On my way home from work, I passed a bakery I had seen repeatedly on social media. I had never tasted its famous pastries, yet I knew how the cream would spill out when it is cut and which angles make the best photograph. I almost joined the line. Then I wondered: Did I want the pastry, or did I want to become someone who had tried it? A first paycheck offers more than purchasing power. It lets young workers decide what to wear, where to go and what kind of life to build. Yet that freedom arrives just as many are unsure how an employed adult is supposed to live. The search for guidance begins innocently: office clothes, appropriate bags, savings plans, after-work routines. Soon, information becomes a template for identity. Sociologist Erving Goffman described everyday interaction as a performance in which people manage impressions. Social media did not invent that performance. It enlarged the stage, multiplied the audience and turned self-presentation into a continuous activity. An old Korean folktale offers an unsettling metaphor. A rat eats a person’s discarded fingernail and toenail