Beyond Fluidity: Reimagining Contradiction as a Positive
Image by Beth Garrabrant from the series ‘Tweenage Landscapes’
Instagram, the social media platform that created the selfie and with it the cloying need for the adoration of strangers, turns 10 in 2020. Reflecting on almost a decade of likes, comments and the crafting of online personas and personal brands I began thinking about some of the changes we have seen in recent times, particularly in relation to how younger ‘users’ are shaping their identities both on and off social platforms.
The idea of finstas, multiple identities – real and created – is not new but I think our understanding of what it means has previously been too limited and overly simplistic.
The Coming of Age report from Havas, which looks at the behaviours of 18 to 20-year-olds in the UK, found that just half of this demographic believe that their online persona represents their whole self.
What’s more, the report explores how the popularity of finstas continues to rise – 35% have multiple profiles within the same platform. Demonstrating the way these platforms can fragment identities and allow people to try on new personalities for size, 28% say their online profile shows a completely different person.
Having multiple “identities” is not, however, just about putting one face forward to the public and different ones to your friends and family. It is much more than that. It is about an ability to live quite happily with contradiction.
“I can’t be a singular expression of myself, there’s too many parts...so many.” Solange Knowles, 2019
As The Irregular Report 2 brilliantly explains, younger generations are accepting a state of equipoise – the ability to perfectly balance different forces or interests, something older groups struggle to comprehend.
“Equipoise is what makes Gen Z better than all of us.” The Irregular Report 2
Gen Zs’ identities are multiple and in a constant state of negotiation. They occupy a world that is non-binary, multi-various and without contradictions. Members of this generation define themselves by their dislikes as much as their likes, their chosen gender as much as their birth gender, their enemies as much as their friends. One is no more valid or important than the other.
“This capacity for accepting and integrating “differences” brings us to what, in our opinion, is the most revolutionary characteristic of Gen Z: No contradictions. This is a generation that simply does not see them. Gen Z have absolutely no difficulty reconciling what you might see as “differences” within each of their identities and beyond.” The Irregular Report 2
Why does this matter?
For the most part as brand leaders and marketers you are not Gen Z and yet you are trying to communicate with this powerful group*, a group which frames and experiences the world in a fundamentally different way to yours. You have no hope of succeeding without spending real time in their world(s) – this takes energy and effort and a commitment to unlearning.
*Gen Z has a purchasing capacity of $143bn and will command 40% of all consumer shopping by 2020
Helen Job, Head of Insight at TCO Lab