"Just be yourself"

Suddenly, hating Nickelback became something that 'cool' people 'have' to do. Suddenly, thousands of people who previously had no particular opinion whatsoever on Nickelback 'hated' Nickelback. People who are hysterically trying to be cool or normal are scary because they are such idiots. Together they are capable of horrifying things.

I'm afraid that the great majority of humans are like this: not thinking, just imitating.

I just saw a headline The Bravest Thing You Can Do, According to Shailene Woodley (a short article about what actor Shailene Woodley said at the 'Teen Choice Awards'). If it's not "Just be yourself", then I am a walrus, I thought. I clicked on the headline. Yeah, it was "Just be yourself". I am still a walrus, though.

Just be yourself has become one of the most popular phrases in Western culture, but what the hell does it really mean? I think that the idea is beautiful in itself, when you truly and deeply understand it. But is the fact that everybody's repeating "Just be yourself" all the time making people actually "be themselves"?

How many people are capable of "being themselves", not caring at all about the opinions of other people? Maybe 2 or 3 in a thousand? The modern ideal is to be "individualistic", but how many of us actually are individualistic? 5 percent at best?

I don't know, but we are socially dependent animals and "Just be yourself!" is not going to change that. Most people saying "Just be yourself" are extremely unoriginal and insecure. They've heard "Just be yourself" thousands of times, but they haven't thought about what being yourself really means. They just think that it's something kinda good or whatever.

Modern individualism is an illusion. "Just be yourself" isn't making us more independent; for some reason it's just one of those things that sound good in a culture where narcissism has become acceptable. People post pictures saying "Just be yourself" on their Instagrams, and the next fucking picture is a picture of sushi, identical to all the pictures of sushi that their friends are posting all the time. People see other people do and say stuff, and then they repeat that same stuff almost automatically, and never ask themselves why they're doing what they're doing. If everybody's just being themselves, then everybody must be very closely related to each other.