We’re Losing Ourselves for Likes: The Slow Death of Authenticity | Ep. 18

Have you ever refreshed your social media feed obsessively after posting something meaningful—as if your soul was waiting for permission to believe in itself?

You’re not alone.

This deeply personal exploration pulls back the curtain on how we’re slowly losing ourselves in the pursuit of visibility, engagement, and validation.

What began as simple research into why we crave viral moments turned into something far more vulnerable. Social media hasn’t just changed how we communicate—it’s fundamentally altered how we value ourselves.
We’ve created a world where performance masquerades as purpose, where metrics define our worth, and where we’re constantly asking:
“Am I showing up as myself—or the version I think people want to see?”

This isn’t just about being online too much.
 It’s about the quiet collapse of the soul—when visibility replaces validation, when presence is traded for performance, and when real connection is sacrificed for reach.

In this episode, we unpack:

• Why visibility became our proof of worth
• The difference between being seen and being known
• The trap of engagement metrics and algorithm-driven identity
• The loneliness of being “connected” but never truly held
• What it takes to reclaim your real voice, values, and presence

Because being visible doesn’t equal being valuable. And going viral doesn’t mean you’ve been seen.

This episode is not content strategy—it’s a rescue mission for the soul.

So put down your phone. Look your people in the eye.
Say “I love you” with presence instead of emoji hearts.
Ask “how’s your soul?” instead of “did you see my post?”

Your authenticity is still in there. And it’s worth more than all the likes in the world.

Text Me and Share Your Thoughts

Support the show

Subscribe and let’s continue the work of Renovating the Soul, one tough conversation at a time.

📢 Join the Conversation: Find me on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok—@renovatingthesoulpod—and drop your thoughts under the episode post. Let's unpack this together.

📩 Get in Touch: Have a thought, question, or story you'd like to share? Email me at [e-mail] — I'd love to hear from you. 

✍️ Leave a Review: If this show means something to you, leaving a review goes a long way in helping others find it. It takes two minutes and makes a real difference.

🌐 More Resources: For more episodes and ways to connect, visit renovatingthesoul.com.

Episode Transcript

Alexandria (00:00):
Someone asked me recently how long does it take
for me to record and researchthese episodes and I told her it
depends on the content, itdepends on the episode.
It could take weeks andsometimes it can take months,
because I'm reading and I'mresearching and I'm teasing
things out, and this was one ofthose episodes that was on that
longer end.
I had an idea that came from myown personal struggles, which

(00:27):
is how most of these episodesare born.
But this one I really had tosit with, because every time
that I came to write the outline, every time that I tried to
force myself and record, I keptbeing slapped in the face with
this feeling of discontentment.
I kept having to confront thatthere was something deeper

(00:47):
gnawing at me.
See, I thought that I wascoming to this to talk about
virality and going viral and whywe crave viral moments, but
then I realized over the courseof the weeks that it was
something deeper.
I really had to sit with this.
I had to step away from mycomputer multiple times.
I had to just be out, be around.

(01:08):
I even had to be on socialmedia to see and to finally
grasp what it was that I wastrying to get you all and and me
to see, and that's that we'relosing ourselves slowly, quietly
, in the name of stayingrelevant, in the name of
building something, provingsomething, in the name of being

(01:30):
seen.
And I say we because I havefelt this too.
I feel it right now, too, thatI've posted something that I was
proud of, something that Ithought really mattered.
This actually just happened tome the other day, and then I sat
there refreshing the stats,like my soul was waiting for
permission to believe in itself.
I've held back something honest, something real, because I was

(01:54):
afraid it wouldn't land right,and I've watched people I know
reinvent themselves for thealgorithm, chase virality like
it's validation and burn outtrying to be someone they're not
.
And the crazy part is some ofthem don't even realize they're
drowning Because these platforms, they're built to make us feel
like we're winning, even whileour authenticity is slipping

(02:16):
through the cracks.
This isn't just about beingonline too much.
This is about how social mediahas retrained our brains,
reshaped our values and slowlyconvinced us that performance is
the same thing as purpose.
And I've had to sit and askmyself some really hard
questions over these past fewweeks, almost a month.
I had to ask like am I stillshowing up as me or as the

(02:39):
version I think people want tosee?
Am I ashamed of who I really am, my quirky, goofy, crazy self
because it doesn't fit thealgorithm?
Do I feel like I'm enough or amI just engaging enough?
Is this my voice?
Or is this survival strategy?
Y'all this isn't just aboutsocial media.

(03:00):
This is about our identity, ourintegrity, our attention, our,
our soul, and I think we'vegotten so used to being curated
and filtered and watchable thatwe've forgotten how to be whole.
We've become what philosophercharles s calls smeared out
selves, scattered acrosstimelines, profiles, captions

(03:21):
and comments.
This episode is not contentstrategy.
It actually wasn't even in myoriginal to-do task for episodes
.
It's not a critique just forcreators.
It's a rescue mission for thesoul, a deep breath for the
parts of you that don't trend, amirror held up to the ache that

(03:41):
so many of us carry but don'tknow how to name.
And if you've ever felt likeyou're performing more than
you're living, if you've evermissed who you used to be, or if
you're just tired of feelinglike realness isn't enough, this
is for you.
Welcome to Renovating the Soul,where we turn the mess into

(04:05):
something meaningful.
Welcome back to another episodeof Renovating the Soul.
If you've been here before,thank you so much for joining me
again and if this is your firsttime, thank you for being here.
Please listen to the end.
Let me know your thoughts.
Welcome to the Renovating theSoul family.
We're so glad that you are here.
If you know, you've alreadybeen here, you know that I

(04:28):
usually start these episodeswith I'm so excited, I'm ready.
But today, today, I feel alittle more nervous than excited
and that's because, as I saidin the introduction, I have been
wrestling with this topic forat least a month.
I have been waking up thinkingabout this, going to bed
thinking about this.
I have been wrestling with thistopic for at least a month.
I have been waking up thinkingabout this, going to bed
thinking about this.
I've been reading articles.

(04:49):
I've been scrolling theinternet.
I've been I've changed likethree or four outlines.
I have talked to my EchoChatGBT, my best friend, like I
have really been trying to teasethis out, because every time
that I sat down to record, everytime that I finished an outline

(05:09):
like I have completed outlinesthat I did that I was like scrap
, it just is not getting to whatI want it to be about, and so
I've been struggling.
But now I feel ready, but Ialso feel nervous because this
is like a heart issue and Idon't know that we always.

(05:30):
Let me put it like this it ishard to do a podcast like mine,
where I'm constantly putting outa lot of vulnerable aspects of
my life.
It would be easier if it wasvery topic based, where I could
just talk about parenting andtalk about, you know, these high
level subjects religion,politics but when you have to

(05:52):
sit here and you have to hold upa mirror to yourself and put it
out there to an already veryjudgmental world, it is
nerve-wracking.
And then when you don't seethese kind of topics being the
fun ones, it's reallygut-wrenching.
Right, and I have struggled andwe're going to talk about all
of this.
But I have really beenstruggling lately with my

(06:14):
podcast, with social media, asI've mentioned in several
episodes, and not social media,because the podcast is social
media in general and, honestly,that struggle has been ongoing
for years, but it's really beenheightened in the last maybe
year or so, and so, coming tohave to sit down and finally
talk about this, it feels likeI'm getting a load off, but it

(06:34):
also feels really heavy for mebecause and I'm going to start
this with sharing my why whichis what I always loved telling
you guys is how I come up withthese episode titles or topics,
where it came from, why am Isitting down to talk about this?
It's so important for me togive you all.
It started with me doing themarketing for this podcast, and

(06:57):
so I do everything marketing,editing videos, recording
outlines with the help of Echo,my personal assistant.
I do everything, though, andit's hard to sit here and no
one's behind this camera tellingme that sounded good or no, you
messed up or whatever.
I have to hear that later, mykids be in the background, y'all

(07:20):
be hearing them.
I have to put that out.
I have to show up, no matterwhat.
This podcast is only one part ofmy life.
I have family, I have, you know, other things going on, and so
it gets really discouraging whenI work hard on things and I put
it out in the world and you seeother things in people
validated for less quality orfor things that are just not

