My Petition To Make “Authentic” The New “Aesthetic”

A couple weeks ago, my brother introduced me to “male performity.”

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look it up… it’s hilarious.

As women have gotten better at spotting traditional male manipulation tactics, some men have shifted strategies — riding a new wave of matcha, Clairo, tote bags, and of course, carefully displayed copies of female literature.

The joke here is that these men don’t actually enjoy these things, but rather, pretend to for the sake of appealing to the female gaze.

And while “performity” has become yet another harmless internet joke, it actually reveals a lot about our generation and where we’ve gone wrong.

Because while the idea of “performing” like this is funny on the surface, how many of us are guilty of performing in our own lives?

How many of us put up a front to be more likable? Curate an aesthetic or personal brand that isn’t really us?

If we all take a second to reflect honestly, I think most of us can relate in some way.

I know I can.

Between middle and high school, I was painfully self-conscious about the way I dressed.

Back then, there were a ton of unspoken rules — one of them being that “dressing up” wasn’t cool. Sweats and sneakers were basically the uniform.

You were weird if you wore anything different… and as a girl who’s always loved fashion and putting new outfits together, I sorta felt forced into a box.

When I was in sixth grade, I came up with an extremely “Naomi” coded idea: “Wednesday Skirt Day”.

It all started when I wore a skirt to school on a random Wednesday, and was teased for it. Even then, as a cringey middle schooler, my fit wasn’t bad or “dressy” by any means — just a plain t-shirt, a skater skirt, and high top converse.

I loved my clothes that day, but let loaded comments make me feel small.

So, in an effort to soothe my ego and find some solidarity, I pitched “Wednesday Skirt Day” to my friends — a new tradition where our little group of girls would wear skirts every Wednesday.

Everyone was on board at first. The next Wednesday rolled around, and even though the eyes and snickers persisted, it felt nice knowing I wasn’t alone.

For a moment, it felt like I belonged. With the group matching me, I felt a rare sense of confidence — not just in my skirt, but in my own skin.

But my friends didn’t feel the same.

By the third Wednesday, everything went back to how it originally started.

When I walked past my friends’ lockers, expecting to see them all in skirts, it hit me…

I was the only one.

The lone skirt in a hallway of black leggings.

Everyone bailed — each of my friends giving me that sheepish, guilty smile as if to say, “sorry.”

And even though I knew their decision wasn’t meant to hurt me, it still stung.

That was the first time I cried in a school bathroom.

On the bus ride home, I told myself I’d never wear a skirt to school again. I came home, went through my closet, picked out the most generic outfit I owned, then laid it out on my bed for Thursday morning.

Looking back, I recognize that abandoning my style just to “fit in” was… stupid. Now, older me wonders: why did my clothes matter so much?

But in hindsight, Wednesday Skirt Day wasn’t really about skirts at all — it was my first taste of what it means to compromise who you are for comfort.

I realized how easy and convenient it is to dim parts of yourself to feel safe. How quickly we exchange authenticity for belonging.

And while it was just about skirts back then, the same pattern followed me later into high school — only this time, it wasn’t about clothes.

It was about Instagram.

As an artist, photography and aesthetics have always been important to me. I love the process of putting things together, especially images and text.

Instagram is what introduced me to the branding and graphic design world. As I began taking more pictures and experimenting with color schemes, I eventually discovered that I had a passion for documenting and digital creation.

But with this initial discovery came an unexpected pressure.

Somewhere along the way, Instagram stopped feeling like a creative playground and started to feel like a stage. Every post became a performance, every caption a calculation. I obsessed over details — the “look”, the numbers, the followers, the engagement.

I wasn’t just sharing my life anymore — I was curating it.

It all just became… fake.

And while I told myself I was doing it all “just for fun,” I couldn’t shake the quiet fear of being looked at the wrong way — or worse, being flat-out shamed behind a screen.

There were even more unspoken rules: don’t post more than once a day, don’t post two days in a row, keep a cohesive theme…

The list goes on.

And that’s one of my biggest hangups with our generation: we crave realness, yet we run from it. We claim to celebrate individuality, but judge others for being themselves both in person and online.

As I navigated the balance between self-confidence and social media, I grew to learn that the less I concerned myself with the “rules” — like when to post or how my feed looked — the more Instagram felt like a creative outlet instead of something to stress over.

And in the longterm aftermath of Wednesday Skirt Day, I eventually stopped dressing just to look like everyone else. I learned to embrace my girly style because it made me happy — just like my social media now highlights my authentic self and joy.

A lot of people love to shame users for “posting like influencers,” but who says you need a huge audience to create?

Newsflash: it shouldn’t matter.

Your aesthetic is simply your style. When you free yourself from the chains of posting anxiety and start sharing content for you, that’s when your page truly comes alive.

We live in a consumer culture, when what we really need is a creator culture — one where we share freely, stop fixating on other people’s lives, and drop the act of performing.

At the end of the day, we’re all just looking for connection — and nothing fosters that faster than honesty.

Because if Wednesday Skirt Day taught me anything, it’s this: belonging doesn’t come from blending in. It comes from standing out, even when it feels different and uncomfortable.

So wear the skirt.

Post the selfie.

And for the dudes reading, go drink the matcha and listen to Clairo if that’s genuinely what your heart desires.

It’s cool to be yourself and go against the grain — to show your personality openly and reject the pressure to come off “mysterious” and “nonchalant.”

In a world full of fleeting trends, labels, and filters, the bravest thing you can do is show up exactly as you are.

And honestly? That’s what makes the world a little more interesting… and a whole lot more real.

- NK