Be Yourself: Why Authentic Voices Still Matter in a Noisy Digital World

A reflective audio-led piece on authenticity, accessibility, and why the human voice still matters more than performance in modern content creation. The post Be Yourself: Why Authentic Voices Still Matter in a Noisy Digital World first appeared on Mad Black Cat.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
I was thinking today about the hook. You've got to
have a hook. Whether it's the videos, whether it's for audio,
whether it's for writing, you've got to have something that
grabs the attention in the first few seconds. Those who
have got YouTube channels will be all too familiar with
the YouTube cliff where people watch for a few seconds

(00:23):
and then plumb it off the end and don't watch
the whole video. And I was thinking about this, not
because it's something I was trying to achieve, but actually
the precise opposite, because you've got to have hook, You've
got to have something that grabs attention in the first place.
Is something which I myself have told many people in

(00:46):
the past when I've been talking about increasing their business
profiles or their marketing strategy, or generating content on the Internet.
And I was thinking today, much as that may well
be valid, I was thinking from a personal point of view,
from you, me, anybody we might know, a person, rather

(01:10):
than a corporation or a business. I was thinking, why, basically,
why should we have a why should we bother with
all of this pettiness that the Internet and social media
thrives on. The likes and the reach and the shares

(01:31):
and it really doesn't matter. Yeah, I mean from a
business point of view, if a business wants to advertise
and actually get some kind of return on their publicity,
then of course you have to do something a little
bit different. But I was, as always I was going
through I think it was TikTok I was looking at
and it was a wash of people doing things like, oh,

(01:53):
has anybody else seen that video? Did you see that video?
Did you see that? And you know, I was kind
of thinking, oh, come on, it's just so dull and boring,
and it is nothing against those people. A lot of
it is just about trying to engage people and get likes.
And I know you can make money and everyone almost
to go viral and be trending and all that. But

(02:14):
at the end of the day, I thought.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Why, why Why If you've got something to talk about
or something you want to share that's interesting or exciting,
or you think it's interesting or exciting or just engaging,
or just something which maybe has been in the back
of your mind, then just do it.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Just share it somehow one way or another. Don't think
about the algorithms and whether anyone would like it or
whether they'll share it or anything. Like that. It doesn't matter.
Just do it. If you're a singer and you practice
in the bathroom or the shower, many good singers have
done that, and just do it. Sing your little heart out.

(02:56):
Go on TikTok. If you've got a story to tell,
you want to write stories, just do it, Write a book,
do whatever you want, Just do it. Forget about algorithms,
forget about likes, forget about going viral. Just do it yourself.
And Okay, maybe you don't want to be seen on
video or the so called faceless channels, What is nothing
wrong with that. If you don't want to be seen

(03:17):
on video, you've got audio as well. You don't have
to make it complicated. Just make it simple. Just record
your voice. It's as simple as that. You know, audio
has been around a lot longer than video. It's still there.
People listen to audio now. Video channels like YouTube have

(03:38):
subscribes to this phone of a better phrase to use
one of their phrases that you can get podcasts on
YouTube now, a video platform which is now developing audio
TikTok as well as looking at podcasts, they're all creating audio.
Just just do it, don't worry about the video don't
worry about how you look, even I'm sure you look fine,
by the way, and it doesn't matter if you don't

(04:00):
do it. If you've not got the ability to record audio,
only point your camera at the wall. Doesn't that point
the camera at your cat. I've got a cat on
my lap. Now, got another one trying to get on
my lap, who's unfortunately just had to move away because
she would have sat on the microphone and that's probably
not a good idea, so she's gone to sit with

(04:20):
her brother. It doesn't matter. One of the things about
user generated content, as the sort of general term is
used to describe it, we don't need labels and names
and all that, but it does actually in this case
something user generated content. It is content and it's generated

(04:41):
by a user. One of the things about user generated
content is it doesn't have to be professional. You know,
we're just others. We're people, we're human, we're normal. We
don't have to have expensive audio or video studios. There's
many apps, by the way, if you do want to
play around, but feel free. If that's something you want
to do in that interest, you do with that, that's fine,
but you don't have to That's the point stick your camera,

(05:05):
pointing out a flower, a dog, the scenery, the sky,
look at nature. It doesn't matter. If the only thing
you've got to record it is a video on your phone,
then just do that. It really doesn't matter. But the
whole point being the point I want to make, just
do it. That's the thing I was told with a

