Micro-identities Won’t Save Us: The Illusion of Liberation Online

This piece was originally published in the May 2025 issue of Pandora Curated.

Trigger Warning: Mention of Sexual Assault 

Are you a ‘trad wife’, ‘sapphic’, or ‘enby’? As in gameplay, social media has the liberatory effect of being an open realm of possibilities. There is no end to who or what one can be — an agentic being even within a structural domain. You can take on the role of another, be anonymous, or be seen and interpreted in new and inventive ways. But how liberatory is this domain? Far from authentic self-definition, it may be merely repackaging societal constraints in a new, digital form.

Illustration by Mukta Nitin Desai

In the social world, labels, weaponised by others and often detached from our internal realities, are projected onto individuals from those outside. Stereotypes based on gender, race, and class frequently group and instruct them on how to behave, conform, and succeed. Online, however, you can claim a label for yourself, with dignity, and create content that aligns with it. On TikTok, you can add almost anything to ‘Tok’ and find a flourishing community; #DisabledTikTok or #WitchTok, as niche as you desire. 

Here, sometimes for the first time, marginalised groups are importantly told they are welcome and that there is space for them. We must not neglect this moment or its epistemic consequences; when oppressed people are given open spaces to co-create and cherish shared knowledge, transformative ways of living and being are produced. It is then possible to conceive a flourishing life, beyond being funnelled into rigid and uncomfortable categories, which groups can use to build resistance, feelings of collectivity, and unionise in the face of injustice. 

One need only look at the effects of the #MeToo movement, prompting a dialectic feminist shift around sexual assault discourse, or GoFundMe campaigns for homeless, queer, racially marginalised individuals to comprehend the concrete benefits of organising online. Here, surveillance mechanisms are co-opted, and the oppressed may stare back, record and document instances of harm to inspire flourishing justice movements. 

Social media appears then as a space of possibility, and re-packages the opportunity for agency in the presentation of self. But how subversive is this, and what consequences does it have for our sense of being and living? 

The self, as an embodied event, is realised through these micro-identities and communities online. One may buy into a style and conform to the norms of a label. In a paradoxical sense, the curated self online often becomes more real, hyper-real, as compared to the life people lead in reality, by allowing for self-descriptions that are more true to them and affirm their selfhood. 

But it is this very curation, this attentive refinement in building the self — agency in choosing what to reveal and what to hide, or which symbols and style to adopt — that restricts the emancipatory potential of social media. Individuals often advocate for authentic self-expression, but authenticity is a fragile concept, with self-expression online typically involving buying into a corporation, appeasing an audience, or imitating others.

We may desire to present a unique, truthful version of ourselves, however, there may be more emancipation in realising what we share with others, understanding that all identity formation occurs in a context of performance and tradition. Authenticity, as advocated by Charles Taylor, is located in decentering societal structures and demands, rooted in identifying one’s values and responsibilities to their community. This also may be where hope and becoming are realised, in attempting to locate oneself within history and its web of connections, as by categorising oneself into a micro identity, we are still categorising. It is a process that pushes people inwards. 

Hence, what may be seen as attempts at authentic conceptions of personhood or queer performance can manifest as individualism and the commodification of identities. Monetised accounts and paid advertisements often blur the line between expression and branding. When identity is attached to economic instruments, it intrinsically restricts the potential for authenticity. Creators online may gain traction precisely through the visibility of their marginalised identity. However, this visibility is filtered through algorithms which reward aesthetics, engagement and marketability. 

True values or presentation are thereby often distorted or manipulated to fit the mould of legibility. Minorities must justify and aestheticise their cultural practices as integrable, always beautiful and apolitical or somehow universally inoffensive. Queer bodies in particular are policed through binary, gender-conforming demands and measured along a heteronormative trajectory of ‘transitions’. Conversely, disabled people are perceived through the ableist gaze, one that either seeks to make spectacles of their disability or solely reduce them to that quality. This aesthetic labour of marginalised groups is perpetual, encouraged to forever appease, conceal or transform their identity for the assumed reward of acceptance. 

Even so, it remains logical that the online sphere hosts this drive for unique self-expression. The ability to edit images and videos of oneself, to transfigure, and transgress boundaries can often be so extreme that it transcends the human, and thus, in some ways, becomes utterly powerful and post-structural. As Dr Jazayeri asserts, social media is not a space of truth, but the ‘creation of people’ they wish to be perceived as (2016). Here, the oppressed may defy their bodily condition and material restraints. Trans users may experience and visualise gender euphoria long before it is materially realised; those living with chronic illness can present stylised versions of themselves unencumbered by medical devices, and the working-class may imitate aspirational lifestyles through curated aesthetics and branded symbols. 

Nonetheless, there remains an omnipresent audience to be accommodated. One may simulate power by gaining followers, creating a commanding online persona and even profiting from it, but it is just that: a simulation. These performances offer a momentary pause in real-world limitations. However, these transcendences remain monetisable. Liberation and legitimacy become entangled, and what starts as defiance risks becoming a product to be sold back to the very structures it resists. 

There is no radical re-evaluation of hierarchical power dynamics here, simply their re-packaging. There can be no such thing as democratisation in a realm that survives on competition, commercialisation and token validation (likes or follower count). This cannot be the place where people are humanised, loved or cared for in any meaningful capacity. But why do we feel it is?

