cut the head off the king” (Haggerty, 2006, p. 27). In the article “The Post-Panoptic Society? Reassessing Foucault in Surveillance Studies,” Haggerty takes Foucault to task by discussing the discourse around the continued use of Foucault’s panopticon in a new world, socially and technologically. Though Foucault created a useful foundation for surveillance research, we do live in an entirely different world than Foucault, Bentham, or Orwell could have imagined. Our world is digital, thus shifting the panoptic lens.
Within the digital panopticon, the watchman is the idea of someone, the possibility of someone, viewing our online profiles. What still rings true across both versions of the panopticon is its effect on the prisoners (social media users). Due to the possibility of being perceived, people tend to change their behavior based on the belief they are being watched. Central to discussions of a digital panopticon are two key terms: hyper-perceptibility and possibility of scrutiny. Hyper-perceptibility is where anywhere can be a watchman at all times, and the possibility of scrutiny is the fear of being judged or ridiculed for not behaving in an acceptable manner, causing people to conform to the norms. The heightened possibility of potential perceptibility and the possibility of scrutiny causes Gen Z to commodify and self-mythologize their identity to be easily digestible to consumers (their peers).
Enmeshed with the digital panopticon comes the digital identity. A digital identity refers to the pixelated 2D version of ourselves spread across various social media platforms, where the different social media apps, and their various uses, create a digital version of each of us, where Instagram becomes our face or lifestyle, where Twitter is our words, Pinterest is our interest, and Spotify our music taste. One effect of digital identity is self-mythologizing:Ed. Note: The Daily Stoapage on Self-Mythologizing creating a larger-than-life image of ourselves which is also known as “self-branding.” Online, so much of ourselves can be seen by a vast and potentially expanding audience, an audience people never had access to before the mobile web. This may suggest the possibility of crafting a grand narrative within the gap, one that bridges our online persona and the evolving self. We tend to mythologize ordinary life, and we do so in a way that was once only seen in Hollywood, where celebrities through their legacy, through film or music, were immortalized in the world. That was not something done by ordinary everyday people—until now.
The more people interact with a post and the more engagement the creator receives, big data systems can know about each of us, and in turn allowing companies to use our information to send targeted ads, maintaining confirmation bias
An interesting paradox has arisen. Gen Z is constantly oversaturated with possibilities when it comes to their individualism, enabling a sense of agency over who they are; however, due to their awareness of surveillance and what surveillance entails, they contribute to the realization of conformity and fall victim to a modified version of Chomsky’s manufactured consent. Chomsky's manufactured consent, the idea that mass communication media manages public opinion through the manufacturing of false choices to force ideologies, can be seen in social media through targeted ads that create echo chambers of discourse resulting in intentional division. The more people interact with a post and the more engagement the creator receives, big data systems can know about each of us, and in turn allowing companies to use our information to send targeted ads, maintaining confirmation bias. This manufactured consent forces our hand and creates an illusion of choice about individual differences of opinion.
Dystopian narrative novels of the 20th century demonstrate manufactured consent and the illusion of choice such consent causes. Within Fahrenheit 451, the government exercises control over society by suppressing and censoring literature. Controlling the flow of information and limiting intellectual freedom, the government effectively manufactures consent, shaping society according to its own agenda and suppressing dissenting voices, giving citizens an illusion of choice. Concerning the illusion of choice, instead of blatant surveillance like in 1984, the government in Brave New World controls the populous in a more insidious way. From birth, citizens are victims of a strict caste system that controls every aspect of a person's life all the way to their likes and dislikes. The population is kept happy and distracted by the oversaturation of various forms of entertainment and drugs to keep them from facing the harsh realities of their highly surveillant world. All of the citizens within the novel have a false belief that they are content and are individuals.
The popularization of a reality game show about surveilling participants inspired by a cautionary narrative warning about the dangers of being surveilled began the normalization of surveillance on a more grand and blatant scale.
