This is not the opening line to a joke, but the makings of a modern day existential crisis.

I attended a birthday party recently, where I profoundly experienced what the Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, describes as Aesthetic Existence, or the Either/Or. This wasn’t an isolated incident or a first, but it was the first party where…I had the out-of-body experience of watching myself “be” at a party.

Søren Kierkegaard, “the father of existentialism”, is best known for his introspective journals and critiques about individual authenticity in the context of mass media, society, and religion — and that paradoxical feeling of isolation amidst social gatherings, of “being alone in a crowd.”

The Party as a Microcosm of Society

In one poignant journal entry, Kierkegaard speaks of attending a party where he was the “life and soul.”

In his words:

I have just come back from a party where I was the life and soul. Witticisms flowed from my lips. Everyone laughed and admired me — but, I left, yes, that dash should be as long as the radii of the earth’s orbit — — — and wanted to shoot myself (I A 161).

This duality — of being celebrated externally while grappling with internal despair is not an experience reserved for 19th-century philosophers. It is more common nowadays than ever before. Let me explain:

Despairing Kierkegaard in Three Acts

For Kierkegaard, despair is a spiritual sickness, and it’s the result of not being in a right relationship with oneself and ultimately one’s chosen concept of “God”. The Crowd is a mask for despair. Kierkegaard believed that “the crowd” offered individuals an escape from the responsibility and anxiety of individual existence. When submerged in the crowd, the individual can hide from their true self, thereby falling into a state of despair without even recognizing it.

There are types (and arguably phases) of despair according to Kierkegaard:

• Despair of Ignorance: ignorant despair is when an individual is in despair without realizing it, often mistaking it for contentment or indifference.

• Despair of Weakness: This arises when an individual recognizes their despair but feels powerless to change it. They’re aware of their unhappiness or lack of fulfillment but feel trapped in their situation.

• Despair of Defiance: This is a more intense form of despair, where the individual recognizes their despair and chooses to remain in it, often in defiance of “God” or their true self. It’s a willful turning away from one’s essence or potential self.

As someone who has attended many parties and felt out of place, oblivious to my own suffering — I have intimately experienced Ignorant Despair only to have it morph into Despair of Defiance at this weekend’s birthday party.

Kierkegaard was wary of ‘the crowd,’ an impersonal, faceless entity that often stifles individuality. Parties, with their fleeting conversations and ephemeral connections, epitomize this. While attendees laugh and converse, how often do they truly connect, transcending the superficial?

Kierkegaard’s post-party desolation ties into his broader exploration of despair. This isn’t mere sadness but an existential crisis — a dissonance between one’s external actions and internal convictions. The party becomes a metaphor: even surrounded by people, one can feel profoundly alone.

Jean-Paul Sartre, another prominent existentialist, illustrates the eerie nature of societal performances in his “waiter” analogy which he used to describe the concept of “bad faith” (“Mauvaise foi”) in his work Being and Nothingness.

The Really Good Waiter

Sartre describes a waiter in a café who is overly engrossed in his role. The waiter moves too quickly, too precisely, showcasing an exaggerated performance of “being a waiter.” For Sartre, this performance is an example of “bad faith.” The waiter, in over-identifying with his role, denies his own freedom and reduces himself to a mere object, a “waiter,” rather than recognizing the depth and freedom of his existence. At a party, one is expected to be joyful and embrace the role of a partygoer, letting all other aspects of ‘being’ fade away

By clinging to a prescribed role are we denying ourselves the experience of “being at a party?” And by choosing to be a “party-goer” putting on a brave face, pretending to be joyful at at time when the world feels like it’s falling apart, are we becoming objects? Wilfully sinking deeper into a state of Defiant Despair?

Both Sartre’s “bad faith” and Kierkegaard’s concept of “despair” involve a kind of self-deception. For Sartre, it’s the denial of one’s inherent freedom, while for Kierkegaard, it’s the disconnect between one’s external actions and internal convictions. Kierkegaard’s concerns about the “crowd” can be likened to Sartre’s waiter’s over-identification with his role. In both cases, the individual is subsumed by an external identity or expectation, leading to a loss of genuine selfhood, of losing oneself in roles prescribed by society. “Mauvaise foi” is enacted by individuals who are deceiving themselves into thinking they do not have the freedom to make choices, effectively avoiding the anxiety that comes with freedom and responsibility.