(05:26):
couple of people, actually two different people in the run
up to the Christmas season it was, and they were
both completely different in completely different environs, from completely different backgrounds.
And I've written a few books about or one about
marketing one and actually, yeah, one about my Jim. Got

(05:48):
one about sales. No, I've done one about sales generally.
I've got one about marketing which i'm working on now,
and on some road safety books driving in Spain. I've
got another one about the psych quality of driving, which
is out in February, which I have not finished, but
I'm going through it because I'm not entirely happy with
the manuscript. Anyway, it doesn't matter, the point being I

(06:11):
was talking to a couple of people about various things.
They spoke to me, and the first one was a
young lady who has had a bit of an interesting
life and throughout her I don't say lady is because
that suggests that she's an elder person, which is not
not there's anything wrong with that. But in her more
recent years, let's put it that way, people have said

(06:34):
to he, oh, you should write a book. You should,
you should write all these stories down, and you should
do a book. And she doesn't want to. And she
was talking to me and so on because she she
doesn't know how to. And I said, do it, just
do it, write the book. I'll help and I will
and I will be contacting her very shortly to sort
of follow that up. I gave her a little bit
of a task to think about it, but do it.
If you've got a book, do it. And then there's

(06:56):
another person who had an interest in doing so many
because she'd help to somebody, which is brilliant. If you
can help somebody, that's even better. And she enjoyed the
level of help that she gave to this person, so
she thought, well, maybe I should do that. Maybe I
could do more about that, I could retrain, I could
do a course. Well you know what, do it. That's
the bottom line. That was my advice. Do it. What

(07:18):
is stopping you? There is nothing stopping you. And that's
really just the whole point I want to make today.
Really there's a little bit of a sermon, I suppose,
and I kind of I've avoided going down one path
which I thought I was going to go down because
I'm going to save that for another day, because that
was a bit negative, to be honest, and I don't

(07:39):
physicularly want to be negative at this time. I want
it to be positive. If you've got any idea, just
do it. If you sing, sing if you're embarrassed because
people might laugh, let them, doesn't matter. If you enjoy it,
do it. If you have got a story you want
to tell live your friends, Oh that's really interesting, write

(08:01):
it down. You can use AI to help you these days.
I'm not suggesting that you say to any AI like
chat GBT or write me a book about doing gardening.
That is not the solution. But if you're a gardening
expert in your own rights, not necessarily trained or qualified,

(08:21):
but you know a lot, things like chat GPT can
help you and help you put a book together and
help you create chapter lists. They can help you structure
the whole format. So don't be afraid of using AI
as a tool to assist you don't use it to
replace things. That's the whole point. I've written a few
things about that on my black cat dot com. Actually,

(08:42):
but use the tools, use AI. It will help you brilliant.
So if you've got a book in your mind you've
always wanted to do, write it. If you always wanted
to write poetry, write it. If you want to write songs,
write them. If you play musical instruments, play them. If
you want to tell jokes, tell jokes. If you want
to help people, really highland cattle, which I got quite

(09:03):
a few highland cattle gifts at Chrystals the German absolutely adore.
They're just doing it. Really doesn't matter. I just want
to give you a little bit of inspiration now that
Forget about what you may or may not have seen
on the internet. Forget about how good or polished some
people may look. Forget about the fact you may only

(09:23):
get two or three likes. Forget all of that. If
it makes you happy, just do it. There is nothing
stopping you. If you need help, there are people who
can help you. I'll help you if I can, if
I'm able to, I will help you if I can.
I don't know where you are, or what you're doing,

(09:44):
or what your ideas are. But if I can help,
email me. Just send me and drop me an email.
I'll help if I can. But there are other people
who can help anyway. Search the internet, use the tools,
use chat, GPT, Gemini two and the most popular AI
tools at the moment, and if you use them right,
they're absolutely brilliant. Don't be worried about things like oh
ai slop and people talk about Yes, there's a lot

(10:04):
of AI slop out there, but you know what, the
AI slop is created by humans, not AI, because it's
the humans going, oh AI, please create this for me,
Do this for me. Yeah, if you put in little effort,
you get little effort out anyway, don't worry about it.
Do it whatever you want to do. Ask yourself what

(10:25):
is stopping it, and the answer is nothing. Just do it.
So that's all I wanted to say today. If you've
got an idea, do it. Don't worry about anything, don't
worry about what anyone says, don't worry about figures, don't
worry about the vanity and metrics that mean absolutely nothing
to nobody. Double negative there. Just do it if it

(10:47):
makes you happy. Enjoy it, be yourself,