Personas or characters?

A term widely used in advertising and design, the persona represents a fictitious or ideal person to be used as a model to create something. The persona emerged in ancient Rome, as a theater character, where masks were used to represent each persona and their characteristics. In other words, when an actor wore a mask with some specific characteristics, he embodied a persona.

And is there anything different today? Do you sometimes see yourself as a different persona in areas of your life? In times of booming profiles on social media and a thousand filters, what we find most these days are personas. In psychoanalysis, Carl Jung recognized in his studies on the collective consciousness that among the main archetypes was that of the persona, which would be the side of our personality that changes to show ourselves to people. The intention of the individual, the public role that the individual shows to society. This is so common, so current that when we come across people we know through networks and videos, we find it unusual for them to be the same person, to be true behind what they are sharing with their followers on a screen.

But then are we getting used to people who aren't real? It is clear! But like every trend wave, being a character was on the rise and being original is already rising and displacing the character. The different one now is the one who is sincere, who is real, who brings his everyday troubles to the public. Everyone is tired of an unreal and perfect image that we know is not even possible! We identify with the real people because we are like them, we have flaws and needs that go beyond sharing. And that is a great comfort in a digital and extremist age.

But there is a middle ground, after all, showing our flaws or our common side isn't even that pleasant, in fact we just want to know about these peculiarities of famous people because they are, in a way, unattainable. Yes, you have to preserve yourself, maintain a good image and appearance in your corporate life, present yourself well at events, being polite to people in general. What doesn't work is being a fictional character of a real person. Can you understand this? Create a persona of someone real and cool, to get people's attention, their followers. This doesn't work at all!

If we can conclude, there is nothing wrong with having your persona at specific moments. Imagine interacting with the office staff in the same way you interact with the football guys on Wednesday after the barbecue and ice cream. No conditions! What I'm talking about here is being truly within your personas and especially knowing that it's terrible to always be a forced character. However, a polite person is welcome anywhere!