I have been swimming in weird contradictions lately in my work, trying to understand pro-authoritarian attitude drift amongst Asian Americans at Asian American Futures, and as part of a democracy futures cohort with Democracy 2076. How are Asians, who poll SO liberal, so prone to believing regressive narratives about things like education? Why are people of color joining THAT party simply because they call them back? And something DEFINITELY not on my 2025 bingo card: hearing about queer, polyamorous conservatives?!
I love this post from Concept Bureau that explains these contradictions as a result of a new era called Post-Authenticity. I love this framing. Maybe we're not just in a time of shifting political coalitions, but maybe things already HAVE shifted, and the contradictions are a sign that things are already more solidified than I thought.
Here's what they write:
Suddenly it’s impossible to describe who a typical feminist is, where a typical Republican is from, where to draw the line between a critic and a conspiracy theorist, or how to tell the difference between an entrepreneur and a blue collar worker. In our industry, people love to talk about how the algorithm has homogenized culture but they fail to see that what it’s really done is fragment identity.
This is what post-authenticity looks like. An open embrace of weird contradictions that make it impossible to draw generalizations.
Post-authenticity feels weird because we’ve willingly flattened ourselves and each other into tidy cultural boxes for so long that we’ve forgotten that people can have moderate views, vote for more than one party, redefine their self-interests and reject the need to explain themselves to everyone else. We forgot that people have always contained multitudes, and their multitudes are where they find meaning.
Post-Authenticity demands that we shuck demographic binaries and predictably-defined identities. In the Asian American space, where I work, I often hear people call for more "nuance" in a way that implies a greater focus on underrepresented groups or more in-language research. Yes, we need this, but it's not enough. We have to stop believing that demographics predict beliefs.
Post-Authenticity calls for nuance around mindsets and beliefs--not just demographics and languages. I've tried to offer this through my research into Asian American audience archetypes and narrative message testing, or by grouping our message testing results by Harmony Labs' Narrative Observatory audiences, but it's been a tough sell. Post-Authenticity helps me understand why we need to keep digging deeper.
Post-authenticity will take some time to understand, but for now, it's a refreshing and helpful way to understand the state of our culture. Thank you to Janelle Treibitz for sharing Concept Bureau's work with me!