Grateful To Not Be An Influencer
Some questions I consider before getting vulnerable online and in person
Hi friends.
I believe that we all have an innate desire to be known, recognized, and appreciated as our true selves. Relating and sharing with others is part of being human. Would you agree? For some of us, that means being known at work, by family, by friends, maybe by the neighborhood barista. For others, that can mean being known by thousands if not millions of followers and fans. Strangers, really. And known, as in, they know you exist and they know certain details about your life. But do they really know you? Social media, podcasts, and platforms like Substack fuel and incentivize this desire to be recognized. The more, the better. Who wouldn’t want to write a best-selling book and make a living talking about it, or is that just me? But there’s a dark side. In a world where celebrities and politicians, let alone regular people who we now call influencers, feel easily accessible, sometimes we can’t choose who gets to know us and who thinks they know us. Sharing our lives in a public space, even if we think nobody is watching, comes with some careful considerations. There’s story after story about influencer burnout, and almost every newsletter I subscribe to is at some point about the exhausting task of marketing one’s self. As I publish more personal pieces and receive feedback from readers, I’ve been thinking a lot about these themes:
privacy and access to individuals, from family to internet friends to complete strangers
how our own values align—or misalign—with society’s values
what we, as creators, give away for free
and the contexts in which we share pieces of our stories
For me, these threads have culminated into new boundaries I’m setting online (and in person with strangers). It’s one of the reasons I launched paid subscriptions, so I would have the option to control how my “content” is “consumed.” Not as a gatekeeper of information about myself but to honor my privacy, something that feels rare these days. It’s why I’m limiting my time on Instagram and taking an indefinite break from Twitter. It’s why I won’t give out my last name or share that I’m a journalist upon first meeting anymore. It’s why I’m holding certain details closer to my heart these days.
But sometimes, I can’t resist the dopamine hit of notifications. I’m drawn back to the grid to post and keep up and publish a curated version of my life. To somehow, impossibly, sum up my month and my emotions in a single caption. I try. And when I see the views on a reel tick up, I get excited. And just as quickly, I get discouraged when the views level out or I start comparing myself to others. Or I get a mean or inappropriate message that triggers my anxiety and fear. I hate this spiral, and I don’t like this version of myself, and I’m reminded that I don’t actually want views or followers or likes or attention. None of that means anything about who I am. I just want to connect with my friends and other people who share interests and offer unique perspectives. I just want to be known as my true self. And my true self doesn’t fit into a little square, or even 500 little squares.
Last summer, I wrote about how I was done with oversharing. But I wanted to use this post to dive a bit deeper into five Ws—so very journalistic of me—that I’m asking myself before getting vulnerable online or when I meet someone new. Here they are: