Amid marketing and social-media onslaughts, Gen Z women have to find ourselves | Women’s Day 2019

For this year’s Women’s History Month, the Inquirer asked five Philadelphia women at different life stages — a Generation Zer, Millennial, Gen Xer, Baby Boomer, and member of the Silent Generation: What’s the biggest issue facing your peer group right now?

I think Gen Z women are growing up in an extraordinarily unique time, one where smartphones track our every move on social media, targeted advertisements are curated based upon our browsing footprints, and Instagram and Snapchat act as our storytellers. This is the age of social media, where content is constantly being created, uploaded, and streamed in a matter of seconds.

When my mother was a child, she might have been enticed by the saleslady standing outside a candy shop with samples of chocolate. Today, it feels as if every single item or service marketed to me is based on an algorithm that determines what companies think I like. Brands advertise to us in the most covert ways — influencers on social media can secretly market a product by claiming that it’s their favorite when, in reality, they’re just getting paid to say it is. In the same way, fame can be discovered through viral YouTube videos and before you know it, anyone with a smartphone and access to the internet can become an influencer.

It’s hard sometimes to see how we, as young Gen Z women in the midst of our physical, mental, and emotional metamorphosis, can even begin to develop our own authentic identities in this world inundated with nonstop content and manipulative marketing.

The answer is elusive. But I am confident it has to do with passion — the desire to do something that has meaning. It is different for every woman and girl I know. There is no ticking clock or single way to identify it. But once you do, that passion can be the most powerful way to home in on what grounds you. It can enable you to fight off the self-doubt that is fed by the parade of manipulative content.

Our personalities change. Our ideas change. Our identities change. We are young women who deserve to grow and evolve and be able to use our experiences as road maps to shape us as individuals. However, I constantly remind myself of this crucial notion: What we are told by society at large is simply a suggestion, not the reality. It is imperative that we, as the youngest generation to date, maintain authenticity, discover what moves us, and hold on to our identities amid the plethora of voices trying to sway us in every direction.

Claire Sliney is an activist filmmaker, Oscar winner for the documentary Period. End of a Sentence, and sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania. She belongs to Generation Z, born between 1997 and now.