Introduction
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
In a well-known interview with Diane Sawyer, Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner came out as transgender. Now, as Caitlyn Jenner, she states in the July 2015 issue of Vanity Fair, “The uncomfortableness of being me never leaves me all day long. I'm not doing this to be interesting. I'm doing this to live.” Gender Identity Disorder is the formal diagnosis used by physicians and psychologists to describe those who experience significant dysphoria with the gender they were assigned at birth. According to the LGBTQ community, the average transgendered individual does not reveal their true identity until the age of 34. Can you imaging living a life for 34 years in the wrong body? Can you imagine living a life for 34 years that was inauthentic? A life that reflects Emerson’s view of trying to be something the world wants you to be, rather than who you really are? It is truly living a life being a phony. However, living a life in disguise or as a phony applies to more than just the transgender community. It can, and I am sure has, applied to us all on various levels.
High school students understand the idea of being a phony, maybe better than people at any other age range. Many students are constantly trying to do what it takes to ‘fit in’ and are afraid to reveal their true self for fear of rejection. However, due to social media, their lives are so public (literally – their profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are not private) that it is hard to decipher inauthenticity. Unfortunately, many students, unhappy with who they are or their status in the high school hierarchy, create fake profiles that represent who they wish they could be. Creating fake profiles, a technological mask, is not just for teenagers either, but for anyone who puts their life online. In the acclaimed documentary, Catfish, a young photographer named Nev Schulman fell in love with a girl he met online. However, the girl was not who she said she was. Megan, a beautiful 20 something artist, was really Angela, an overweight, married 40 something. In an interview with 20/20, Angela said, “I can't be that person, it’s a sort of jealousy.” Jealousy is said to be the root of all evil, but it also may be the root of being a phony. Merriam-Webster has added the noun ‘catfish’ to the dictionary: “a person who sets up a false personal profile on a social networking site for fraudulent or deceptive purposes.”
In today’s society, despite the countless exhortations to be yourself, it seems now it is harder than ever to do. Reflecting upon the deception activity online and off, along with reading texts on the concepts of disguise and meeting with my Seminar Leader, I find that twenty-first century students are aware of the masks they wear and the potential disguises of others, thus questioning who they or others really are. It will be through this unit that students can learn to stop being phony, or at least attempt to do so.
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