There’s a strange sickness in the world today. It doesn’t make you cough or sweat. It just whispers—“Look at me.”And like moths to a backlit phone, we obey.
It’s not just teenagers glued to their screens, either. It’s everyone. Adults, grandparents, politicians—everybody’s performing. We’ve become actors in our own highlight reels, curating moments so clean they don’t even squeak. It’s exhausting, this business of pretending to be thriving.
We post, we refresh, we wait for little digital affirmations that tell us we matter. A few hearts, a thumbs-up, maybe a “🔥” if we’re lucky. It’s the new currency of relevance, and it’s printed in pixels instead of paper.
But like all cheap currency, it inflates. The more we print, the less it’s worth.I’ve noticed how quickly people move from joy to doubt online. A post does well—there’s a buzz, a little dopamine spark—and ten minutes later the question creeps in: Why didn’t that one do better? You can practically see the high fade as the algorithm moves on.
Then comes the next post, the next performance.
We used to create to express. Now we create to impress.
We've turned all life experiences into algorithms, all pats on the back into likes and subs.
But here’s the thing about validation: if you have to ask for it, it’s not worth that much.
When I finished my first novel, there was no applause. No fireworks. Just me, staring at the screen, realizing I’d finally done it. I can’t describe the quiet that followed. It wasn’t empty—it was earned.
There’s a kind of peace in that silence, the kind you don’t get from “likes.” You only get it from work that’s real.
We live in a time where everyone’s trying to be seen, but very few are trying to be understood.
And that’s where the cost comes in. When every thought, every meal, every sunset is potential content, we start losing the ability to experience anything without an audience.
Validation used to mean something. It was the handshake after a hard job, the hug from someone who knows what it cost you to get there. Now it’s just numbers on a screen—numbers that vanish when the Wi-Fi does.
I’m not saying social media is evil. It connects us in ways that were science fiction a few decades ago. But connection isn’t the same as communion.
One fills your feed. The other fills your soul.
Maybe we don’t need to share everything. Maybe we need to let some moments live only in our memory. The sound of laughter that isn’t recorded. The smell of rain without a filter. The satisfaction of finishing something no one even knows you’re working on.
When you stop performing for the crowd, you find out who you really are when the curtain’s closed.
And maybe that’s where real validation lives—in the quiet nod you give yourself when no one’s watching.
So, to anyone chasing hearts and hashtags: you’re not wrong to want to be seen. Just make sure you don’t go broke paying for attention with your authenticity.
After all, the applause always fades… but the work, if it’s real, doesn’t.