Finders and Keepers

Melody Lew

Authenticity. What is authenticity? Is it the unedited selfies I post on my Instagram? The words I write? With the accessibility and freedom of social media, everyone’s content — visual, auditory, literary — can be authentic, or at least appear to be. Yet this same level of accessibility and freedom can give rise to embellishment and fabrication. Given the multitude of platforms and mediums we have today, the perceived authenticity of the content varies based on the medium. Content delivered through a notebook is more authentic than if it was delivered through a photo.

At first glance, this seems to be an apples-to-oranges comparison: a notebook is a literary element while a photo is a visual element. However, both are forms of representation and therefore they can be judged on how authentic their representation is. The differences between a notebook and a photo, though, determine their degree of authenticity. For example, with notebooks, the reader can detect the emotions or attitudes of the author that are not explicitly written. Perhaps the author is in a rush, hence the sloppy handwriting and typos. Or the author is angry and stressed, leaving deep depressions onto the back of the page. These subliminal messages and subconscious behaviors cannot be observed in a posed photo, where the subject is posing and expressing only the emotions he or she wants to convey. Since the author is unaware of these minute details that can be deciphered by the reader, these imperfections in the notebook make the author and the content appear much more authentic.

Notebooks, unlike photos, are not meant for an audience or for others besides the notebook’s owner. A notebook is not for “public consumption.” Rather, it is something private, an “indiscriminate and erratic assemblage with meaning only for its maker” (Didion 3). The lack of an audience makes the content more authentic, as the author is able to write freely without being consumed with thoughts of how and if the reader understands what the author is writing. If the author was considering the reader’s perception of the author’s thoughts and feelings, the writing would become intentional and may serve a purpose other than staying true to the author’s perspective, perception, and self. If only the author can understand what they wrote, and the writing serves only the author’s purpose, that, in itself, is a form of authenticity. Moreover, the erraticity of the content contributes to the authentic appearance. The unpolishedness of the writing suggests to the reader that it wasn’t meant to be published or perceived by others. This unedited, raw content is truest to and about the author, and, consequently, its reader.

A notebook can be used for remembering. It’s not necessarily for remembering all the facts and the “objective” truth, but for remembering the author’s emotional truth. What is written in a notebook is what it was and how it felt to the author. In her essay, “On Keeping a Notebook,” written in 1968, Joan Didion puts this as “getting closer to the truth about a notebook,” and by extension, the author (Didion 3). Even though the events did not exactly unfold the way it was told in the notebook, that is how the author remembered it, and that is what is true to the author. The emotions from these recounted moments are authentic — real — and serve to be a reminder of how the author felt. Perhaps the moment didn’t happen the way the author says it did for it to elicit these emotions from the author, so the author emphasizes certain parts to justify their reactions and feelings. Didion encapsulates this as, “Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point” (Didion 3). Through this recounting of events, whether fictitious or not, the author reveals his or her thought process and how he or she processes emotions. This transparency and possibly vulnerability translates into legitimacy.

Photos, on the other hand, arguably capture reality, or the objective truth. They are a (poorer quality) snapshot of what you see. However, due to advancements in photography, high-dynamic range, or HDR, photos can closely reproduce what your eyes see in real life. According to Alexis Madrigal’s “No, You Don’t Really Look Like That,” published in The Atlantic in 2018, “In the right hands, an HDR photo could create a scene that is much more like what our eyes see than what most cameras normally produce” (5). However, is an HDR photo a replica of what our eyes see, or is it simply an aesthetic, better-quality photo? The global economy is “willing to move heaven and Earth to let you see what you want to see” (Madrigal 6). A photo — HDR and all — cannot capture or be a reminder of the beauty or truth of what we see with our own eyes, nor can it evoke the same emotions we felt (emotional truth) when viewing the scene we are snapping a photo of. When a photo is taken, there is a loss of authenticity that cannot be replaced, even by photo editing.

In these torn-out pages of my notebook, you’re immersing yourself into my mind while I was writing, entering my stream of notebook consciousness through my scribbles, crossed-out words, and final, legible words. Keepers of notebooks are writing for themselves, staying authentic to their thoughts, feelings, and themselves. Their words cannot be unnoticeably edited once the pen hits the page. The emotional truth lingers. To those who find and pick up a notebook, trust that the words are real.

Works Cited

Didion, Joan. “On Keeping a Notebook.” Slouching Towards Bethlehem, 1968, pp. 1–6.

Madrigal, Alexis C. “No, You Don’t Really Look Like That.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 18 Dec. 2018, www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/your-iphone-selfies-dont-look-like-you r-face/578353/.