Why Fake Content Feels Wrong: The Psychology of Authenticity
I had a sad thing happen last week.
I opened LinkedIn (my previously favorite social media channel) and felt like I'd walked into a networking event hosted by robots…
Everyone was CRUSHING it at work and hitting their targets. Everyone was #grateful for opportunities, #humbled by wins, and had #gratitude for a #powerfullesson they learned written in a font with spacing that felt like a refrigerator full of handshakes (what)!?
Which made me wonder:
Where are the actual humans? The real LinkedIn with my friends posting weird and slightly embarrassing anecdotes, actually-vulnerable shares, spelling mistakes, and honest-to-goodness interesting things to say?
Even sales people with honest pitches where they actually have thought about my name (I saw a “Hey Carrie” and a few “Hey Lizzy” greetings), what I do (not buy lists of therapist contact info dummies), or anything specific for that matter (my personal favorite last week - “For many founders, the question is not whether spreadsheets work, but how long they should keep working that way”....have you ever even met a founder bro!? We don't have time to think about this and love them! Shut up).
Every single one of these AI-generated posts, spammy DMs, and engagement-bait carousels is trying to efficiently fake the one thing you literally cannot manufacture: connection, authenticity, and trust (spells C.A.T. lol). You cannot spamtastically assembly-line your way to these things. Human connection and warmth is not IKEA furniture. There are no instructions. It can’t be mass manufactured (I’m looking at you AI bots).
Research in social neuroscience shows that when we trust someone, our brains release oxytocin: the same neurochemical involved in bonding and connection. When we perceive inauthenticity? The brain's threat detection system (hello, amygdala) lights up. You don't just think someone is fake. You feel it in your nervous system with an elevated heart rate, a tightening in your gut, a lean-back you didn't plan. Which is why no amount of "I'm just a regular person sharing my journey, hope it helps😬" copy is going to trick your nervous system. Your limbic system has been around for millions of years. It has seen thangs. Many thangs. It is not impressed by your AI-built relationship attempts…
Now you’re wondering, who is doign these C.A.T things well (connection, authenticity, and trust)!?
Authenticity examples I genuinely love:
Ryan Reynolds, who turned being a smart-!@# into a billion-dollar brand strategy—not by pretending to be relatable, but by actually saying the unhinged thing most CEOs would run past legal first. Like: His Mint Mobile ads that are intentionally low-budget—one is literally just him reading pricing off a teleprompter and then acknowledging "this ad cost, like, $40 to make." He sold that company for $1.35 billion.
Mailchimp's early brand voice—weirdly specific, self-deprecating, funny in a way that felt like a real human wrote it at a real desk with a real coffee stain on their pants. When you were about to send your email campaign to thousands of people, they showed you an illustration of a sweaty chimp hand hovering over a big red button—because they knew you were terrified. And once you hit send? You got a high five from the monkey. That's it. That's the whole design choice. And people loved it, because it acknowledged the actual human emotion of the moment instead of pretending everything was fine.
In the meantime…
I've been making a video about just this—specifically inspired by the now-infamous moment when McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski took a tiny bite of a burger on camera and somehow became the most talked-about executive in America for a week. Not because of the bite… Because of what it revealed about the gap between what a brand says and how it actually shows up.
Want to understand some of the psychology around virality, angry mob mentality, and Schadenfreude? Check it here:
Can’t wait to hear what you think! Wishing you all a week of big bites and authenticity.
