Authentic: On the rise

As most of us probably saw last week, the word Authentic was named Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2023. I'm a big fan of this word, and the meaning behind it. I think being “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character” is one of the most meaningful positions a person can take in this life, and for a lot of people it's not all that easy. There are a lot of cultural, societal, and familial barriers that stand in the way of authenticity.

However, what made me stop to think about this is the question "why now"? What was different about 2023 that led people to search this word more often than other years? Will the inundation of fake-[fill-in-the-blank], manufactured social media images and messages, and AI actually turn us off in a way where we turn more towards ourselves and each other in a true search for what is authentic? I hope so.

So here's the geeky part about this. I was curious to know if this was just something Merriam-Webster was seeing or if there is an actual trend out there. For this I turned to Google, as I feel when most of us want to learn about something we turn to Google. It turns out Google supports this upward trend of the "search for authentic"! The last 2 years, in fact, have shown this to be true.

So what now? How will we take this search for authenticity and move it forward? Time will only tell. But maybe our word of 2024 will be something like "connection", "friendship", or even "love". Here's hoping. And if that does happen, you heard it here first. 😉