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This was a fun read, and not just for the obvious reason 🥰.

You ever think about this shit and how it all connects to the quantum world? In that world things can behave differently based on whether or not it is being observed. It’s like atoms and light care about their presentation of self 🙃

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YES!! The Peterson argument is still the best I've encountered for describing how authenticity isn't 'real' at all in popular music. I know there is a book The Authenticity Hoax by Andrew Potter that explores this paradox more broadly outside of music. Crystal Abidin has a great article describing 'calibrated amateurism' by platform vloggers, where they are consciously planning to make things seem unplanned....I felt so freed when I first read these ideas that embrace a core artificiality and manufactured element of performances of the self and in particular a performance of the 'real', but I think these ideas are so much easier for people who have worked in a cultural/creative industry setting to get onboard with. It seems to me that people outside of commercial music business really want to believe musicians are 'being themselves' and really dislike ideas that imply otherwise.

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So good!

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There has always been a distinction between the presented self and the private self. How you dress;

how you speak; how you present yourself. It broke down a little in the mid-20th Century. But social media have brought it back with a vengeance. As long as we understand and can preserve the distinction it isn’t all bad. But I’m not sure that is possible.

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