Here's To Looking At Yourself

"Who are you really, and what were you before? What did you do and what did you think?" Rick to Ilsa in Casablanca

For my final blog post of the fall quarter, I am shifting from my usual politic heavy rhetoric. Today is about self-fashioning and authenticity. Self-fashioning is a term used to describe the process of constructing one’s self according to socially acceptable standards.

My Instagram Page

For the longest time, I did not care about what the “accepted standards” of society were. On social media, I would just post random photos of my life. There was no notion of curating a “feed” for your Instagram page or Facebook page. However, somewhere along the way, I began to count the number of likes or heart I was receiving. I began to compare the number of followers I had with my peers. I began to adjust my followers and following to have the “perfect ratio” because you wanted to have a higher number of people following you than the other way around. I look at what photos people seem to like the most and I keep posting more and more.

A very happy looking me throwing confetti into the air (I actually was really excited).

Eventually, I began self-fashion myself into this bubbly, carefree and happy person who seemed to go out a lot (I take various sets of clothes with me to change into so it looks like I’ve been to certain places at different times when I really haven’t). This is the image I wanted people to see when they think of me, and it still is! Michelle, the nice to everyone, easy-going and sweet girl. I would rather make a persona for myself than have someone fit me into a box based of their impressions of me.

A photo with the Swiss Alps in the background. I spent 20 minutes getting this perfect photo.

This built up image has also affected me in real life. In yearbooks or thank you notes, I constantly see: “Happy (insert occasion here) Michelle! You’re so sweet and nice and cute. Never change who you are!” I feel forced into this category of sweet and nice and cute that I act differently around those people. Nowadays, I feel fake whenever I have to act happy or cute, but I still put up my happy façade and wear these masks time and time again because that’s who I’ve set myself up to be.

Reading Zitkala-Ša’s stories and how Dr. Lazo raised the question “about the role of agency in the construction of a public persona as it relates to socially acceptable factors of the time” in his lecture on December 5th, 2018 reawakened these nagging feelings I’ve had. How much of the personality I’ve created is what I actually am and how much due to who I think society wants me to be.

A photo that tells more about my life and what I've been doing since I've been at UCI.

Before coming to UCI, I was wondering who I was going to set myself to be. Initially, I was worried about going to college because my friends who were already in college kept making comments like “at UCI, there’s the ABG Asian and the homebody Asian” or “when you come back, you’re going to be a new person.” First, for people in Norcal, ABG (Asian Baby Girl) has a negative connotation to it. You do not want to be called one. However, homebody does not sound good either, but I was determined not be become either. I wanted to remain who I was and stay that way. Thus, I wanted to reinvent myself into who I really am. “For Zitkala-Ša/Gertrude Bonnin, self-fashioning was in dialogue with her artistic side and her activist work” (Lazo, Lecture 6). Who we see as “Zitkala-Ša,” is actually who she is. She was able to combine her personality and character with the work that is important to her. That’s what I want to do. Maybe her work is not authentic enough because later on she was educated at a Quaker boarding school, but that does not mean her work doesn’t have her voice in it.

Authentic Man | Critical Theory

For me, authenticity means how well you can portray your voice and have it understood in that way. My mentor once told me, “when you are talking to someone, you always want to make sure they understood exactly what you meant and did not take it any other way than how you meant for them to take it.” It was a rather confusing sentence and piece of advice, but I’ve now come to see it as don’t let society fashion an identity for you. Self-fashioning comes from a place where people are afraid of showing who they really are. They fear the rejection of society. Societal norms are nothing but a construct made by this fear. However, there’s no reason to be afraid. Get up and go be yourself because that’s the best you can be.

As we wrap up fall quarter, my parting words to whoever is out there is simply: be authentic. Or as Rick would say it, "Here's looking at you kid"