The Cosmetic Class

Hopefully this is a sign that this generation is forming its identity and ready to express it with some real cultural movements! I’ve been waiting eagerly for their cultural identity to emerge and express itself with authentic art, music, film, etc.

However, I also find the essay ironic. When the Internet first went mainstream, one phenomenon was “the lurker” - the fact that most, the mass majority, of internet users only “consumed content” (although, back then it wasn’t called content). That’s because few of us felt confident enough to claim enough expertise to share much. Therefore, most of us just “lurked”. We let the experts speak, and we indulged in surfing on their knowledge.

In this “Instagram era”, though, everyone is expected to be a “content creator”. (e.g. everyone has a github!) But, to be one, one unfortunately misses out on a long history of prior work. One gets so bogged down by creating new content and reading all of the new content created within the previous few hours, that much of the past 108 years of knowledge and wisdom isn’t fully accessible. And, although the author seems to try to escape that vortex, they also seem to have ignored that they’re mostly reinventing ideas that were created between McLuhan and 2010.

But, that is ok! I actually read the whole thing and enjoyed it (because it also kinda reminded me of reading Zines). Yeah, as others have said, it could use some editing, but at least it has paragraphs!

> The truth, then, is this: our generation was raised with the understanding that the image we portrayed mattered more than who we actually were not out of some malevolent, externally imposed agenda, but because it was actually true. The result was that nothing we ever did felt organic; instead, everything felt like a checked box.

As every generation before? Why even speak about generation here? This seems like an absurd reduction from the author, while this is the kind of thing you learn to recognize as you age and you start seeing the word with your own eyes. Most people becomes disillusioned as time goes on, seeing how much public action is fake.

A much more interesting analysis would be to show how the new engaging platforms distord this longstanding social behavior (signaling), amplifying it or distording it. But to say that they are an "Instagram" generation is giving far too much credit to Instagram. The world was not "disrupted" by Instagram, it was only a lens and a way to capitalize on this behavior.

I could go on with the "lost authenticity", but I feel I'm just trying to justify the time taken to read this empty piece.

This must be the best description of fb/insta mechanics.

Yes, they can solve whatever tricky questions you throw at them because they've lots of experience working on low level stuff.

People's eyes are so used to Instagram people that they think less attractive people are less healthy so they'll not be good at problem solving which takes great genes. This is what most have concluded from Instagram photos of bodybuilders/athletes/celebrities.

I am guilty of this myself, I've dated many beautiful ladies who i chased with passion. They all had invested lot of money into their looks. They always complained about not being well off like me but now you know why.This is what attracted me to them. Face is the first thing i notice, i was young and naive and got fooled by clever makeup. So why you can't do same as a man? Hack your way to success.

If you are a good programmer and still not getting paid well or getting promoted faster, then it's probably this.

Here comes the twist. We finally figured out it has to do with their appearance. No one gives this as reason to you, they simply reject you period.

So we got a writer and analyst, to figure out what the market truly wants then created a script and we gave it to the programmers to memorize.

Add some professional make-up artists, took some photographs at a studio with many others (pretending to be at some event of great importance). This went straight to their Instagram account.

And 16 out of 20 programmer friends showed up for interview and got a successful placement.

But still 4 of them didn't find job yet.

What is this? This is new normal and this is what people who are interviewing and recruiting want.

“The Cosmetic Class”

“What happens when a society with a penchant for the cosmetic meets a medium dominated by it?”