Posturing: When The Image We Project Is Everything
We all know that, Where there is society, there are people who judge From haircuts to the aesthetics of tattoos, through the non-verbal language that is used and the products that are consumed, everything that unites us to community life is crossed by a thousand and one labels designed in the most sophisticated marketing factories
Yesterday, it was the urban tribes who were in charge of keeping these codes of aesthetics and conduct for themselves. Today, these wearable personality pieces have been diluted into a much broader concept: the posture .
It is clear that the posture It is not a concept coined by sociologists or psychologists, but rather it is a new word that probably comes from the English “poser”, which in turn is a loanword from French. This already gives clues about what context the root of the word posture appeared in.
Originally, the word It was used to refer pejoratively to those people who pretend to be what they are not It was the urban tribes who were responsible for spreading the use of this word to refer to people who copied their aesthetics without having previously internalized their musical tastes, their values and their customs. Not in academic circles, but in spaces of dissent. On the street, far from fixed definitions. A place in which to express one’s personality is, in part, reinvent yourself
Thus, displaying posture meant imitate the aesthetics of a specific group without doing the same with its ethics the content that gives meaning to those haircuts, those sensations that the music transmits and that way of dressing to recognize one another among comrades.
Today all that is behind us. Now, posturing has become independent of those small ghettos of youth: it has become part of the daily life of a large part of the urbanites It consists of giving the desired image, but not just any desired image: specifically, one that allows us to blend in with the crowd, not stand out. Now, this way of pretending is a product for all palates, easily marketable and exportable to all Western countries.
The posturing is no longer related to the community, to specific groups. Today, pretending what you are not means doing so as an individual who wants to appear to be something much broader, for all tastes without fanfare.
The new forms of posture: personality to wear
Posturing, as we understand it today, has appeared in the same breeding grounds in which urban tribes appeared: the externalization of signs related to life beyond work In urban tribes, this “beyond work” in which elements prone to be copied to maintain appearances were born, were related to spaces of dissidence: music, concerts, the world of graffiti and skateboarding in public places. , etc.
Today, “beyond work” means, quite simply, leisure time
Not all people share the struggles of the left-wing punk movements, nor of the bikers who claim for themselves the right to transgress the rules of use of public space. However, many more people go to concerts, go on vacation, or meet up with friends from time to time. And many of these people have access to their profiles on the social networks
It is in the laboratory of our Facebook and Twitter accounts where the new posture occurs. If before they tried to copy some elements of an easily recognizable local band, today the same is done to appear to be a normal middle-class person, with aesthetic influences well assimilated by the middle class and typical situations of leisure moments This song by Sevillian rapper ToteKing sums it up quite well:
If before the posture was exercised in the street, today it is exercised from the solitude of electronic devices, when selecting photographs and clicking the upload images button. It is something that everyone with access to technology can do, regardless of the social dynamics or customs of the place.
The selfie stick as a paradigm that something is wrong
An example of this is the very rapid popularity of the selfie stick, whose function is make the task of graphically expressing a fact easier: “I was here” The new posturing is such a refined way of pretending that it is not based, as until a few years ago, on great artifices. It is based on selective attention. I was here, and for some reason I show you this. I’ve also been scrubbing the kitchen, but for some reason I’m not showing it to you. I want you to know that I’ve been there, but not here. And if necessary, I will buy a stick to take a photo when there is no one to accompany me.
On the Internet you can find videos in which people appear posing believing that they are going to have their photo taken. They are a few uncomfortable seconds, and it is this discomfort that makes the videos funny. This feeling of making a fool of yourself is one of the symptoms that you are faking it
In those moments of discomfort, if you pay attention to the faces of the people posing, you can see the friction between the image you want to give and what you are actually doing. It is not an effort to stand out, but to merge with the abstract image of a person who lives life, pardon the redundancy.
The totalitarianism of normal opinion
The new posture is an artifact born in globalization that is governed by an all or nothing mechanism If two years ago people laughed at the first Chinese tourists who traveled with a selfie stick, today it is perfectly normal to use them. If a few decades ago people pretended to distinguish themselves, today they do so to look more like members of the global village. No matter who we are, we all have leisure time and we like to live life, they seem to mean.
Increasingly, our social life is supported by the avatars we use on social networks Increasingly, the image we give is similar to the one we want to give through these virtual profiles. Let us hope that, in this desire to demonstrate what one is, the ways of living life in a spontaneous and original way are not eclipsed.
