No Exit: The Digital Panopticon and the Paradoxes of Authenticity

Abstract This paper explores the meaning of authenticity by comparing Sartre’s (1989) depiction of “hell” in No Exit with Byung-Chul Han concept of social media as a “digital panopticon,” using the framework I shall dub “No Break, No Outside, No Mirror, No Torturer.” It investigates the paradox of authenticity, where the imperative to “be authentic” paradoxically renders authenticity increasingly elusive, particularly in today’s social media-driven environment. In a world where both the power to see and the power to be seen have been made available to all individuals in less than two decades, social media has satisfied people’s natural desire to see and be seen. At the same time, however, it compels people to voluntarily expose themselves, fostering dependence on the gaze, amplifying narcissism and bad faith, and ultimately reinforcing conformity. As Han (2018) observes, authenticity serves as a selling point, turning the self into an implicit form of self-exploitation and conformity by emphasizing system-compatible difference and uniqueness. To counter this performative authenticity, this paper draws on Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy (1990) to propose a new direction for authenticity—one that questions personal freedom and connects it to ethical responsibility toward the Other. Lastly, the paper explores the potential of social media as a space for offering the self as a gift to others and society, and for encountering and responding to the suffering of others in solidarity. This possibility begins with a “pedagogy of seeing and being seen,” which shifts the gaze from judgment to responsibility, and develops into a “pedagogy of the invisible,” emphasizing the transcendence of the Other and fostering ethical responsibility while promoting critical awareness of invisible systems and totality. It ultimately suggests an understanding of authenticity that is linked not only to individual freedom but also to the freedom of others and society. The persistent effort to transform the closed room of egoism—a Sartrean hell—into a space of solidarity, where the self is offered as a gift to the Other and society, does not promise a perfect utopia. Instead, it opens us to lives that are, if only slightly, less egoistic and a little more free from bad faith.