Agree or disagree: People today want to be seen as the best of the best…even if they aren’t…and they’ll do whatever it takes to achieve that—regardless of whether it’s legal or not. Not sure? Consider this.
A few years back, some wealthy entertainers found a workaround when they feared their privileged children wouldn’t get into the “right” college or university. The problem was, though, these parents got caught. Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people with bribing athletic coaches and cheating on entrance exams. Careers were ended and heads rolled at some of the nation’s most elite universities as one after another was found guilty. Famous people went to jail.
Just another Hollywood scandal? Yes, and more than that. These actions were shocking because of what they revealed about the culture we live in.
Today, I want to talk about optics and how the right optics have become such a focus.
All About Appearances?
Glimmering entertainers arrive at awards shows and strut down the red carpet. We hear announcers comment on their every thread. We watch them air-kiss people they probably won’t be speaking to by the end of the evening. They have long since learned to do whatever it takes to keep up appearances. They play nice with “frenemies,” dodge paparazzi who try to catch them unaware, hire stylists, spend long hours in the gym, and on and on it goes.
This focus on appearances is called optics. Optics is the word you’ve heard all over the media to describe how good or bad something appears. Early in the evolution of our current obsession with optics, William Safire, who penned The New York Time’s “On Language” column, noted, “Optics is hot, rivaling content.” The column’s subhead read, “A scientific-sounding buzzword for ‘public relations.’” Over a decade ago, Safire saw that it was becoming more important to appear to be truthful than it was to actually tell the truth.
What Does All of This Mean?
It means “spin” is everything. If what we have to say to our audience or platform isn’t that great, we just give it a little twist and add a little shine. (Really, it’s okay. No one will notice or care, right?)
In the world of politics, people are paid to do that. They’re called spin doctors, publicists, and marketing experts. They take the optics…and fabricate them, the way people used to tell a story—“spin a yarn”—in the old days, to make them seem better than they really are. The schedule of how and when these spinmeisters inform the press is referred to as the spin cycle. Spin is real and goes on every day. It’s an occupation.
And spin has filtered through our culture. We don’t just twist what we mean to make it sound better; we even take words and change their definitions. Whatever meaning we want to adopt becomes the new definition. Bad means good. Tight means cool. And sick means awesome.
Weird, but as you might have guessed, I have a theory as to why we love doing this.
Did you know that the Oxford English Dictionary picks one word annually as their “word of the year?” It’s true. One pick from 2016 sent chills up my spine. It not only foretold a trend of 2016 but also a trend for the decade. The word was post-truth. Here is how it was explained…
“Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”
Allow me to offer superoptics as a candidate for the 2021 word of the year. This takes the whole post-truth concept a scary step further. Having already demoted truth in favor of feelings, superoptics elevates the appearance or virtual perception of reality over reality itself.
Today, we are living not in a post-truth culture but rather in a truth-altering, optics-twisting virtual reality, led by the next generation of spin doctors called truth-benders.
Okay, rant over. Now, back to my theory and why we love it. It’s really what these blogs are all about.
Truth vs. Optics
Facts, reality, and truth are impartial, and as such, they can be brutal at times. In a world where optics trump all three, it seems for many like an acceptable compromise to bend the truth sometimes for the more comfortable purpose of presenting more favorable personal optics. We witness this on the news, political websites, and reading people’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter rants. And we do this in pictures, texts, and even in what we say in conversations.
It’s not even that important if what you say is right…you just have to say it confidently. It’s no longer the most skillful debater who wins a debate. It is the loudest, most dramatic, most confident. To win the debate, you don’t have to be honest; you just have to know how to work the crowd. Smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave.
It doesn’t matter if what you’re saying is pathetic, as long as you are persuasive. Often, if you are able to put down the other person before they can put you down, you win. Prosecuting attorneys have long been stymied by defense attorneys who open their arguments with “Now, this prosecutor is going to try to tell you…,” then they lay out the prosecution’s entire argument and start poking holes in it. There’s nothing left for the prosecutor to say. The juries and Court TV fans get suckered into believing lies.
We learn how the world sees us pretty early in life. At least, I know I did. No one thought I was a superhero, that’s for sure. All it took was a soul-crushing round of dodgeball to show me how they saw me. And that, in turn, formed how I saw myself. But…that’s a story for another day.
How we are viewed in this world is something that can weigh heavily on us and cause emotional stress and turmoil. The bright side is that we have Jesus, where only in Him will we feel completely validated, loved, and at peace. Join me next Monday for more on this critical topic—and on dodgeball.
And if this is hitting home for you, I encourage you to grab a copy of my upcoming book, Overliked: Finding Direction, Courage, and Meaningful Relationships in a Society Crippled by Social Media, where you’ll find ways to get beyond the optics to the freedom that authenticity brings. (And if you pre-order, I’ll send you some pretty cool free bonus gifts.) Check it out!
~Pastor Rob
Aka P-Ro