Jenna Wortham makes an interesting observation about apps like Snapchat and Poke in Facebook Poke and the Tedium of Success Theater. She starts off by talking about something I’ve written about quite a bit as well — that who we pretend to be online is not even close to who we really are:

We’ve become better at choreographing ourselves and showing our best sides to the screen, capturing the most flattering angle of our faces, our homes, our evenings out, our loved ones and our trips.

It’s success theater, and we’ve mastered it. We’ve gotten better at it because it matters more. You never know who is looking or how it might affect your relationships and career down the road, and as a result, we have become more cautious about the version of ourselves that we present to each other and the world.

The example most people immediately jump to when talking about this is Instagram filters — something I’ve written about before as well. It’s fascinating to think about apps like Snapchat and Poke as deliberate backlash against fake online versions of ourselves. By encouraging ephemeral, intimate, #nofilter snapshots, these apps give a more accurate reflection of “the real you”. In Wortham’s words:

These applications are the opposite of groomed; they practically require imperfection, a sloppiness and a grittiness that conveys a sense of realness, something I’ve been craving in my communication. They transform the screen of your phone into a window into the life of your friend, wherever they are at that exact moment. […]

It is an acknowledgement that the version of ourselves we share through other social media is not the truest one, and has not been for a long time.