(07:41):
significant, and it's easy toget caught up in comparison.
It's easy to look at oh sorry,no, it's hard to look at
podcasts that just focus on likesex and exploiting women, so to
speak, like even women who justexploit themselves.
For the numbers and for thestuff to, you know, objectify

(08:02):
themselves, because it's justabout popularity, it's just
about your podcast making thecharts.
And for the stuff to, you know,objectify themselves, because
it's just about popularity, it'sjust about your podcast making
the charts and it's not reallyabout, you know, giving depth.
And I get it Like I'm notagainst any of those things per
se, um, when they'reauthentically done and when
they're done in a way that istrue to the person.
But I do have a problem whenpeople are just willing to sell

(08:23):
their souls and do whatever ittakes to get to the top.
And so when I go and I post andI'm sharing and I'm, you know,
beat down and tired and I do allthis work and I'm very
intentional and I'm making surethat every little word makes
sense, and then you post it andno one sees it, or you post it

(08:45):
and it gets like one like fromyourself or three likes, you
know, you and two other people,and then seeing things like the
spiritual abuse episode reallygrab people in.
But I'm not really here to juststay trendy and to stay talking
about the mess.
Right, that wasn't a hard topicif we really think about it.
People love to rag onChristianity and the church and

(09:09):
they ready to pull out a whipevery time for somebody else's
stuff.
But it's harder when I'mactually asking people to look
at themselves that's a lotharder and not look at yourself
in the way that it's like allright, woo, woo, right.
You the man, you the woman,like, where everything is like
that, where everything is justlike you know, it's such, it's

(09:32):
so much it, yeah, it's so baby.
So, anyways, that's where itstarted from.
It started from this deepfeeling, not deep, it wasn't
even that deep, but it startedfrom this feeling inside of me.
When I say deep, I just meanlike it was inside of me, it
wasn't in my head, it just feltlike well, let me make this
clear, I could feel it in mychest, right, but it obviously

(09:54):
was in my mind.
But I think it came from moreinternal, like in my soul, down
there, and creeping, you know,in my mind down there and
creeping, you know, in my mind,and hopefully that makes sense.
Our mind is in our soul, butI'm just, you know, our souls
made up different intricacies.
So, anyways, I um could feel itand I was like it's hard to say

(10:19):
right, because I don't.
It's not that I wanted it to goviral, but I do want my things
to get seen.
I do want at least the 100followers that I have to like it
.
I do want my family and friends.
If my family and friends alonejust liked my stuff, I probably

(10:41):
would get more traction on thealgorithm, right, and so, in
order to get traction on thesocial media platforms, you have
to fit the algorithms for allof the different social media
platforms, but those I want totranslate to podcast listens
because I feel like this isreally good content that people
could use, that they need.
It's very differentcountercultural almost from what
people are telling us.
And even if it is somethingthat people are telling us, I

(11:02):
think that I go a little deeperthan just shooting words off and
never telling you all what theheck I mean or what I'm talking
about.
And so, yeah, I just felt itinside of me and I had to really
sit there and ask myself andthis is a legitimate question.
I ask myself it's like why doyou want to go viral?
Like, why do you want so manylikes?
Why do you feel like if you gotmore likes, that means that

(11:34):
you're doing something good,like, do you really believe in
what you're pushing out or ornot?
And that's where all of thisstarted.
I just I knew that if I had thisache, more people had the ache,
and when I first was going todo this episode, it was about
that.
It was about why do we cravethese viral moments?
And that's what I thought thisepisode was going to be, and it
was built around that.
And then it got deeper about.
Well, it's really about thisache to be seen and the fact

(11:57):
that we're making the um.
When our visibility becomesvalidation right, we make
visibility equal validation.
So the more likes, that meansthe more valuable I am.
If I go viral for this, thenthat means that I'm saying
something good.
If my podcast is really gettinghundreds and thousands of
listens and they're putting meon the top charts and they're
featuring me, then that meansthat I'm actually doing

(12:19):
something good.
And so that's where I started.
And then I sat with that and Iwas like it has to be more than
just going viral, because I knowpeople who really don't want to
go viral and aren't contentcreators, but they do sit there
and look at the likes.
They do sit there and refreshtheir feed.
It's you know.
There's some examples I'm goingto give, but this is really
crazy because I went tosomething not too long ago and

(12:42):
there was a young lady sittingnext to me and she's every time
she's posting she's looking at,like who's looking at her story,
who's liking her stuff, and itwas weird to see that, knowing
that I was working on thisepisode, because sometimes I get
in my head and I go am I theonly one that's really thinking
about this?
Because I'm actually not thatperson.
I actually don't go to my storyand look at like who's looking

(13:03):
at my story.
I don't go to my story and lookat like who's looking at my
story.
I don't like count.
I don't go look to see who'sliking stuff.
I will look at the likes andthe numbers there.
I actually don't look at mystory number, views or whatever
just because I don't want to seeit.
I know myself, okay.
So I don't go in and exhaustmyself with who is looking at
what, unless it's someone thatI'm suspicious of and I need to
block.
So it was interesting seeingsomeone next to me about my age,

(13:26):
just like you know who waseverything she posted like right
when she posted it, or oldstories.
It was like who was looking?
How many people are looking?
And I just thought that thatwas so interesting and it
validated what I wanted to sitdown and say that it's not just
about being a content creator.
It's not just about being, youknow, the streamer, the YouTuber
, the vlogger, whatever.

(13:47):
It's about you, the person with50 followers.
It's about you, the person whodoesn't post because you don't
feel like you fit up to whatsociety is looking for.
It's about you, who you are.
Like me, you are a creator.
You are creative.
You put stuff out there forpeople to hear and for people to
see.
It's a wide range, and so, goingfrom craving for our moments to

(14:11):
this ache that we have to itnot just being content creators
and people in the creative space, to it being kind of all of us,
and then getting to this pointwhere it was like listen, like
listen, we are losing ourselves.
And that's when everything justfelt like it clicked.

(14:31):
This slow death of authenticitywas when my soul just kind of
leaped and I was like that's it.
I am so tired of watchingpeople sell themselves for
moments that don't even last.
I'm tired of the fakery, thetrauma, exploitation, the
curated mess.
I mean y'all listen people turnin their lives into content and

(15:00):
then losing themselves in theprocess, and then losing
themselves in the process.
Some people don't even realizethat they're doing it.
Where I quite literally knowpeople who, and when I say know
not just who they are on socialmedia, but who they are of, and
they quite literally, I don'teven know that they recognize
that they're keeping themselvesin a cycle of always doing
something because they've gottenused to being the trauma voice.

(15:23):
They're always got some kind ofdrama going on, or at least
that's how they position it.
And you have to.
In order to stay relevant, youhave to do something new.
So now, today I wake up and I'mblue, and tomorrow I'm gonna be
red and tomorrow I'm gonna comeout.
No, I mean, and if we put thisin kind of like real things
besides colors, like it's, it'slike, okay, today I'm a democrat

(15:46):
but tomorrow I'm a libertarian.
Oh, today I'm Christian buttomorrow I'm about to be Muslim.
Like, today I'm a vlogger, buttomorrow I'm about to go do some
pranks, like it's, it's reallyjust jumping from one thing to
the next to the next, so you cankeep yourself relevant, like,
okay, I've done the let's let'suse, like the um, let's just go
back to colors.

(16:06):
I've done the red thing for awhile.
I've done the red thing for awhile.
That got me the traction, thatgot me seen, and now I'm about
to do the blue thing.
But it's not like that.
It's not where people aresitting.
They're actually having theconversation like this, where
they recognize what they'redoing.
No, that's why this is soimportant.
We are losing ourselves withouteven recognize that we're
losing ourselves.

(16:26):
How it happens is you love thatattention, you crave those
numbers, those comments, thosepeople that um pour into you, so
to speak, these strangers thatvalidate all of your mess
without knowing what really goeson, because we only get to tell
our side and I know several.

(16:47):
Let me listen y'all.
This is something that I havebeen, that has been on my chest
and on my heart for years, years, and it does really break my
heart to see people so caught upin the numbers, so caught up in

(17:12):
the feeling that that high youget from seeing people again
interact with you in a way andlove on you in a way, knowing
that in real life you don'treally get that.
But it's a dangerous game toplay because, like I said then,
you're not sitting on the couchable to weigh.
Okay, am I blue?
Am I red?
What do I be?
You're actually just going.

(17:33):
You know what I'm about to beblue, not realizing that.
The reason why you keepswitching from one thing, the
reason why you keep traumahopping, the reason why you keep
just, you know, even, even show, even trying to keep up with
the joneses, show your car, showyour house, show your shoes,
whatever it is, show how manyfriends you have, every event
you have, all, just show onlythe beautiful moments of your

(17:55):
life.
You're doing it because youknow, whatever gets traction,
whatever gets me likes, whatevergives me that love, that
attention, those comments, thosedms that really pump me up.
I want that feeling.
I don't want the feeling offeeling like I'm alone.
I want to feel like peoplereally love me and care about me
.
Yeah, that's why this is soimportant.

(18:20):
I have seen people shift theirwhole voice, their whole message
just to get engagement and itjust feels like now we're, if
you're not trending, you're notvaluable, and I'm just not okay
with that.
So this episode is not a rant,though.
It's a rescue mission.
It's for the parts of us thatslowly, that are slowly fading

(18:42):
and barely knows how to ask forhelp.
So we're going to break downthis title because I want to
make sure that we get this fullpicture the slow death of
authenticity.
So the definition.
I want to start with thedefinition of authenticity
before we get to the slow death,because I really enjoy that.
But the definition ofauthenticity is the quality of

(19:03):
being genuine, real or true toone's own personality, spirit or
character.
It's not false or copied, it'sundisputed origin and it's
trustworthy.
It has an undis, I think it'ssupposed to say it has an
undisputed origin that's fromthe dictionary and trustworthy
it's.
Essentially, when you'reoutside matches your inside.
That's what authenticity is,but again, because I want to

(19:25):
make, I want to make that laststatement that I made very clear
too, that your insides can bemessed up.
So when you're authentic, itreally is about being true to
your own personality.
And I would probably add, forbetter or for worse, because
authentic doesn't necessarilymean good, right, but that's
what authentic is right when,when, what happened, when what

(19:46):
is happening inside of youmatches your outside.
Um then, this idea of slow deathwhat is this?
It's a process of quiet,gradual deterioration.
It doesn't happen all at once.
It happens in tiny, almostunnoticeable ways over time.
Relating that back to the topicat hand, it means that it's not

(20:10):
one dramatic moment of losingourselves, but it's a quiet
unraveling, a piece of ourrealness chipped away every time
we edit ourselves for approval.
And I want to also make surethat I capture those of you who
really don't have this strugglewith social media because it
doesn't have to be social media,don't have this struggle with

(20:30):
social media because it doesn'thave to be social media.
I just know how much of aculprit this is, but these
things can happen, whether onyour job, whether you're in
school, whether you're aroundyour family, around friends.
It doesn't have to just be, youknow, social media being the
core of this, but any place thatyou go where you cannot be your
authentic self and you're justkeeping yourself there for
whatever reason, is somethingthat we need to address.

(20:51):
So don't leave this episodebecause you're like I don't have
such media.
Don't leave it.
Um, this is also a subtlerepeated trade.
We're trading truth for trend,we're trading presence for
performance and we're tradingour soul for stats and
eventually we're so curated,we're so watched, we're so
algorithm shaped that we don'teven know who we are anymore.

(21:13):
So this is not a funeral, it'san erosion.
So it's a slow death right,this chipping away over time of
who we genuinely are, where,when it reaches that ultimate
point, we don't even knowourselves anymore.
We're no longer dictated by ourown personal values, but by

(21:35):
whatever the social mediaalgorithm is saying we should do
, or the people around us aresaying that we should do.
So let's talk about this shift.
When did we forget who we are?
Um, I read an article and it'sgoing to be linked in the
description on whichever sitethat you're on and I loved what

(21:57):
they were saying that socialnetworking didn't start with
apps.
It started with us.
We have always been networkedthrough clubs, churches, letters
, letters, lodges.
We've always found ways toconnect because it's a part of
being human.
Think about it Telephones right, we got the telephones.

(22:19):
I mean telephones go back toway back then Letter systems.
Curious why?
Because they wanted.
I think that from the beginningof time, we have been looking
for ways to stay connected,looking for ways to pass down
ideas, looking for ways to learnabout what is happening with
this relative or this friend orthese, whatever's happening,

(22:41):
right.
And so this idea of socialnetworking, like, right, it
might be an internet thing, butagain, that did not start with
apps.
That started with us who we arelet's talk about.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthe evolution of social media,
because your girl's been onsocial media for a while.

(23:02):
I had, first of all, I had,black Planet, which I think
Black Planet came before MySpacewhen I did my research.
But I had Black Planet, I hadMySpace, and so in the early
days you had MySpace, orkut Idon't even know how to say this
one Orkut, orkut, I think it'sOrkut Friendster, bebo, right,
those were like a little moremessy, they were unpolished, it

(23:24):
was very low stakes.
You know MySpace was trying toevolve.
Get that top eight was the topeight.
Get your friend, you know,teach us how to call and make
our own backgrounds, put our ownmusic on.
I just I missed that.
But you know it was stillpressure, still, you know, a lot
of objections, right,especially for us as teens and
kids, it did cause problems.
I did get in a little bit ofdrama on my space, um, but then

(23:45):
came these media-based sites.
So then you had YouTube.
You had Flickr, vine, rightwith the videos.
That's where we started toupload versions of ourselves.
I remember when YouTube cameout and YouTube was this is just
for me, what I remember YouTubewas the platform that first
started to kick off this idea oflike overnight success and your

(24:06):
numbers going up and being ableto open doors and folks was
driving me crazy.
Talking if I just get onYouTube, if I just get on
YouTube, I don't, but no, forreal.
They're like if I just get onYouTube, I can be a success, I
can do this.
It'll open these doors.
I just need to get myself onthere.
And while that happened forpeople like Tori Kelly, it still

(24:28):
took a while, right, like.
Even for a lot of people itfeels like like, oh, they were
an overnight success.
They still had to put work in,but that's just kind of where I
remember this idea of virality.
Starting is with YouTube.
I could be totally wrong.
That's just me personally, fromwhat I've used.
But then came micro blogging.
So then you have Tumblr andTwitter, where we were able to
now talk about our thoughts, but, like Twitter was back in the

(24:51):
day, I think you could uploadpictures?
I do not remember, but I knowit wasn't about pictures, it was
just about your little 140characters, your words.
Boy, having Twitter in collegewas amazing.
I loved, child, we would so inthe dorms.
I went to Clark Atlanta oh look, I have the shirt on.
Yeah, I went to Clark Atlanta.
Oh look, I had the shirt on.
Yeah, I went to Clark Atlantaand we would watch what was it?

(25:12):
The game, I think, was big backthen, so everybody would be,
and it was like it was as if youcould see, I think visually, if
you could see everybody intheir dorms crowded around their
little TVs trying to watch thegame, and then we'd be tweeting
it and I, I love Twitter forwhat it was when, when we had it
or when when had it back then.
I'm not on it at all actuallynow, but then came TikTok,

(25:33):
instagram, which we know.
Instagram came way beforeTikTok, at least for us, right,
that Instagram was bigger.
And then you had TikTok.
And then what am I missing?
You have threads, now, right,and now we have stream, and now
we have Discord and we haveTwitch and all of these things.
Right, we have Discord and wehave Twitch and all of these
things, right and so it used tobe a place to connect, like

(25:54):
slowly, and get to know peopleor reconnect with people.
Can't forget LinkedIn, ooh child, you know, looking back at just
the evolution of social media,from my personal usage, going
from that innocence of MySpaceand Black Planet was a little
iffy and can't.
You can't forget about the chatrooms.
I I didn't get in too many chatrooms, um, I did get in some of

(26:19):
the gaming chat rooms like um,I had neopets and there was
another one that I had too thatI can't remember, but I got into
some of those times.
I didn't really get too much inAOL and some of the other chat
rooms, but we cannot leave thoseout because kids was talking to
people probably three timestheir age and didn't know it,

(26:40):
but we had all of that right.
So, looking back at that andjust the more innocence of like
MySpace and just that organicfeel almost, where it wasn't too
much pressure to perform, itwas more about connecting.
Or even the early days ofFacebook where it was like, oh
my gosh, I could see so-and-sodown there and I could talk to
so-and-so down there and evenLinkedIn professionally, being

(27:03):
able to see what people aredoing professionally and just
have that connection.
On that, I think that theyreally started to kind of close
these gaps between time anddistance.
Right, where people can seetheir grandchildren and people
can see their cousins and bestfriends after college.
Right, but slowly it's becomethis place to perform and that

(27:26):
used to be reserved for likeyour YouTubes, your Vines, and
now it's like every platform,like even Pinterest.
It really has just become thisplace to put your best foot
forward so that the algorithmcan reward you and send you up
on, you know, in people's feedsor whatever.