Doctor Who’s “The Long Game” Ed. Note: The Tardis Wikipage about the episodehas explicit commentary on surveillance that directly aligns with the themes of the illusion of choice and oversaturation of media; however, there is an underlying plot point that underscores a more subtle, yet obvious way in which surveillance is normalized and depicted within the narrative and reflected in the world. Within the episode, the 9th Doctor and Rose have traveled forward in time to the year 200,000 and landed aboard Satellite 5, a space station in Earth’s orbit during the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Satellite 5 broadcasts six hundred channels of constant news reports and reality television throughout the empire. People are picked off Earth at random and teleported to Satellite 5 where they must participate in various reality TV show games where they must try to be as entertaining as possible and liked by the viewers to stay in the game. If they lose, they die. This episode aired in 2005, and it directly reflects the world at the time, as reality television became globally popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the success of the Big Brother franchise. The popularization of a reality game show about surveilling participants inspired by a cautionary narrative warning about the dangers of being surveilled began the normalization of surveillance on a more grand and blatant scale.
A narrative that depicts more contemporary technological concerns is Black Mirror’s “Nosedive”Ed. Note: The IMBDpage about the episode. The main character Lacie Pound navigates a world where people rate each other after every interaction, and the rating determines opportunity and relationship. Within the episode, everyone is a content creator creating a sense of false interconnectedness within communities, as no one is authentically themselves. In our current digital age, we see this all the time as most people have or use social media and if we post on social media, we are content creators. The idea of a rating system may be farfetched to many Americans, but a nearly identical system was implemented by the Chinese government in 2020 called Social Credit”Ed. Note: The MIT page on social credit.. Social Credit assesses individuals' credit scores based on various factors including financial behavior, social connections, and online activity. If a Chinese citizen is friends with someone with a lower rating, their own rating will drop, creating false interconnectedness as people will manufacture artificial relationships with one another to improve their score. Conspicuous consumption is a byproduct of interpersonal surveillance in the Black Mirror episode, depicted by the characters' need to take pictures of what they own in hopes of getting a higher rating. Currently, the social credit system in China has intensified 1984’s conspicuous consumption, of ideas and things, to connect with being a good citizen.
The Barbie movie depicts conspicuous consumption in a way that is more focused on identity rather than perception. Barbie’s identity as a “type of girl” is based on the things she buys that make her, her. The Barbies in Barbie Land have a false idea of what makes an individual: they categorize themselves based on what they own. What they own and what they wear is a public spectacle of identity, and, further, their homes in Barbie Land are open walled, revealing those material items on continual display. This form of display is seen time and time again on social media, especially among young women, and the excessive labeling of the specific type of girl they are. Such display offers another example of the emergence of self-branding as a product of surveillance.
As Americans, we are the citizens of the Capitol, victims of an over-consumerist society that has an illusion of individuality manufactured by the government.
The Hunger Games depicts the exploitation of an individual to prove their existence. The Capitol maintains its control over the 12 districts by forcing them each to select tributes to compete in a nationally televised event called the Hunger Games. Every citizen must watch as the youths fight to the death until only one remains. The Hunger Games is done to keep order within the districts and as entertainment for people in the Capitol. Tributes must become a brand so people of the Capitol can send them donations, giving them an advantage in the Games. The citizens of the Capitol view the Hunger Games as a reality show. It’s not only the exploitation of an individual to prove existence but also a rationale for why the games should continue. Generation Z and the “main character syndrome”Ed. Note: The Cleveland Clinicpage on main-character-syndromes may lead them to want to be Katniss Everdeen, an individual who stands out of the crowd and fights the good fight against fascism and conformity. However, as Americans, we cannot be Katniss Everdeen. As Americans, we are the citizens of the Capitol, victims of an over-consumerist society that has an illusion of individuality manufactured by the government. Katniss Everdeen is not the Mockingjay because she wants to be perceived as a hero, she is the Mockingjay because she was forced to become a hero.
The Hunger Games is one of the most influential dystopian narratives among Generation Z. Generation Z views The Hunger Games as commentary and is aware of the implications of the heightened surveillance within the film. However, still with this knowledge they continue to unwittingly contribute to the evitable realization of the future feared within the dystopian narratives they consume. This then raises a significant question not only for the current younger generations, but more so for those generations that soon follow, and this question perhaps defies the worldview of older generations, but one which is soundly part of the younger generations: Can we live a modern life in the modern world that is infiltrated and surveilled by a digital panopticon while not being subsumed by that panopticon? Whether or not we can, it is important to be aware of our hyper-surveillance state, for our awareness may allow us to avoid a power imbalance caused by ignorance of our succumbence to the future we have feared since the dawn of the idea of surveillance. So, stay aware because…Big Brother is watching.
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