My personal word of the year is kayfabe. But …

Otherwise, in the wider, mainstream buzz: AP News, NPR, CNN, CNBC, …

So, in an info-verse awash in fake info, misinfo, disinfo, Merriam-Webster’s word for 2023 reflects erosion of the line between “real” and “fake.” And as traditional news sources are replaced by social media, presentation is everything – performative charm displaces deeper character [2].

[M-W article below] Authentic is what brands, social media influencers, and celebrities aspire to be. … Ironically, with “authentic content creators” now recognized as the gold standard for building trust, “authenticity” has become a performance.

• Merriam-Webster > “Word of the Year 2023” (27 Nov 2023) – ‘Authentic,’ plus ‘rizz,’ ‘deepfake,’ ‘coronation,’ and other words that defined the year.

Authentic has a number of meanings including “not false or imitation,” a synonym of real and actual; and also “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.” Although clearly a desirable quality, authentic is hard to define and subject to debate – two reasons it sends many people to the dictionary.

• Wired > Culture > “‘Authentic’ Is the Word of the Year. You Read That Right” by Angela Watercutter (Dec 1, 2023) – In a year dominated by artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and disingenuity, “authentic” has somehow emerged as Merriam-Webster’s word for 2023.

… searches for “authentic” were up on M-W “driven by stories and conversations about AI, celebrity culture, identity, and social media.”

That last one is tricky. While social media has, now more than ever, become a nucleus of disinformation and misinformation, it’s also become a de facto news source.

… now that scores of generative AI tools are available to almost anyone with an internet connection, 2024 already feels like it’ll be awash in manipulated text and images – photo ops that never happened, fake celebrity endorsements. You’d hope that increased awareness of AI has led people, simultaneously, to develop good bullshit detectors [1], but that’s the problem with AI—as soon as anyone learns of its potential, it’s already two steps ahead.

Notes

[1] Cf. Carl Sagan’s “baloney detection kit.”

“Like all tools, the baloney detection kit can be misused, applied out of context, or even employed as a rote alternative to thinking.” — Sagan, Carl. Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Chapter 12). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[2] Cf. Pierce, Charles P. (2009-05-29). Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

• “The First Great Premise: Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units.”
• Which leads us, inevitably, to the Second Great Premise: Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough.
• The sheer inertial force created by the effort people are willing to put behind the promulgation of what they believe to be true leads inevitably to the Third Great Premise: Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it.