(27:47):
I mean, if you really eventhink about Instagram, you used
to only be able to see thepeople that you followed, and I
miss that.
I mean, I know you can turn itback or something like that, but
people aren't even reallyposting the same things anymore
because it's not the same, youknow.
So, anyways, I don't want toget caught up in the stone drop,

(28:07):
but I do miss the way that itwas and I feel like we didn't
even really notice that it washappening.
I feel like we just went fromthis okay, it's here to like.
Now we're like whoa, what doyou mean?
You can sit on stream for hoursand make millions and like, be
popular, sit on stream for 24hours, y'all and do nothing.

(28:28):
It just blows my mind, like Ijust the way that social media
is today.
It just I don't know if it'sanything that people saw coming,
although we're gonna talk aboutlater.
Some people did warn about theeffects of social media.
Um, but the likes, the views,the reach, right, they started
to feel like mirrors, and thesemirrors that tell you what

(28:49):
you're worth, they're mirrorsthat distort who you are.
And that's when our soulsstarted shrinking, when our
truth became optional, when westopped asking who am I and
started asking will this getengagement?
We've shifted from sharing toshowcasing, from self-expression
to self-curation, and now mostof us don't even really know if

(29:09):
we're posting our real life orour algorithm life.
Like I said about the girl thatyou know, post made that thing.
You're wondering is this picturegoing to be enough for people
to like it?
Is the right lighting?
Is it the right outfit?
Is it the right pose?
Is the right background?
And back then, honey, we justdidn't care.
We took Instagram's littlefilters they had and we just
posted it.

(29:29):
And so now we're like there'sthis, it's so thin to try to
figure out.
Am I really posting thisbecause I want to share it and I
want it out there?
Am I posting it because I knowthat people are going to like
this more than maybe the realthing that I want to post or
want to do?
And it sucks, right, becausesocial networking and even in
networking right, networkingright is again that thing that's

(29:51):
always been there.
We've always been networked,we've always wanted to pull
people together because we needthat human connection.
But social networking it usedto be about community and now
it's about currency, emotionalcurrency, visibility, currency,
validation, currency.
So we have to look at this.

(30:12):
This lie honestly that morevisibility equals more value,
that just because something getsa lot of likes or goes viral,
that goes viral means that it issignificant or holds weight or
holds value, or that that personor thing or company is even
worthy of being listened to,right?
Or that they're telling thetruth, that they're so honest or

(30:32):
whatever it is.
Um, we start to think that,okay, if it got those claps, it
must be wise, if it went viral,then it must be worth listening
to.
But deep down and you probablydon't have to dig that deep we
know that that's not true,because some of the wisest
voices that I know are not evenon social media and, honestly,

(30:53):
we know that to be true as well,because we're getting so many
viral videos.
When you're looking at TikTokand Instagram, that's kind of
all it is and you're watching avideo, but there's very few
videos that you watch thatactually make you want to follow
the person, that actually makeyou want to know more about the
person who posted.
Very few.
We're usually watching it.
Maybe we're laughing, maybewe're crying, and then we're

(31:15):
keep, we keep going, right, orwe're digging a little deeper,
getting into the drama, and thenwe keep going, and so, again, I
don't think this is that theidea is anything that we have to
reach too deep down for, um,but it is unfortunate that some
of the loudest people onlinehave nothing real to say.
They're just, they just areloud, so they have the volume

(31:39):
and the views.
I really love understandingwords and we're going to talk
about the word viral, theetymology and the meaning of the
word viral.
So the word viral originallyreferred to an actual virus
Cause.
I was like, where did this ideaof going viral come from?
Like when we used to hear viral, it used to be a viral disease.

(32:00):
So is that what it came from?
And sure enough, yeah, it camefrom and was used and was
originally referred to an actualvirus, something contagious,
infectious, fast spreading.
It came into play and startedbecoming a term in our society.
I think it was like back in theI want to say 1900s, I don't
remember exactly, but it cameinto pop culture through viral

(32:21):
marketing, where content thatspreads like a virus, often
unpredictably right, which isthe same thing that happens with
the virus.
It's unpredictable At first.
Maybe you don't know why itspread.
You may learn that later.
You don't always know how tocontrol it, how to contain,
contain or contain, contain,contain I think it's contain it.

(32:43):
I don't know what contain meant.
There we go.
So you're trying to contain.
Y'all be hearing me reallyprocess out loud in the moment.
So, understanding that this ideaof virality does come from the
word viral, we then are able tounderstand that being viral is

(33:03):
not about what's valuable, it'sjust about what spreads and so
like.
Think about this.
We've made going viral the goal, but viruses don't care what
they're spreading, they justwant to be replicated, and we've
started treating our lives likethat worth replication but not
worth protecting.
We're willing to do whatever itis to go viral, but not because

(33:26):
of any deep like I wanted.
I want this to be known and Iwant this to be seen.
I'm not saying this is everyoneI'm.
I want this to be seen.
I'm not saying this iseverybody, I'm just saying, for
most cases, right, it's justabout being whatever can get
seen, I will do.
I will say, even if it's notsomething that I'm personally
convicted by, because I don'tcare what I'm spreading, I just
care that it's spreading, thatit gets shared, that it gets

(33:48):
liked, that it gets seen.
Even if it gets liked, that itgets seen, even if it comes with
negative comments, because allthe negative comments even add
into right me being seen, Allthe shares that I get from
saying something outlandish,whatever it is.
I want that, but I don'tnecessarily have to care about
what it is that is going outthere, even if it might harm

(34:09):
people myself or, sorry, harmpeople, other people or myself.
So then we have to talk aboutvisibility.
The definition of visibility isthe state of being seen,
noticed or recognized, and sovisibility isn't inherently bad.
We all want to be seen.
That's just a part of beinghuman, but social media has made
visibility feel like the proofof our worth.

(34:31):
And I would go back tosomething I mentioned earlier.
This isn't just social media.
You have, you know, awards.
I think I mentioned this inanother earlier episode, that in
elementary school we had thoseawards like perfect attendance
or best this, or even in yourclassrooms, right?
We're taught that you know youget those awards, you're

(34:52):
validated in some way.
You get work promotions, youget a new title, whatever it is
right, you get that raise, like.
There are other ways that weare also made to feel as though
doing something, having thatvisibility, gets us validation,
but those are usually based onsome sort of metric.
Right, that some sort of metric.

(35:14):
I would say that makes sense,because virality is based on a
metric too.
But I don't think many of usget the metric.
But, like, perfect attendancewas literally based on the fact
that you showed up for schoolevery single day.
So even though I'm jealous ofthe girl who won that award, I
can't say that I showed up everyday.
Now we can question why doesone need that award?
Sure, that's not my argumenthere today.
I'm just wanting to make surethat I acknowledge that social

(35:37):
media, that being visible, thatthis is not the only thing that
will have this effect on us, asI mentioned earlier.
But that's what it is.
And so now, if you're notvisible, then it's like you
don't even exist.
And so the next thing I want todefine is validation, because
we have said that visibilitybeing seen equals validation.

