One of my favorite classes so far as a college student has been the collage class I am currently taking. I already enjoy junk journaling, or scrapbooking with junk (napkins, wrappers, receipts, etc.), so this class felt like a more polished version of that. In my most recent piece, I created a crude version of my roommate’s cat, the green-eyed, fluffy Thin Mint made of ripped and torn black paper.
Collage and this style of art is my favorite medium, and through my reading and research this week that word stuck out to me a lot; medium, basically how you convey something, artistically or otherwise.
That word then connected me to Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” theory and how the way we consume things (like television vs. print) is far more important than what we consume (the actual message). This mention of McLuhan first stuck out to me in Johann Hari’s book “Stolen Focus”, where I had my Post-it written on page 29 mentioning him. It wasn’t until page 83 that Hari also brought McLuhan’s name into the discussion, describing how putting on a different pair of goggles makes the same information look different each time1.
But it’s not just Hari, Winnie Frick and their article on Michael Harris about the new struggle to read also talked about McLuhan’s point that, any technology can numb human awareness, especially when it’s first introduced (3)2.
But what does this have to do with a character from one of the oldest stories ever and a tasty drink that’s trending right now?
Well that brings in the second part, performativity and “larping” (or live action role playing). Last year, there was a flood of men who posted on the internet them drinking matcha, reading a book, and carrying tote bags, seemingly for the attention they could get from women. Like the internet does, people ran with the idea, made fun of those who participated, and eventually beat anything funny or unique into a pulp. It stemmed from the idea that none of these men were actually being themselves, just putting on a show to attract attention. But don’t we all do that to a degree?
To show what we like and who we are is basically a performance, doing that doesn’t make it fake or untrue, it’s just a way of communicating with people. John Austin3 developed the idea of “performative utterances”, or the idea that even just saying something is the first step of actually doing an action and is often the driving force behind things. Applying it people: saying you like reading books and drinking matcha, is really the first action to reading books and drinking matcha.
With the age of the internet and the medium that is phones, social media, and the all holy algorithm, exaggeration of personality traits are sure to get more engagement, and quickly. However, the growing reaction, especially from Gen-Z, is pretty against this standard and they prefer things that are authentic and real. Don Grant brings up a great point in Rachel Hale’s article on “larping” in that, “We learn about ourselves and where we stand in the world only from the reactions and responses we get from others”4, and for Gen-Z, that’s the internet. The mediums we choose dictate us in some way, whether we admit that or not. Yet, with a medium as addicting and confusing as social media, can we be trusted to decide what is an acceptable level of performance?
I hope you guys know where I’m trying to go with this post for this week! I think how people view performance will shift… Only time will tell, and I have a feeling it’s connected to if Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is to be considered a “good” remake once the Oscars come around. If you have any thoughts, let me know in the comments below!
Citations:
- Hari, Johann. Stolen Focus. First, Crown, 2023. Paperback, Originally published by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2022. ↩︎
- Frick, Winnie. “I’ve Forgetten How to Read.” The Global and Mail, Feb. 2018, p. 5. ↩︎
- John Austin on Performative Utterances. https://web.stanford.edu/class/ihum54/Austin_on_speech_acts.htm. Accessed 6 Sept. 2026. ↩︎
- “All of Gen Z Is Larping. It’s Not What You Think It Is.” Yahoo Life, 10 Aug. 2026, https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/gen-z-larping-not-think-110101831.html. ↩︎
Meg Buckley | Through the Lenses 
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