Merriam-Webster’s word of the year 2023 is ‘authentic.’ Here’s how corporate America hacked the consumer cult of authenticity

Consumers have long sought authenticity, as it gets stamped on a range of goods and experiences made attractive largely because they appear to lack marketplace motives. The mom-and-pop diner; the vinyl record shop–the local and uncommercialized. Think dive bars, farmers markets, and indie cinemas.

Studies find that consumers rate independent, family-run outposts more authentic than chains–and even shrug off hygiene code violations if a hole-in-the-wall seems sufficiently off the beaten path. Authenticity also beckons tourists, pointing toward paths less traveled such as Cuba, Bhutan, or Burning Man.

A quest for the unique

Scholarly articles about authenticity more than doubled in the 2010s and leading pollster John Zogby found that it topped the list of Americans’ cultural yearnings.

“You have aspirational positioning from every brand out there to want to make their offering feel bespoke and handcrafted and unique,” one marketing COO quips. “The fact of the matter is that there’s tens of thousands of others of that [product] pumping out every single week.”

That quest for authenticity is, in short, a quest for uniqueness amidst homogenous mass production. Today’s consumers seek what one philosopher-critic called “aura”–a singular product relative to the readily replicable. Social theorist Andreas Reckwitz diagnoses consumers as in thrall to “singularities”–distinctive objects, spaces, and experiences that fulfill cultural…