(35:59):
That's how social media istreating everything that the
more likes, the more views, themore comments you get.
It means that you are validated, that you're worth something.
But validation, it is the actof confirming something is true,
worthy or legitimate, and fromLatin, validus meaning strong,
worthy or powerful.
So when we say we wantvalidation, we're not just

(36:20):
saying I want to feel good,we're saying I want someone to
confirm that I'm worthy, thatI'm real, that I matter.
But y'all that becomes verydangerous, because when
visibility becomes yourvalidation, your soul becomes a
statistic, your soul becomesjust a number or a like or a
comment, and then we measure ourworth by how we are seen.

(36:45):
I hope you guys can see howdangerous and slippery slope
this is.
Last thing that I want to definein this section is value,
because value is different thanvalidation.
The value is the importance,worth or usefulness of something
.
It's a person's principles orstandards of behavior, what they
deem important in life.
It's who you are, or what youdo when nobody's watching.

(37:09):
Right, your value is who youare, it's internal, and I am one
of those people who argue thatif you are a human, you
inherently have value, that youare born with value because you
are a living, breathing thing.
But does this house have thesame value as a human?
No, I wouldn't say that.
I would not say that over thehouse, over a human.

(37:32):
What I need to protect thehouse over the human.
No, the human right, the humanis what has the value, because
of the fact that we have souls.
You have to ask them why arehumans so valuable?
Because our minds, our souls,the way we are intricately wired
, the way that we are all thesame thing but at the same time
completely different.

(37:52):
We have the same heart, kidneys, lungs, makeups right within us
, hands, toes, feet, knees, hair, lips, eyes.
We have these things right.
But you can't stand me next tomy husband and say that we are
exactly the same because oursouls are vastly different.
And I can't take my soul andput that we are exactly the same
because our souls are vastlydifferent, and I can't take my
soul and put it in his.
That is why we have anintrinsic value.

(38:16):
We are born with a value.
That value was never given tous.
Because of social media, becauseof virality, because of how
many likes, clicks, posts thatyou get and, honestly, this is
me preaching to myself andreminding myself of this too
Like we are born valuablebecause of the souls that we

(38:36):
have.
However, it is important thatwhat we choose to do with those
souls, what we choose tocontinue to value.
So, when we come back to thatword value and it being our
principles or standards ofbehavior, that will affect our
quality of life, our mindsets,how we adapt different beliefs,
how we show up in person, out ofperson.

(38:58):
Right, it's not enough to say Iwas born with a soul, I'm good.
You have to nurture that.
That's exactly what we're.
That's exactly why I do thispodcast, because you can't just
wake up and go.
I woke up like this, like no,you have to do something.

(39:21):
And so this whole thing beginsto become dangerous when we're
trying to go viral because wewant to get the validation sorry
, let me say that again, thiswhole thing is messy when we're
trying to go viral, which wethink is being visible, but that
visibility means that we arevalidated and that visibility is

(39:45):
also tied to our value, thatonce I'm validated, then that
means I have value instead ofstarting with I have value.
I am validated because I havevalue, uh-huh, and with the
value, with the life, with thesoul that I have, I choose A, b,

(40:05):
c.
You know, do the right thing,whatever it is right, and when I
get the visibility because I dowant to be seen, it's not
because I have misplaced andrearranged this idea that when
I'm seen, I'm known.
I, when I am seen, I know thatI'm seen because of who I am,
not because of what I'm tryingto create or who I'm trying to

(40:27):
create in order for people tosee me.
Right, like I'm seen first andthen I'm seen.
I hope that makes sense.
I'm seen within and then I'mseen by the public.
Okay, I always do that stupidcivil rights voice.
I don't know what that is, okay, but yeah.
So visibility just means beingseen.

(40:48):
Validation means being confirmedas worthy, and the algorithm
hands out both like candy, butonly if you play the game.
And that's the shift rightthere.
When you start chasing what Ijust said, we're not just people
anymore, we're profiles rankedby performance and when your
worth gets measured in likes,you start producing for applause

(41:10):
and not truth.
Visibility becomes a scoreboardfor your soul.
The algorithm doesn't rewardhealing.
It rewards reactions.
The more shocking and polarizingand overly vulnerable or
curated you are, the more likelyit is to get shared.
The more I tell you my worstthings about myself, the more
that it is to get shared.
The more I tell you my worstthings about myself, the more

(41:32):
that people want to get into it,the more that I pretend as if
I'm so hurt and vulnerable byand I'm going to go deep on this
like a death of the loved one,Because we got to stop acting as
if people are really showing upto social media authentically.
People are using every singletrauma, every single thing they
can pull out of the hat to beseen on social media.

(41:55):
And I'm not gonna sit here andsecond guess myself and try to
act like it's not happening,because it is and it's sickening
.
It's sickening to watch parentswho have ill children, who, um,
just want to use them and baitthem.
It's sickening to watch parentsuse their kids who can sing and
dance and play the piano, youknow, or just have some sort of

(42:15):
gift just constantly recordingthem and the kid you can see,
the little baby just don't knowwhat they're doing because
they're an innocent child,they're not meant for the public
, and then you open your childup to all of these eyes.
All of this criticism, all ofthis.
It's a difference between I'msharing my children.
I love my children.
They're so beautiful, which iswhat I often do, versus people
who have literally told me youcan make money off of them.

(42:37):
Better, get them sticks, betterrecord them, put them on
YouTube, like I'm not signing mykid up to be a YouTube star if
that's not what they don't wantto do.
I'm not pimping my kids out.
I'm not.
So, yeah, I'm.
I am sick of it.
I'm sick of the trade off thatwe're doing and in ourselves,
not valuing ourselves, buttrading our value for a couple

(43:02):
of likes.
That may lead to some dollars,that may lead to brand
promotions.
But you guys, man, ask yourselfdo you want a brand promotion
from a brand who only wants youbecause you're important right
now and in a year, five years,10 years from now, they don't
give a crap about you, or do youactually wanna be part of

(43:22):
something, be someone in theworld that has legacy and
sustains over time.
I'm not saying that brandpartnerships are bad at all, and
I respect people, that thereare certain people that I follow
who will only align themselveswith companies that share
similar values as them, and Ithink that that is so different
than just taking anything andjust grabbing whatever you can.

(43:45):
And who?
The first person that sayssomething?
Oh my gosh, I could really givey'all example example, but one
of the examples is thosepartnerships that some
celebrities do with McDonald's,knowing good and full well and
I've heard people say this thatthey don't actually eat
McDonald's, but I think thosepackages are like a million

(44:08):
dollars.
That's what I've heard.
I do not know that to be trueor not, but, um, you know, a
million dollars to sell acheeseburger or whatever.
But I use as as an example,because it's no secret that
McDonald's is completely bad forus, and people who don't even
eat McDonald's, people whowouldn't even touch McDonald's,
people who wouldn't even let itgo inside their body because
they know what it does to themand and how bad it is, they are

(44:31):
willing to sell that to you andyour children so that they can
collect the check for a milliondollars, so that McDonald's can
get the increase in numbers andinflux of this person's fans
going into McDonald's, and wecan see that right.
Sometimes it just turns intothis vicious cycle.
But again, I want to take amoment to remind us that you do

(44:53):
not have to be a celebrity, acontent creator, have thousands
of followers, to fall into thistrap.
You can have 10 followers, youcan have 100 followers.
You can not even be on socialmedia, but since we are talking
about social media, you can havefew followers and still want to
post and be seen.
In fact, I know people onsocial media and I mean you can

(45:15):
think about this.
It's not that hard People whoyou know.
You can have a hundred.
You can just be following thepeople that you know and people
that you know be following you,and you still want to be seen.
Why?
Because and we're going to talkabout this more in a second
that ache is still within us, nomatter who it is.
It doesn't have to be aboutbeing a content creator.
It doesn't have to be abouttrying to just go viral.

(45:38):
You want to be seen.
You want to be known, even whenyou post something that is not
as vulnerable if you post yourwork, if you're just posting
your creative project, or you'reposting your promotion, or
you're posting your thoughts.
You might post your thoughtsabout being lonely, your
thoughts whatever.
Like you put.
We put things out there rightin order for them to be seen and
people cannot tell me otherwise.

