The Requisite Sprezzatura of Social Media
When Castiglione published The Courtier in 1528, his goal was to define the qualities that made one a quality member of the king’s court during the Renaissance. And if your eyes are already glazing over, wondering what this history lesson has to do with your Facebook feed, just give me a moment; I’m getting there, I promise.
According to Castiglione (or indeed, the people chilling in the parlor of duchess Elizabeth Gonzaga who were having this discussion in the book), the perfect courtier needed to be witty, attractive, and skilled in a number of things. But, these traits alone were not enough. It was hard work to keep up one’s appearance, intelligence, and training, but the most important trait that a courtier needed to possess was the ability to make it all look easy.
Perhaps now, this is starting to feel a little familiar?
While the concept of ”the court” was mostly dead even before the era of Bridgerton’s bodice-ripping romps, the necessary ease of grace that Castiglione described several hundred years ago is alive and well today on your computer screen. And the name for this phenomenon? Sprezzatura.
Sprezzatura is alive and well all over the place, especially in advertisement. It is the reason you paid $90 for those Sperrys that look like they belong on a sail boat, and it is definitely the reason you own a floppy straw hat even though you never have time to go to the beach. Advertisers have been selling that laid-back lifestyle since before Don Draper smoked his first cigarette. But the influence of sprezzatura is not only being used to sell you overpriced fashion. It’s also being used to control what you think… or at least, what you share.
Because Sprezzatura demands that we make it all look easy.
If you’re still with me, you might be thinking that there’s no place for a king or a court in 2021, and I’ll half agree with you. Sure, there’s no king or queen. But the ideals of chivalry and humanism espoused by Renaissance courtiers was never about impressing the king anyway, was it? No. It was about impressing the rest of the court. And the court? Well, that’s alive and well, and bigger than ever, my friend. It is every person on your feed. Maybe even every person on the internet.
A lot has been written about how social media and social comparison leads to depression. This is primarily because everyone wants to put the best version of themselves online. When we earn that degree or promotion, we announce it for the court to hear, as well we should. But no one wants to hear about the tear-filled nights of stress and hard work that got us there. No one wants to see how the sausage is made, so to speak. They just want us when we’re dressed in our Sunday best ready to be presented at court like the perfect courtiers we are. So the hard work we hide away, because we have to make it look easy.
And if we don’t? If we fail the test of social media sprezzatura? God forbid we admit that life is challenging. Like good courtiers, our friends will express their condolences and support to our faces, but privately, they will think of us as “oversharing” or “attention seekers”.
In the world of social media, we are all beautiful, and witty, and skilled, and we make it look easy as hell… at least those of us who are successful at this game do. And the rest of us? Perhaps we can eat cake?
