BETTINA MOGELVANG / CONTRIBUTOR

College students are great at shaming each other. We have harnessed a creative array of labels to administer our judgements. Of these terms, “pick me” and “performative” are the subject of my resentment. 

Without undermining the understandable frustration of inauthenticity, this vocabulary shames healthy behaviors out of individuals and halts aspirational motivation. It  discourages  growth  by making us considerably more self-conscious about  how  we  are  being  perceived. 

Certain behaviors have come to be associated with these particular labels so closely that we can’t imagine anyone participating in them authentically. I have heard many people deem reading a book in the park “an attempt to be mysterious,” raising your hand in class is said to be “performative” and expressions of individuality outside of the mainstream are being labeled as “pick me.”  From afar, we mark people as so without knowing the person or their intentions. 

Like many, I love to read, and I have to read a lot for school. Sitting in sunny San Diego on one of the most beautiful college campuses, reading outside provides me focus, peace and groundedness. I get vitamin D, a break from a sterile MacBook in the library and some gratitude for that moment. This is no performance, and I imagine students recognize this. But, sometimes these desires are interrupted by the paranoia of perception: not the concern that I look a certain way but that I look as if I am trying to look a certain way. Self-consciousness becomes two-fold and frankly. The fear alone of being stamped “performative” immobilizes the behavior — a healthy behavior. Enjoying a book becoming interwoven with self-consciousness is a fact that I hope is disquieting to many. 

Granted, “performative” was a word before people began to associate these habits with the idea of insincerity. This word, though still insulting, is honest, and is a plea for realness. Some might say it is even productive in this right, as it is an attempt to call someone out so they stop being ingenuine. But I am no fan of shaming yourself or another person into change. Obviously, there will always be people who only act a way for the sole sake of their image, and one might argue these actors are the only intended targets of the label. Even if so, the label has larger negative consequences. Either the act is already too associated with performance, like  reading  a  book  on  campus,  or  it  simply  interrupts  an honest attempt at growth.  

I often hear, “They are trying to be something they are  not.”  That   “something”  they are  trying  to  be  may  just  be  a  better version of themself. If someone has never done something before, but aspires toward that habit, by vindictive logic,  their  first  attempt  would  be  unnatural  or  what  many  would call “pick me.” But we must not call that performative, for they will retreat from becoming that better self. To shame someone out of habit-building because their starting point is behaving  in a way foreign to them is nonsense. Authenticity is an important virtue. So is growth. 

“You’re so different” being a dig chills me. We have created the idea that doing something against the grain is performative. We have reduced it to acting. Someone doing something new or expressing themselves in a different way is not them being inauthentic, or begging for attention and praise. 

Stop assuming that. If someone wants to do something different, that is a good thing. It seems  to  me  that  we  are forgetting that. The value of uniqueness is being attacked when these words come to include a certain amount of condescending, discouraging judgement. The shame associated with standing out threatens expression with its homogenizing force. 

I know this argument is likely palatable because my examples are those endorsing healthy  behaviors.   You   might  be  thinking of people who actually “deserve” to be called “pick me,” people who  really  are  performing,  that  are  doing  something  just  for  the appearance. But I am asking you  to  just  turn  away,  and realize, they can’t keep up the bit that long. The problem is  that  our name-calling  has made the label’s force become so insidious as to make us question each other’s genuinity.  It  makes  us  look  at  each  other with skepticism. I hate that I find myself questioning the sincerity of a person’s action, and I attribute that to our use of these circulating judgements. 

Like any student, I am conscious  of  the  labels  we stamp   upon   each   other,   and   of course,  anxious  to  be   the  subject   of   them.   So  I  know  that you   might   even   call   this  article  “pick  me.”  That  awareness may have even subconsciously delayed or rearranged my desire to write this. These labels foundationally assume that all actions are done for a “look.” Maybe this is the unfortunate case of our age. But using “pick me” and “performative” only make that sad reality more true. They perpetuate extrinsic motivation, reminding us we are being perceived, and to act knowing that. 

Don’t assumptively reduce a person’s choices to “show biz.” Don’t let inauthentic people occupy the mind you can use for more extraordinary things. And don’t change what you want to do out of fear of other people’s assessment. You aren’t yelling “pick me,” you  are  just  picking  you. 

Simple acts like reading a book can be unfairly labeled ‘performative,’ discouraging authentic behavior. Art by Kyra Lefebvre