The latest addition to the alter ego club? Lana Del Rey, universally branded ‘fake’. Lizzie Grant didn’t work out all that well, so she played that old re-invention trick used many times before her, and while haters hate, her bank account is plumping up, just like her lips.
It seems to me when I analyze the careers of those who fell victim in this war, I see that those who tried to resist the law of alter ego, the brand, the label, the ever changing kaleidoscope of masks that hide (and protects) the human, were crucified mercilessly. Those who learned to change, evolve, camouflage, put on facades, invent names, accents, and lives, have persisted, have flourished.
In the 21st century there is no definite knowledge; there are only many knowledges, and the mask of alter ego may be the best way to express this multivocality. With the technology (Photoshop) and philosophy (post-modernism) to make this trick even more potent, the alter ego becomes a little narrative of the Self, one facet of the many ‘I’s a healthy happy human being has to host merely to survive.
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