How do you feel about X-Factor competitors using Autotune to disguise their poor singing skills? Or celebrities having their figures or complexions adjusted in Photoshop prior to publication?
If we are to believe the flurry of indignant news items in recent months, we 'the public' are being misled, and we don't like it. The message seems to be: it is very important to be genuine, because if you pretend to be something you're not, you are at best a cheat and a fake and at worst a damaging influence.
In other words, when we turn to the media we expect to be entertained and presented with aspirational people, but they must be real. To recall a computer term, WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) seems to be the order of the day.
And all this in parallel with the fledging of social media - could there be a connection? After all, aren't we continually being reminded of the importance of authenticity? Do we not only admire, but expect more transparency, more authenticity from people in the public eye? Facebook is all about real names and real people - it's quite different to the MUDs and online communities which were the first online networks 15 or so years ago. On the other hand, Twitter is awash with fakes, many of them more entertaining that the real thing. There are sites dedicated to creating fake personas and the sad truth still holds that on the internet, no-one knows you're a dog.
There's another possible explanation though - the media's love of tech-horror stories. After all, nobody on the X-Factor gets accused of being fake for wearing shedloads of makeup or having hair extensions, and adverts for fake eyelashes are all over the TV.
Perhaps that's a different sort of fake because it's got nothing to do with technology, and technology is the real fear - today Photoshop, tomorrow human cloning.
Photo credit: ellf.ru
