Being ‘Real’ Online: Where Does Authenticity Still Live?

Can we be truly authentic when we’re always performing—even without meaning to?

As Eugene Healey writes in The Guardian (“Gen Z and Gen Alpha brought a raw, messy aesthetic to social media. Why does it feel as inauthentic as ever?”), younger generations made a sincere effort to break away from the filtered perfection of early social media.

Gen Z and Alpha turned to chaos—photo dumps, oversharing, emotional honesty—not as a trend at first, but as a real attempt to be more human online.

In some ways, they responded to the digital world better than older generations did. Those of us who grew up without social media had no framework to resist its demands.

When it arrived, we adapted quickly, and often unconsciously, into the logic of curation and performance. Gen Z and Alpha at least tried to challenge that, but even their “messiness” became an aesthetic—another way of performing.

Before all this, taking a photo was rare unless you were a photographer. A Polaroid here and there, or a film roll you didn’t develop for weeks. You weren’t living for the camera. You just lived.

Now, even platforms like LinkedIn feel like stages. We craft every post, every comment, every version of ourselves with an audience in mind. It’s not necessarily dishonest—but it’s not unfiltered either. Digital identity is something we all manage, whether we admit it or not. the question for me is:

How can we have real conversations—negotiations, debates, even court hearings—when everything is shaped by how it might be seen, saved, or shared?

How do we build trust whitout feeling we are always half-performing?

Maybe authenticity today isn’t about trying harder to appear “real” online, but about stepping back from performance when we can—valuing the quiet, unrecorded moments.

It’s also about how we recognise it in one another: how we speak without scripting, how we listen without waiting to reply, how others show genuine reactions, unfiltered feedback, and engage without trying to impress.

Realness now is found in consistency, in honest pauses, and in the courage to be present without polish.

Are we still making space for that?

Because that may be where trust—and truth—still live.

Where do we find it?