I am currently four minutes and thirty-seven seconds into a specialized microfiber scrub of my phone screen, and the smudge near the top left corner simply refuses to yield. It’s a stubborn ghost of a thumbprint, probably left there while I was scrolling through a particularly egregious Twitter thread. I’ve noticed that when I’m irritated, my grip tightens, exerting exactly seventy-seven grams of pressure more than necessary. It’s a habit. As a handwriting analyst, I spend my days obsessing over the physics of the stroke-the way a pen-tip digs into the fibers of the paper, revealing the truth of the hand behind it. But the digital world? It’s frictionless. It’s smudge-heavy. And lately, it’s desperately, pathetically trying to convince me that it has a soul.

We’ve entered an era where ‘authenticity’ is a KPI. It’s a line item on a marketing spreadsheet, nestled somewhere between ‘engagement’ and ‘conversion.’ We’ve got brand guidelines that dictate exactly how many typos a social media manager should intentionally leave in a post to make it seem ‘human.’ We have CEOs filming themselves crying on LinkedIn because they think vulnerability is a currency. It’s performative. It’s a mask made of skin-colored plastic. And frankly, I’m exhausted. I don’t want my insurance company to be my ‘fam.’ I don’t want my toothpaste to have a ‘purpose.’ I want them to be useful. I want the claim to be paid and the cavities to stay away.

The Dignity of Usefulness

There is a profound, quiet dignity in being useful that we’ve completely abandoned in favor of being ‘relatable.’

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True authenticity is not a tone of voice; it is the act of genuinely serving a need without asking for a round of applause.

– A Reflection on Utility

I remember once, about eighty-seven weeks ago, I was analyzing a signature for a client. It was a chaotic mess of loops and sharp, aggressive descenders. I told the client that the writer was likely trying to project a sense of creative genius but was actually deeply disorganized and probably hiding a significant mistake. I was wrong. It turned out the writer had simply been using a very expensive fountain pen on a surface that was slightly damp. The ‘personality’ I’d diagnosed was just the result of a tool not working correctly. I felt like an idiot. I had looked for soul where there was only a mechanical failure. Brands do this constantly. They think their ‘personality’ is what matters, when in reality, their customers are just dealing with the friction of a tool that doesn’t quite fit the hand.

When we talk about utility, we’re talking about the fundamental reason a business exists. Somewhere in the mid-2000s, we got high on the idea that brands needed to be ‘people.’ We started giving them voices, hobbies, and political stances. But people don’t buy things because they want more friends. They buy things because they have a problem that needs a solution. If you solve that problem effectively, consistently, and without a bunch of performative fluff, you are being more ‘authentic’ than any brand using slang it doesn’t understand. Usefulness is a form of respect. It respects the customer’s time, their intelligence, and their wallet.

The Honesty of the Physical Object

Consider the physical world. When I sit down at my desk, I don’t need my stapler to tell me its origin story. I don’t need my lamp to tweet about its mental health. I need the stapler to bind these thirty-seven pages of analysis, and I need the lamp to illuminate the paper so I can see the slant of a ‘t’ bar. The moment those things start trying to be ‘real’ with me is the moment I throw them in the trash. This is where companies like MunchMakers get it right. They aren’t out here trying to be your best friend or your spiritual advisor. They make tools. They make high-quality, physical objects-grinders, accessories, the tactile stuff of a specific lifestyle-and they focus on the utility of that object. You can’t fake the way a high-quality grinder feels in your hand. You can’t marketing-speak your way into a smooth rotation.

Utility is Your Authenticity

I once spent sixty-seven hours analyzing the diaries of a local craftsman from the 1920s. His handwriting was incredibly consistent. It didn’t change based on his mood; it changed based on the task. He didn’t try to ‘find his voice.’ His voice was simply the byproduct of his work. He was useful to his community, and therefore, he was known. He didn’t have to announce his presence with a meme. He just built the barns that are still standing eighty-seven years later.

We need to stop asking ‘How do we seem more authentic?’ and start asking ‘How can we be more useful?’ The former leads to those cringey social media posts that make us want to hurl our phones into the nearest body of water. The latter leads to products that people actually care about. If you want to be authentic, stop talking about yourself. Stop sharing your ‘brand values’ in a font that looks like handwriting. Just solve the problem. Give the customer something that works so well they don’t even have to think about the people who made it. That is the ultimate goal: to be so useful that you become invisible.

The irony is that the more a brand tries to be ‘real,’ the more fake they appear. Real honesty doesn’t need to be announced. Real authenticity doesn’t need a hashtag. It shows up in the way a gear turns, the way a hinge holds, or the way a customer service rep actually solves your problem in seven minutes instead of giving you a scripted empathy statement.

The Ultimate Goal: Invisibility

I finally got the smudge off my screen. It took a lot more effort than I expected, and I ended up using a specific cleaning solution I’ve had for forty-seven months. It’s a small, clear bottle with a label that has no personality whatsoever. It doesn’t tell me it’s ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘made with love.’ It just says ‘Screen Cleaner.’ It’s the most authentic thing in my office right now because it did exactly what it promised to do without making a scene about it.

If we want to fix the state of modern branding, we have to embrace the ‘Screen Cleaner’ philosophy. We have to strip away the layers of performative bullshit and get back to the core of utility. We have to realize that the customer isn’t looking for a relationship; they’re looking for a tool. And if you can provide that tool-if you can be the thing that actually clears the smudge instead of the thing that just talks about it-then you don’t have to worry about being authentic. You already are.

I’m looking at my desk now, at the seventeen different pens I use for my analysis. None of them have a social media presence. None of them have a ‘vibe.’ But they each have a specific weight, a specific flow, and a specific purpose. They are useful. And in their utility, they are more ‘real’ than any viral marketing campaign could ever hope to be. We don’t need more ‘authentic’ brands. We need more brands that just work. We need more usefulness. Everything else is just ink on the page, and quite frankly, most of it is just a mess of poorly executed loops that don’t mean a thing.