a simulated person

There is no real Paris Hilton
(Killing yourself to live)

Paris Hilton said to hell with her private self. She erased the boundary between her life and her career and turned her entire existence into a public story and herself into a “brand,” as she has put it. She deliberately and programmatically offered herself up to us as an “It,” a being without an inner life, a personality whose only value is to be seen and known by all. She is, in other words, the total incarnation of postmodern identity, the individual who has disappeared completely—and happily—into her image.

~ from The Trash Princess on the City Journal

As my former fridge magnet once said, “It’s not discovering your identity, it’s about creating it.” Though this slogan appears initially appealing, its instantiation comes at a cost. Paris Hilton created her identity. She annihilated her private life for the pursuit of her public image. She pursued fame and became the epitome of fame, but now that’s all she is (we usually become the things that we pursue).

[So if we create our identities in such a way that does not accord with our intrinsic identities*, then we risk losing or perhaps even destroying ourselves.]


*That is, the identity that we discover, if it does indeed exist.