When, at every turn, your society tells you that there is no job for you, you are powerless in the face of global crises, and more disconnected from your community than ever, the one thing we feel we can tangibly latch on to is our selfhood, our unique and evolving character. People begin to nurture the ‘self’ over tangible, community-building activities, prioritising self-improvement techniques, personal consumption and private spaces beyond what truly makes us human: our interactions and relation to others. 

Precarity produces fear, and in current moments of fear, two things are happening: we either cling to what we see as stable, such as identities of tradwives and conservatism, or we race to become the most particular, agentic, while-marginalised figure. Many are compelled to define themselves by their oppressions, because if they don’t, society will. Women may gravitate toward identifying as ‘just a girl’ on TikTok because it can feel safer, and more comfortable to sit stagnantly in apathy, in their passivity in reproducing norms, than to confront the difficult burden of enacting any real change. 

Individuals thus sink further into their categorised presentation in a realm that attempts to be both post-structural and a validation of structural oppression simultaneously. The private then becomes public as every dynamic and demographic is inevitably politicised. All the while, the far-right dominate, watching their opposition label themselves deeper into division, delegitimising leftist political action at every chance. 

The casting of queer visibility movements, feminism and BLM as trivial identity politics remains one of the populist right’s most effective tools, producing the paradoxical notion that one cannot advocate for themself, their own identity, while being part of a collective mission. This has successfully displaced queer and racialised narratives from the history of class analysis and positioned all minorities as an isolated ‘woke’ mob that one either stands with, alone, or against together. 

It therefore remains antithetical to capitalist resistance to see one another as fundamentally different, rather than uniquely situated in the same system. Revolutionary action thus remains impossible while individualism is heralded as freedom, and collectivity is solely adopted to produce an ‘other’. 

The online world only serves to maximise this political goal while simultaneously expanding the wealth and influence of the ultra-rich. Online consumers falsely feel more autonomous than ever, with tailored, personalised content, hyper-efficient services and knowledge bases, and the ability to access intimate knowledge of others' lives. Thriving in this illusion of freedom, they neglect that power is concentrated in the hands of the few with data and profit extracted via each user’s participation, as highlighted by Johnson et al. (2024), exposing that Meta alone earns hundreds of billions annually.

You then question: can you queer the system that is taking everything from you? Our attention, time and resources that could be pooled for counter-cultural resistance are stolen in this fallacious bid for attention and sovereignty. 

Thus, using social media to challenge conventional norms has its limits. It becomes an isolated project, fundamentally rigid and anthropocentric, divorcing activism from its history of interactions with the environment and critical re-evaluation of the self. Rather than fostering genuine connection with the world, we become mirrors reflecting and refracting existing ideas, memes, aesthetics, and ideologies in a self-referential loop. We are in Jean Baudrillard’s final stage of simulation, a system where representation no longer refers to an external reality but instead produces its self-perpetuating meanings.

Of course, we are all constantly performing, embodying identities and producing meaning through actions, suggesting that there isn’t an ‘authentic’, uninfluenced self to locate. Why not then indulge in the postmodern shopping mall of identity? However, authenticity need not be about possessing a stable, ‘true’ identity, but striving towards strong, resistive tenets that continually challenge conformity and relocate the self as a social event, that must essentially involve interpersonal, tangible interactions and care. 

With our communal spaces defunded, social services privatised, and inequality rising, it is no accident that we have ended up here, attempting to regain sovereignty by looking inwards. Yet, it is pertinent to remember that this is not liberation, but well-disguised individualism. Change is required, and change requires community, beyond what makes us different or unique.

Edited by the Curated Editorial Team

Harriet Sanderson (she/her) is a Politics and Sociology student at the University of Edinburgh and a contributor to Pandora Curated. She is a writer interested in protest politics, direct action, and mutual aid, and investigates how the ‘local’ is contextualised within wider geopolitical shifts. She is passionate about bridging academic theory and lived experiences, and leans into this paradox in her writing.

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References:

• “How Does Facebook (Meta) Make Money?” Investopedia, 1 Dec. 2014, www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/120114/how-does-facebook-fb-make-money.asp. Accessed 2025.

• Thomas, Sherry. “A Virtual Life: How Social Media Changes Our Perceptions.” Insight Digital Magazine, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, 7 Oct. 2016, www.thechicagoschool.edu/insight/from-the-magazine/a-virtual-life/. Accessed 2025.

• Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. University of Michigan Press, 1981.

• Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 1990.

• Sarkar, Ash. Minority Rule: The Rise of the Radical Right. Verso, 2020.

• Luciano, Dana, and Mel Y. Chen. “Introduction.” Has the Queer Ever Been Human? GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, vol. 21, no. 2–3, 2015, pp. 183–207.

• Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor Books, 1959.

Keywords: Social Media Identity Politics, Queer Visibility Online, Authenticity In Digital Age, Commodification Of Identity, TikTok Identity Labels, Online Self Expression Trends, Postmodern Identity Crisis, Marginalised Voices On Social Media, Influencer Culture And Capitalism, Aesthetic Labour On Social Media, Social Media And Individualism, Digital Activism Vs Real Change, Tradwife TikTok Trend Explained, Hyperreality And Online Performance, Algorithmic Oppression And Visibility.