(45:59):
We're not posting so it can goin the void.
We're not posting just to belike yeah, I did both of that
and I'm sorry.
We're not posting that just tobe like that, like just to say,
oh, I'm just posting it, to postit.
No, you're posting because youwant someone to see it, no
matter if it's an ex, no matterif it's your mother-in-law, no

(46:21):
matter if it's your daddy-in-lawLike no matter if it's your
daddy-in-law like no matter whoit is.
You want somebody you werelooking for somebody to see an
ex-friend.
You want somebody to tellsomebody about that subliminal
that you posted.
Like we are not.
We try to act like we're notposting to be seen, but we are
posting to be seen.
We want to be known forsomething more.
It's in us and that's why we'rewilling to almost do anything

(46:44):
to feel like people know us.
But y'all like these peopleonline.
They don't know you and that'snot the way to be known.
It's just the way to be seen.
It's just the way to be seenliterally oops, it's just the
way to be seen, literally witheyes, but not seen as in known,
understood, loved and cared for.

(47:06):
When we value attention morethan authenticity, we're not
building, we're begging you.
Stop asking is this honest?
And start asking will this land?
And one of the worst feelingsis that even when it does land,
it's still not enough, it'snever, never enough.
And there's a philosopher, deanCocking, and he says there's a

(47:27):
quote.
He says online environmentscompromise, embodied
self-presentation.
And what that means is thatwhen the body, voice, tone and
spirit are stripped away, allwe're left with is content, not
person, not presence, justcontent.
We think more visibility willfinally make us feel validated,

(47:48):
but what if being seen bythousands doesn't satisfy the
ache because they're notactually seeing you?
The article that I mentionedearlier that I read man, it was
so, or one of the articles, itwas so good, and that one was
the one on social media andethics and in that article they
talk about just the various umarguments from different

(48:10):
philosophers and counterarguments and criticisms of it.
And so in this one section I'mnot going to read that section,
how they wrote it, because it'sit's just a lot Um.
But I want to read the layman'sversion of what they were
trying to say.
It says when we connect withpeople through technology like
video calls, text or socialmedia, their presence is weaker

(48:32):
or less real.
Why?
Because we can make themdisappear whenever we want.
If a conversation becomesuncomfortable or tiring, we can
just mute them, block them orclose the app.
We can just mute them, blockthem or close the app.
We can also avoid peopleentirely using filters or
screens that keep us from everengaging with folks we might not
like.
And he goes on to say thattechnology not only changes who

(48:56):
we talk to but also cuts us offfrom the people we used to meet
by chance, like strangers atconcerts, live shows or
political events.
Why?
Because now we can get music,entertainment and political news
directly from our devices.
We no longer need to be out inthe world to experience culture
or community.
But this causes a double lossin our lives.

(49:19):
We miss the joy of seeingpeople fully as whole human
beings, not just digitalprofiles, and we miss what
happens when people see us fully, when we're judged, challenged
or changed by being in communitywith others.
So that was from the philosopherBorgman.
That's his last name and evenhe had early thoughts on social

(49:40):
media.
I want to say I think it was inthe 90s.
Thoughts on social media?
I want to say I think it was inthe 90s and since then, certain
aspects of what he predicted orwhat he thought was going to
happen have not happened.
And all of this is notnecessarily true.
Right, we can still connectonline and go to games and go to
sporting events and go to, youknow, concerts and stuff.
It hasn't fully taken that awayfrom us, like he thought, but

(50:01):
still that idea, this idea thatI can just simply shut you out
my life, I can simply justdisregard you, that people no
longer become people, that theyare just a social profile.
Let me demonstrate how right hewas about that.
One word for y'all.
One word for y'all trolls.

(50:23):
Trolls, not bots.
Trolls the the people that saythe most outlandish things to
people, things they would neversay to someone's face, things
that shouldn't even be utteredbecause of just how outlandishly
horrific and rude and terriblethey are.

(50:44):
But that's because you're aprofile talking to another
profile.
You're not a person, you're nota human being talking to
another human being.
You're just talking to somebodywho's on here for whatever
reason you think they're on herefor.
Even when people show upgenuinely authentic themselves,
they get so much hate in and thecomments can sometimes just be

(51:05):
so nasty for some of the mostbasic things.
I saw a woman show herfarmhouse and you would think
that everybody was just like,wow, your house is so beautiful.
They were slandering her in thecomments for what?
And then we go back to ourepisode on projecting.
We know that most of thesepeople are projecting from a,
from a personal place.

(51:25):
But this idea that Borgmantalked about years ago we see it
all the time, you it made meeven question oh shoot, do I see
humans as humans or do I reallyjust kind of see them as their
profile, like what is there, iskind of what is it?
I don't really need to go anydeeper, and when I don't want to
see them, I just close that outof sight, out of mind.
When someone is kind of what isit?
I don't really need to go anydeeper, and when I don't want to
see them, I just close that outof sight, out of mind.

(51:48):
When someone is tired of you,they just block you right, like
it has taken away so much fromour social aspects, and I wanted
to touch on this specifically,because we talk about blocking
and all this and whatever,whatever, whatever.
And I think that that's a goodmechanism to have, because there
are crazy people out there andyou need to block them.
It becomes a problem, though,when you start blocking people

(52:11):
that you have issues with andyou never address the actual
issue with them.
You just think that blockingwas the thing that's going to
make the issue disappear.
Baby, it don't work like that.
You got to address, you got toconfront, you got to have the
hard conversations.
Address, you got to confront,you got to have the hard
conversations, and that's whatBorgman was trying to get at.
Was that it takes away, then andother philosophers talked about
this too it starts to take awayfrom our abilities to interact

(52:32):
with people, not just ourabilities I don't want to say
abilities, but it just takesaway even from our willingness
to try to have difficultconversations, and, as we talked
about a couple episodes ago,when we look at what friendship
is really supposed to be basedon, we do not want to go through
the ringer with our friendsbecause social media makes us
feel like it needs to be easybreezy, beautiful cover girl

(52:52):
Instead and I hope I don't thinkI should get in trouble for
that because my thing is notmonetized but instead right of
it being easy, breezy,friendship is actually hard,
it's gritty, it's going throughlife, it's confronting things
that make you feel bad.
It's your friend being able toconfront you.
It's holding each otheraccountable.
It's saying the hard things.
It's not the cute quotes, thePinterest quotes, it's not just

(53:13):
the blogs, it's not just, it isreal, it is deep and life is
that way.
We don't even want to work thathard at life anymore Something
we're going to talk about in alater episode, because social
media has made it seem likeagain, life is just supposed to
skip.
We see people get theirpromotion.
We see people you know becomingmillionaires for making stupid
skits and doing risking theirlives and just doing the
craziest things.

(53:33):
Why?
Because the algorithm is notrewarding the value.
They don't care if you make afool of yourself.
They're not even checking tosee is this right, unless it
gets on one of those politicallyheavy topics, right?
And then they can start tomaneuver things.
But until then, if it's outthere, if it's to be seen, they
want to push it because it'sjust about the patterns, it's

(53:54):
just about the algorithm, it'snot actually about what they
value.
Again, it's just about spreading.
It's not about what it spreads.
And we're almost done here.
Um, my cousin got on me becauseshe was like you be saying
you're almost done, and thenhere, coming out of 30 minutes.
So let me not say we're almostdone, we have like a couple

(54:15):
sections to go.
I mean it is almost done whereI would say we're on the shorter
end of it than on the longerend.
Um, but we have to talk aboutthat ache that I mentioned
earlier, this ache to be seen,this what we're, what are we
really looking for?
Right, and I would say thatmost of us we're not chasing
virality or likes or attentionon social media because we love
the spotlight.
That's not a lot of ourstruggle.

(54:37):
We're chasing it because itfeels like proof that we matter.
This ache is not for, again,the likes, the shares, the
comments.
It's for love, belonging,significance and recognition.
We want to know that.
We're not just posting into thevoid, as I mentioned before,

(54:58):
but we're hoping that someoneout there gets it, that they get
us, and I've been that person.
I've been someone who I'veclapped for others in public and
I've posted my pictures andthen I've cried in private.
I've built beautiful things insilence and still wondered if
they mattered.
I have so many little things inmy notebook and, as I mentioned
, I've been on social mediasince my space.

