A few days ago, one had almost no clue about the existence of a particular ‘Hilaria Baldwin’, yoga instructor, podcaster, and for most, the wife of actor Alec Baldwin. Many were clueless that Hilaria Baldwin has supposedly been faking a Spanish heritage, accent and what have you.
The internet was rife with information about how despite having been born in Boston, Hilaria had been described as “born in Spain” and someone who speaks Spanish as a mother tongue, there’s a video of her doing the rounds where she forgets the English word for “cucumber’ as well.
This alleged cultural convergence caught the attention of television news channels, and they dedicated hour-hour special panel discussions. Considering the times, nothing out of the ordinary, however, this is yet another insight into the human mind, and the need to be someone else.
The internet is a fascinating repository of the human mind. On the one hand, it pitches individualism like there is no tomorrow. On the other hand, often on the same webpage, there will be tips and insider tricks to replicate the current teen sensation’s ‘look’. This balancing act has reached all quarters, and the more it seeks to liberate, the more it entraps.
Shakespeare had said, “God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.” Hilaria Baldwin supposedly spent a lot of time in Spain as a child, and perhaps that could explain the accent, but you’d fail to find why someone from South Mumbai or picking wares in Khan Market switches into a Beverly Hills twang. Add to that the onslaught of material from the likes of Malcolm Gladwell of Outliers fame, who made social science hip by suggesting you could fake it till you made it—10,000 hours of practice in one’s focused area is what it takes to make one an expert.
What you have is a whole lot of people trying to un-become what they are to become someone else. Confusing? Not really. Isn’t it strange that most of us have come across studies, documentary films et al that convince us how social media tends to make one more jealous of someone else’s posts than finding joy in what you are expressing? Yet, to quote F Scott Fitzgerald, “We beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” When seen from a distance, most things that constitute modern media seem designed to keep you from being yourself. Now, the question to ask is: why is it so? Is it to ensure that we don’t have a moment not to think and just be?
Gautam Chintamani gautam@chintamani.org
Film historian and bestselling author