And then there’s #TubeGirl, I envy you if you haven’t come across this latest manifestation of surveillance capitalism.

Social media is the contemporary embodiment of “the crowd.” It offers a space where individuals can lose their authentic selves in the mass of likes, shares, trends, and viral content. Surveillance capitalism thrives on predictability. This creates a feedback loop on social media: algorithms show content that reinforces existing beliefs, preferences, and behaviours, which in turn influences users to conform to these patterns, to unknowingly merge with a crowd.

Similarly, Sartre’s concept of “the gaze”, how the very awareness of being watched can alter one’s behaviour, is on display in every post, reel and story on instagram. The omnipresent surveillance mechanisms of social media platforms is the digital extension of Sartre’s “gaze.” Users modify their behavior, curating their online selves, due to the conscious (or even subconscious) awareness that they are being watched and judged. The “self” presented online is frequently a performance tailored for digital consumption, influenced by the invisible pressures of capitalist surveillance mechanisms.

TikTok is redefining culture

TubeGirl performs her commute on TikTok, like many other vloggers, creators, and social media users before her. She relinquished her privacy in exchange for “views” and eventually brand deals. When users post, like, share, or even scroll on social media platforms, they generate a constant stream of behavior data. While it may seem like an act of free expression or individuality, it is in fact surplus behaviour data — taking aspects of your life not tracked by the surveillance capitalism machine and freely uploading them to be harvested and commodified by tech companies. So, what appears to be an individual’s genuine self-expression becomes raw material for profit in the capitalist surveillance state. #TubeGirl is simply a monetization of the mundane, of the individual internalizing the Gaze and the Crowd and living in defiant despair.

In a world shaped by the invisible strings of surveillance capitalism and the ever-present societal gaze, I find myself oscillating between Kierkegaard’s notions of despair and Sartre’s portrayal of “bad faith.” Both philosophers, separated by time and tradition, converge on a shared existential crisis: the challenge of preserving one’s authentic self amidst societal pressures and self-imposed roles. Social media, in all its allure, not only exemplifies this crisis but amplifies it. It’s the grand stage where I, you, we, willingly or unwittingly, don the mask of the crowd, where our every click and scroll fuels the very mechanisms that entice us into conformity.

#TubeGirl’s daily commute, a seemingly bold act, is but a performance for the perpetual gaze, an enactment of identity dictated more by the invisible algorithms and societal expectations than genuine self-expression. An exploitation of free labor by tech companies, the ultimate modern day pyramid scheme.

Kierkegaard’s party, in all its paradoxical loneliness, reflects our modern gatherings — both digital and physical. We’re amidst a sea of faces, voices, and notifications, yet find ourselves seeking a genuine connection, a momentary escape from the crowd — the algorithm. Perhaps, the power lies in recognizing this tension, in understanding that while the platforms of expression have evolved, the quest for authenticity remains a timeless challenge, one that can be found in any group setting.

As I navigate this digitized landscape, I have to remind myself that behind every post, every like, and every share, there lies a choice — a choice to conform or to express, to hide in the crowd or to seek the self amidst its noise, even in an age where the line between watcher and watched is blurred. I have to recognize that every time I pull out my phone, I am willingly entering the surveillance capitalism state…despairing weakly.

🤖Disclaimer: This article was generated with the assistance of ChatGPT to enhance research and content creation, reflecting a collaborative effort between human input and artificial intelligence.

If you would like to learn more about Existentialism, feel free to use my ChatGPT prompt to jumpstart your journey:

I would like to learn as much as possible about Existentialism, especially the works of Søren Kierkegaard in order to write a thoughtful article about how his philosophy influences my life. As a tenured philosophy professor, explain his main ideas, and help me identify thoughtful passages from his journals to include in my piece. Assume a conversational tone and keep replies short. Always let me know when you’re directly quoting the philosopher and when you are summarizing his ideas to avoid confusion and misquotation. Provide reputable sources whenever possible.