(55:20):
I had a YouTube channel, wasdoing videos and I stopped at a
blog and I stopped all becausethis idea and these like
thoughts kept creeping into meand making me feel like I wasn't
valuable because people weren'treally gravitating toward it.
I wasn't valuable because thenumbers weren't going up as fast
as I thought, or I wasn'tvaluable because my own friends
and family, who could boost mynumbers almost overnight,

(55:40):
weren't supporting it.
So that must mean that if theydon't believe in what I have to
say because their belief comesthrough how they validate me on
social media, right to theproblem but if they don't
believe in what I have to say,then I must not really have
anything good to say and that'sjust not true, right?
And so I've really struggledwith this and I don't want to go
viral, to be honest, like Idon't.
I keep saying, especially howthis world is, you don't know.

(56:03):
You could post the mostinnocent thing and go viral and
they just be, and especially mykids.
Don't let it be nothing on mykids.
But even though I don't want togo viral, I don't want to feel
invisible.
I don't want to feel unknown.
Being seen, being truly seen,it's a part of how we learn, how
we grow and how we feelconnected.

(56:24):
Being truly seen it's a part ofhow we learn how we grow and
how we feel connected.
And that's what Borgman wastrying to get at with his
critiques of social media thatwe just talked about.
When we replace our daily andweekly and life-needing
interactions with just sittingon our phones, we literally miss
the opportunities to grow incertain ways that community was
made for, that we were createdto do with community and

(56:46):
community with us.
What we're really longing for,y'all, is resonance, not just
views, but to feel known, notjust applause, but to be
understood.
And this loneliness epidemicthat we talked about in the
friendship episode it isn't justabout not having people, it's
about not feeling seen by thepeople we do have.

(57:06):
Sometimes we don't want to beseen by the world, but we want
the people that are supposed tosee us to see us in social
network, social media it givesus this surface level contact,
but it starves us of soul levelconnection.
We're surrounded, but we'restill aching.
And this is something that Ilove that Sherry Turkle.

(57:30):
She's a psychologist and shebecame a tech critic.
She was actually early onreally optimistic about social
media and then she came back andbecame a critic because she
said him a critic because shesaid we are alone together,
connected all the time, butrarely known in a in any real

(57:52):
way.
I had to say it again we arealone, together, connected all
the time, but rarely known inany real way.
And y'all that line messed meup.
Alone together, because that'show many of us are feeling.
We're in group chats, commentsections, dms.

(58:14):
We're sharing the memes, we'retalking to each other on social
media, but we're still lonely.
We're posting, we're sharing,we're tweeting, we're blogging,
we're vlogging, we're streamingand we're sharing, we're
tweeting, we're blogging, we'revlogging, we're streaming and
we're still lonely.
We're always on, alwaysavailable, and yet we ache for
something deeper.
Our phones are in our hands,we're scrolling up and down,

(58:35):
we're swiping, and we're stilllonely.
Because we want that deepness,we want something real,
something uncurated.
We want that connection inperson.
We want to go out into theworld and do something.
Whether we've acknowledged thator not, we are missing that

(58:57):
connection.
So this ache to be seen, thathappens.
It isn't shallow, it's sacred.
We're not're not, we're sorrywe are.
We are made to be known, to beheld, to be mirrored in love and
not in metrics.
But when we chase validation inspaces that can't hold our
whole selves, we walk awaylonelier than before.

(59:18):
And social media did not inventthe ache, let's be clear, but it
sure did amplify it.
It gave us access, but notalways intimacy, and sometimes
that's more painful than silence.
Having to see people that youknow go out and do things that
you can't do, or or go out andthey don't include you, or

(59:40):
having to see people reach theseheights that you've told
yourself you can't do.
Having to see the, the peoplethat you think are prettier than
you, smarter than you,handsomer than you, have more
money than you have.
I don't know if handsomers arewords, I'm not sure we're
talking about me, but you know,to see people right, doing all
of these things like it gives usaccess to more, but it doesn't
give us intimacy.

(01:00:00):
And because we're lacking thatintimacy, but yet we have the
access, that's painful, morepainful than silence.
So, behind the filters, thetrends, the sharing, the DMs,
the comments, we want to beknown for more and I want to

(01:00:24):
really make sure we understandthe cost of this, what we lose
and what some of us have lost inthis process.
But let me make it clear I amnot here to shame anyone.
I am not here to tell you todelete your social media apps
and log out of Facebook andInstagram right now.
That's not my point.
You gotta weigh that, measurethat for yourself, because I'm

(01:00:47):
here too, I'm online too, I'mstill posting too.
I've curated, I've been onYouTube, as I've said already,
I've done MySpace, black Planet,twitter, threads, this y'all
probably see me in some of thecomments on this stuff because
I'll comment, I'll laugh, I'lldo like I am still there, but
and I'm still questioning myselfand my intentions and am I
showing up and am I justbecoming what I see?

(01:01:08):
Why am I comparing myself tothese people?
Okay, it's time to get offsocial media, because I can't
seem to find the line betweenwhere I start and they begin or
where I end and they start, likeit's all just kind of rolling
together.
So I can't shame you all forsomething that I am stuck in and
I that's never my point eitheris to shame you ever but whether

(01:01:29):
we realize it or not, thisshift has cost us something
sacred this shift from communityto um visibility, equaling this
validation, and this lack ofauthenticity, this slow death of
authenticity.
It has cost us something, and sothis is more of an invitation
for us to start to come back toourselves, because we've lost

(01:01:52):
the ease of honesty.
Now everything feels filtered,intentional and strategic.
We've lost our quiet confidence, the ability to post something
true without worrying if itlands.
We've lost presence.
We're thinking in captions whenlife is happening, instead of
just sharing what's on our heart.
We've lost attention, theability to listen to others or

(01:02:13):
even ourselves without the buzzof the scroll and, most of all,
we've lost pieces of ourauthentic identity.
Some of us don't even know justhow to be.
We're always concerned with howsomething looks, how something
sounds.
Should I share that?
Should I not share that?
Should I say it?
Should I not say it?
Some of us don't post at all,but we do scroll and we compare

(01:02:35):
and we covet and we envy othersfor doing what we cannot do or
want to do, right or what,looking at what they have that I
want or I wish I could do.
Even our joy feels curated.
Even our grief feels like apost waiting to happen.
Again.
We're taking every littlemoment of our lives and we're

(01:02:56):
making it something, and yearsago I started this thing called
40 days with Jesus.
It was a fast that I did and inthat fast is where it really
broke my relationship withsocial media like cracked it
wide open, because I went on asocial media fast and in that I
broke a lot of habits and so Idon't have any social media

(01:03:16):
notifications on my phone.
I've been doing this for years.
I do not get social medianotifications.
I get them for the podcast page, but they're very limited, like
comments and that's it.
But for years since 2013, Ihave not had social media
notifications on my phonebecause I knew I had a problem.
I'm kind of obsessed with it,right, so I don't get any

(01:03:39):
notifications.
Like I said, I don't checkwho's watching.
I try not to look at the.
I look at numbers because yousee the numbers, but I try not
to look at like who liked mypost.
I just look at, kind of thenumbers.
Okay, they're there.
But in that time of getting offof social media.
It also shifted what I post,because I used to be a car, my
house, my what like everythingand I did used to use moments of

(01:04:04):
my life to share whatever washappening getting dumped,
getting a new man, getting a job, losing a job, getting a car,
not having a car, like whateverit was, and what happened was I
would post my successes for theworld before I gave them to
friends and family, and in thattime of that fast I really was
able to evaluate who are youtrying to show up for and who is

(01:04:29):
showing up for you.
What are the people in yourlife deserve?
Do they deserve to find thingssecondhand while you tell the
world?
That's not fair, and so I havesince practiced making sure that
I tell people that I'm having ababy before I tell everybody
else on social media.
Making sure that people knowwhat wins and losses we're
having before I tell socialmedia and I'm talking about core

(01:04:51):
people, not everybody just likecore people right, making sure
that I'm connecting.
I try to tell people happybirthday, not on social media.
I try to keep their birthday inmy phone and even if it pops up
on social media, I try to goand text them personally, right
check up on them personally, asI'm not perfect at that part,
because I will just use socialmedia conveniently to dm someone
.
But I also say this becausepeople often use death and

(01:05:14):
tragedy to and y'all might hearmy little baby crying but, um,
people often use death andtragedy to post on social media
as well and to get those likes.
And so I caution on sharingabout the people close to me who
have passed away, because Idon't want to use them for likes

(01:05:34):
.
I don't want to use them to getattention, because I know that
grief and trauma and sadness andthings like death will pull
people in.
Because we're human, we feelbad when someone dies and
someone, a loved one, dies whowas close to us.
But does the world really needto know that my great aunt Sally
died?
Does the world really need toknow the details of how I truly

(01:05:56):
feel about my grandfatherpassing away?
What do they care?
I'm just another number to them.
I'm just another profile tothem.
I don't need to give them allof me.
I can reserve those deeperparts of myself for people
around me who get it and whounderstand and who truly love me
, instead of for a world whoonly again sees me as a profile
or another number or justanother scroll.

