Society and Performance

or: on purchasable happiness 

As a young white woman living in Germany, I am quite privileged. For example, I have the choice of how I want to shape my life. In theory, I can decide to be happy if I want to. "Privileged" societies like ours are also called "smiley societies". Democracy creates good conditions for being happy. The population is generally doing well and the chance of a "happy life" seems easier to achieve in smiley societies than in less democratic systems. "Happiness" is written in capital letters in the value system of the privileged, and you really have to be in a good mood if you want to be accepted. But this comes with a certain social pressure that you really ought to be happy.
What does this happiness look like exactly? And why are so many people still not happy?
We all know that, for example, money doesn't really make you happy and you could theoretically own everything in the world without being happy. Yet everyone acts as if happiness is a goal. Something you can achieve, something you can consume. It's not for nothing that they say "buy yourself happy". In the media, it always seems as if the search for happiness ends with the possession of certain goods. Propagating material self-presentation as a prerequisite (or at least as a stepping stone) to happiness influences many people not only in their consumer behaviour, but also in their perception of their world. The mental health of human beings and their authentic capacity for action within society are also sustainably harmed; young people in particular suffer from the media-idealised portrayal of constant happiness. If one constantly assumes that one only achieves real satisfaction with the possession of a new pair of shoes, or with a certain body weight or a certain skin colour, then one inevitably distances oneself more and more from oneself and adapts to the expectations of the smiley society. 
In advertising, you are confronted exclusively with beaming faces; in film and television, Hollywood scripts propagate the ideal happy ending; and on Instagram, influencers show what a supposedly happy life looks like. These depictions subtly reinforce the image of happiness as a normal state – and when everyone always seems to be happy, then one's own unhappiness seems abnormal and atypical. We often don't even consciously perceive the constant projection of good mood and contentment. Because actually, we all want what the influencers claim to be, namely: to become happy. We measure our worth within a society, and thus also our happiness, eventually automatically by what we own. Based on what we can show to make it clear to others: I'm cool, please be nice to me. 
The reason for this is that the pursuit of ideals lies in the nature of socialised human beings, just as the drive for belonging does. The fact that this belonging in modern Western society can be performed and achieved through the possession of a certain identity based on (material) goods enables people to supposedly buy happiness. We believe that if we had this dress, this flat, this life, we would be happy. This consumption-altered pursuit reproduces inauthentic expectations and strained forms of self-presentation, which can be taken up and marketed by companies and corporations. This creates a form of mutual dependency that makes the liberation of happiness from idealised expectations seem impossible: the market needs the tendencies of social currents to maintain consumption, and society in turn orients itself towards general trends and consumes and performs for all it's worth. So we find ourselves in a toxic cycle in search of happiness, and at some point we can no longer decide which interests are our own and which we pursue in order to prove something to someone. The portrayal of happiness and the constantly reproducing social pressure to be constantly happy finds its stage especially in social media. With influencers, companies have found a completely new and extraordinarily profitable marketing branch that has an incredible influence on young generations, especially when it comes to self-presentation. Product, clothing and music trends are spread via Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, reaching millions of new consumers. At the same time, these very platforms provide the stage for new trends, new currents, new figures for the corporations. Self-presentation, happiness, consumer behaviour – actually, these terms have absolutely nothing to do with each other. It is capitalism and the resulting performance and evaluation society that semantically link these terms together. To a certain extent, we no longer know any other way than to build our identity around (material) goods. These systematic tendencies are woven into our everyday lives and deeply internalised. And it takes a lot of strength to really find yourself. It takes strength not to be influenced. It takes strength to actively stand against the ideal and distance yourself from it. But if we keep chasing the fictional state of perfect, permanent happiness that is so normalised, we won't recognise that being happy means accepting that you will also be unhappy. As long as we continue to believe that we are never enough and think our worth is measurable by possessions, we reproduce the happiness norm and the pressure that our being must be performed according to certain criteria in order to count. We voluntarily give up our authenticity just to conform to a certain image. And for what exactly?
In a society like ours, where unhappiness is still all too often a taboo subject, where social media wreaks havoc and reproduces inequality daily, where the market can influence our decisions and lobbying destroys the environment, we will never really be able to be happy. And no one should expect that of us.