The first line of Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be,” is a koan-like proclamation that seems to extend its tendrils into the fabric of our present condition, particularly in the shadow of disruptive technology. This phrase, by its nature, implicates the chameleonic identity shifts that our era’s technologies — social media, deepfakes, AI-driven personas — facilitate and even encourage. It’s as though Vonnegut, from his mid-20th-century vantage, intuited the complex dance between facade and essence that characterizes our digital engagements.
In the realm of disruptive technology, what we “pretend to be” isn’t just a matter of personal whim or existential playacting; it becomes a societal phenomenon, a mass hallucination facilitated by the likes of Instagram filters, Twitter personas, and LinkedIn profiles. Each of these platforms encourages a curation of self that can often bear only a tangential relationship to the flesh-and-blood humans typing away at their keyboards. They are stages for the performance of self, where the line between being and pretending not just blurs but can effectively disappear.
This pretending isn’t without its consequences. Just as Vonnegut warns, the masks we choose — whether for evasion, protection, or sheer whimsy — begin to adhere to the skin. They shape perceptions, expectations, and even our own self-understanding. The digital persona, once a convenient facade, morphs into a component of our identity, a slice of the self that, while originally fabricated, assumes a weight and reality of its own.
The disruptive technologies of our time exacerbate this phenomenon, making the pretense not just a matter of personal identity but a global currency. The internet, in its vast, labyrinthine expanse, offers infinite stages for the performance of self, each with its own audience, norms, and rewards. Here, the saying “fake it till you make it” gains a new dimension, suggesting not just a pathway to success but a method of existence.
Yet, Vonnegut’s line, echoing down the decades, serves as a cautionary note. The danger lies not in the act of pretending itself — after all, all human culture involves some measure of pretense — but in forgetting the act. In losing sight of the line between performance and reality, we risk not just individual confusion but a collective disorientation, where the very fabric of truth and authenticity becomes threadbare.
Thus, in the age of disruptive technology, Vonnegut’s first line from Mother Night becomes not just a piece of literary wisdom but a critical lens through which to view our digital selves. It implores us to interrogate the selves we project and to remain vigilant about the distance between these projections and our core being. It’s a call to mindfulness in an era where the self can be both infinitely malleable and profoundly lost, reminding us that in the end, the pretenses we adopt can shape not just our individual destinies but the texture of our shared reality.
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