Each day, you hear more and more about authenticity-this and authenticity-that. (It’s the new “express yourself.”) Heck, mea culpa for blogging about Seattle’s authenticity a couple of days ago. So it was with equal parts amusement and intrigue that I picked up Time magazine’s March 24^th issue, with the cover story, 10 Ideas That Are Changing the World and read through John Cloud’s  #7: Synthethic Authenticity. 

In the article, Cloud quotes James Gilmore and Joseph Pine II, authors of—what else?—Authenticity (Harvard Business School Press), who posit, “What [consumers] buy must reflect who they aspire to be in relation to how they perceive the world—with lightening-quick judgments of ‘real’ or ‘fake’ hanging in the balance.

Does it really matter as long as it looks good—and is accidentally comfortable, too? Not in my hyper-aesthetic world. How ‘bout yours? As far as I’m concerned, these Dotti doormats are “authentic” to their coir.

Gilmore and Pine go on to talk about the transformative power of a purchase, or how we want our stuff to connect us to “history or to a cause.”

Puh-leeeese. I just want my house to reflect my mid-century modern design sensibility and a commitment to green living. I call that fun, satisfying and aspirational.

Finally, (and this is supposed to make us feel like more complete human beings how?) Gilmore and Pine suggest we can also be “fake-real,” to which Cloud adds, “You are authentic when you acknowledge how fake you really are.”

Eeeeeesh. Some folks should spend more time furniture shopping than thinking.