“For young people in today’s world curating an identity online is not optional, and so their personal lives have become some of the most important work they do. From the moment they take their first steps online, they suffer like Movatar from two perplexingly contradictory demands: They are taught implicitly to see themselves as a brand, yet one that will be judged according to its perceived authenticity. (And that includes potential employers: “No one will offer me a job,” a graduate told me once, “until I have discovered my true self.”)

And so, before posting any image, uploading any video, reviewing any movie, sharing any photograph or message, they must be mindful of who their choice will please or alienate. They must somehow work out which of their potential “true selves” will be found most attractive, continually testing their own opinions against their notion of what the average opinion among online opinion makers might be.”

– Yanis Varoufakis

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