I live in New York. The streets were blue and orange recently. The Knicks were back.
Most people saw fan spirit. I saw teenagers roll their eyes. To Gen Z? It wasn’t fandom. It was larping.
You know the old term. Live Action Role Playing. Nerds with swords pretending to be elves. That died. The acronym survived but the meaning shifted.
Now? It’s for people who fake their identity. Usually online. Always for show.
Take the Knicks fans mentioned above. Kids claimed to be die-hards. Then someone asked if they knew “Knicks” came from Knickerbocker. They didn’t. Instant exposure. They weren’t fans. They were performing fandom.
Clive, 17 and part of the SheKnows Teen Council gets it. He puts it simply.
“It’s kind of like putting on a persona through social media. You want to be old money so you take photos on yachts you don’t own. In the Hamptons you’ve never been.”
He’s seventeen. He knows.
Social media makes this easy. It’s just a filter away from being someone else. You can curate a life. You can upkeep a lie. Clive notes that it’s not just online either. You can dress a certain way. Speak in a certain tone. Act the part.
Why bother?
Aura.
That’s the currency. Peer validation. It’s jumping on every bandwagon just to look like you belong. If everyone likes X? You love X too. Harder. Louder. Fake.
They curate the grid. They craft the personality. It’s all performance.
So when you see someone obsessively performing a passion they don’t have, pause. Ask yourself if it’s genuine.
Or just wait for them to miss a basic fact.
It’ll happen soon.
