I’ve felt as I’ve gotten older a shift in American cultural norms towards an idea of perfection as a minimum: a notion that a perceived flaw, any flaw, renders whatever is under the microscope immediately worthless.
I’ve largely attributed this to universal digitization, something many people around my age (late 20’s) have drawn attention to already. It’s crept into every aspect of American life in nearly every way. As an anecdotal example: have you ever been tagged in a social media photo that you didn’t know was taken? Maybe a photo of you and your friends on vacation when you were paying attention to something else, or a concert pic that got the back of your head in it. In a more extreme example aimed at women, how many times have you seen an unsolicited dick pic? I imagine (and hope) much less than you’ve been flashed in person.
In a commercial sense, have you ever discussed your need of a new appliance to a friend within earshot of your phone, only to find later advertisements for the product in your next online search? How about an expectation from your employer to work at any time on-demand due to having a work laptop at home?
My point is that with this ever growing web of connectivity comes a sinister inclination among the connected to magnify flaws. Everything must be nitpicked, torn apart, analyzed, and projected online to create a new piece of discourse to discuss and argue over. Even more maliciously, I’ve noticed this more acutely aimed at people.
The Permanence Problem
What digitization has changed is the permanence and searchability of our mistakes. In analog times, embarrassing moments faded into memory, awkward phases ended with adolescence, and poor decisions became tales shared among friends. The Hollywood cliche used to be your mom showing your new girlfriend your baby photos. Now, everything exists forever in 4K HD. Tagged, searchable, shareable.
This permanence has created a psychological shift where we’ve begun to treat human flaws the way we treat software bugs: critical errors that must be immediately identified, publicly reported, and permanently documented. But humans aren’t code that can be patched and updated. We’re messy, contradictory beings who learn through failure and grow through imperfection. Even more so, would any of us like a perfect person? I can’t think of anyone I like hanging out with that isn’t made better by their flaws and imperfections.
The All-or-Nothing Algorithm
Social media platforms have trained us to think in binary terms: like or dislike, follow or unfollow, swipe left or right. The algorithms that govern our digital interactions don’t understand nuance. They optimize for engagement, which often means amplifying response over understanding. This binary thinking has leaked out in to the real world. I think most people would agree that human beings are extremely adaptable creatures, ones that change shape to fit their environment (even when their environment is an algorithm designed to keep you scrolling and engaged, no matter the cost).
Consider how quickly public figures fall from grace over decades-old tweets, or how a single moment of poor judgment can overshadow years of positive contributions. We’ve internalized the algorithm’s logic: one strike and you’re out.
The Commodification of Character
Perhaps most troubling is how this perfectionist mindset has turned human worth into a marketplace commodity. People now curate their personalities like brand managers, carefully controlling their image to avoid any hint of controversy or imperfection. We’ve begun to evaluate each other like consumer products, and as such begin to police ourselves in much the same way.
This commodification strips away the complexity that makes us human. Real people have contradictions, make mistakes, hold some views that evolve over time, and occasionally say things they don’t mean. But the digital marketplace demands consistency, perfection, and unwavering moral clarity—standards that no human can actually meet.
What To Do?
I was going to end this off with some flowery declaration of how we should all love each other and hold hands and buy the world a Coke but I can’t lie, I have no idea what the answer to this issue is. I think what we’re seeing here is a bend before a break, a crack in the veneer, the creaking of a wood floor about to give way. This too shall pass though. As a young man I saw the mistakes of my parents and their generation, vowed never to repeat them, and stumbled headlong in to this (and 100 new problems) along with the rest of my generation. My children will do the same, as will their children, so on and so on. At the very least I can look it in the face and come to some recognition and understanding. Maybe that’s all you can ask for with this kind of thing.