(01:06:19):
I went off on a little bit of atangent there at the end.
But getting back to this slowdeath, this slow death of
authenticity, it's not just onebig collapse.
It's a slow, quiet unraveling.
It's one post, one edit, onecompromise at a time.
Authenticity isn't lost in onemoment.
It's negotiated away in pieces,is negotiated away in pieces

(01:06:48):
and we really need to get backto like the little things about
ourselves that our tone, ourbody language, the tremble in
our voice, the way our facechanges when we talk about
something that matters.
Those are the things that don'ttrend, but they're you.
When we lose those, we lose ourability to truly be known.
And, of course, we know thatour values, our beliefs,
everything we talk about on thispodcast goes into that.

(01:07:10):
When we lose who we are, whenour values and our beliefs are
blurred between the world'svalue or the culture, or the
social media algorithm orwhoever's values and beliefs, we
really don't know what weaspire to, and that's why there
are so many of us who changelike the wind, with change
depending on which friend we'retalking to or which social media
person we follow or what,because we need to shut off the

(01:07:33):
world and take some time withourselves and figure out who am
I, what do I believe, what do Ivalue, what is happening inside
of me, why do I crave thesemoments, why do I want to be
seen?
And I know that we didn't signup for these platforms to lose
ourselves.
We've just gotten caught up in.

(01:07:54):
You know, honestly, thistrajectory that we talked about
going from community to thisidea of you know, like numbers
game and the algorithms, and wealmost didn't even see it coming
.
It's kind of like you look down, you look up and oh shoot, I'm,
we're here.
You know it's like when didthat happen?
But we don't have to keepdrifting just because we didn't

(01:08:15):
start that way.
We can pause, we can reflect,we can come back.
We don't have to just stay justbecause they're telling us that
we have to stay, like back.
We don't have to just stay justbecause they're telling us that
we have to stay.
We can leave, we can rebuildsomething that's real, even if
no one ever sees us building it.
And so let's talk about wherewe go from here, and I really am

(01:08:35):
almost done.
So what now?
Okay, so we've named the ache,we've traced the lie, we've
counted the cost and now we'releft with the choice.
Right, because this isn't justabout platforms, it's about
presence, it's about identity,it's about beliefs, values, who

(01:08:57):
we really are.
It's about whether we'rewilling to reclaim our soul in a
world that profits off of ourperformance.
Going back to that McDonald'sexample right, are we willing to
sell what's left of us just tomake some money or just to be
seen?
This is about deciding whatactually matters and what kind

(01:09:19):
of life we're really building.
And again, I'm not telling youto delete all your apps, I'm not
telling you to stop posting orwhatever, whatever, whatever.
I'm there too.
I'm building, I'm sharing, I'mposting, I'm looking at the
memes, I'm scrolling, I'm doingall the things right, but this
is about, again, that slow deathof authenticity.
But here's the thing, not justonline, but in real life,

(01:09:45):
because some people areauthentic in real life and they
can show up online in that wayand they can just be themselves
and post what they want and beeven a content creator,
influencer, celebrity, or bejust known to their family and
friends, have the 50 followersand not care, because what, like

(01:10:06):
?
They're able to do that.
But then others of us, we needto step away.
We need to figure out who weare without the influences of
social media, because we havenot yet figured out how to be
authentic with no one watching.
So when we show up on socialmedia with a lot of eyes
watching, we're not beingauthentic because we haven't

(01:10:26):
figured out how to do it awayfrom social media, which again
robs us of so much authenticitybecause of how it's built.
Now you can't be in the toxicplace trying to fix the toxic
thing like you have to.
I hope that makes sense.
Let's see.
Don't want to say that youcan't be in the toxic, I don't

(01:10:47):
know.
Let, let me not say it likethat, cause I don't think that
that fits kind of what I'mtrying to say, but essentially
like if you are in the thingthat causes harm, you need to
step out of it.
If you're able and for many ofus we are able to shut down
social media and step away, wehave to understand again who am
I before I ever get on anysocial platform instagram,

(01:11:08):
stream, tiktok, linkedin,facebook, tumblr, wordpress,
even though that's not really,but that's the blog site like,
who am I away from this?
This is the same thing that Iargue for with emotional
intelligence that my job wouldtalk about emotional
intelligence all the time and Iwould preach in every single
session we had you need to learnemotional intelligence before

(01:11:29):
you show up to this workplace,because you trying to come to
work and learn emotionalintelligence, it's too late.
And that's the same thing here.
If you go online trying tolearn how to be authentic, it's
too late.
You need to learn how to beauthentically.
You away from social media,away from the eyes, away from
people I should say the massesof people, right, because you

(01:11:52):
want core friends to help you.
I want to make sure I'mconsistent.
So how do we show up in the realworld?
Y'all, let's put our phonesdown at dinner and look each
other in the eye again.
Let's stop texting fullconfessions and start maybe like
Face timing if that's the onlything that you can do, or even

(01:12:13):
getting on a phone call when weneed that Real voice, that real
connection.
Let's plan real meetups, evenif it's messy and not put
together, even if you're notfeeling good, even if it's hard,
let's say I love you withpresence, and not put together.
Even if you're not feeling good, even if it's hard, let's say I
love you with presence and notjust with emoji hearts.
Let's bring it back to slowness, to depth, to substance.
Be someone who asks how's yoursoul instead of did you see what

(01:12:37):
I posted?
The slow death of authenticityisn't about the internet.
It's about what happens when weforget how to be with each
other.
It's what happens when we stopasking real quick questions of
ourselves, when we stop calling,when we stop listening, when we
trade presence for production,realness for recognition,

(01:12:59):
recognition.
It's time we have to reconnectwith your values, reconnect with
your people and reconnect withyou and then build a life that
matches that reconnection, alife that feels like love, that
feels like peace, that feelslike home, because your soul is

(01:13:24):
your home and it's time to makeit a place that you want to live
.
I appreciate y'all.
I know this was a little bitlonger.
Please let me know what youthought.
Hit me up online, dm me, signup for the email list if you
want to know more and go deeper.
And, yeah, until next time.

(01:13:46):
You guys, like I, really ampraying for y'all.
I'm praying for us as ageneration, as a culture, that
we will get back to thenetworking that was always
around.
You know the ways that we wantedthat connection, being honest
with ourselves, about wanting tobe known, wanting, wanting to
be seen, wanting to be loved,and not translating that or

(01:14:06):
valuing that by not by valuingthat.
So gosh, I've been twisted atmy words.
Let me say that again be loved,wanting to be known, wanting to

(01:14:27):
be heard right, wanting to beseen in a very real way, and not
valuing that by how we show upon social media, not valuing
that by who likes our things,doesn't like our things, who
says something, who sends asubliminal, who blocks us, who.
Whatever the end of the day,you ain't taking social media
with you when you die, youtaking that soul.
So we have to start caring forthe real parts of us and showing

(01:14:52):
up in the world in a real way,or else we'll die never knowing
who we truly are and what wecould have become.
Until next time, y'all, let'skeep doing the work to renovate
the soul.