Love this! Thank you. I've always been very private in my work. Even when the pressures of social media are at play I've resisted. It's part of the reason I love Substack.
I don't want to document every moment of my life for capitalism, and be pathologised for not wanting to as a 'being seen wound' by the pain point culture coaches.
I’m with you especially on the way reluctance gets reframed as pathology. As if not wanting to narrate your life for capitalism must mean something is wrong with you, rather than that something is wrong with the demand.
As an entrepreneur and introvert who built a business on social media—not entirely by choice—I also reached my “Enough.” That’s exactly why I migrated to Substack: a place where attention spans stretch longer than five seconds, and readers can actually settle into long-form thought without feeling breathless.
So bravo for calling it out!
I particularly love this sentence 'I share in intervals, rather than feeds — irregular, deliberate, refusing the demand for constant availability or narrative continuity.' We aren't built like 9-to-5 machines, made to churn out content like factory spaghetti. And honestly? I’ve grown tired of being told how many posts my business needs—advice I never listened to anyway. 😉
As we step into a new era governed by an entirely different universal energy—the expansive, untamed Fire in Chinese metaphysics—it is time to return to heart and spirit.
What we’re pointing to is that a lot of this advice isn’t just about visibility, it’s about obedience to tempo.
The pressure isn’t simply “post more” — it’s post on command, stay narratable, and remain extractable. As if a life that can’t be skimmed, scheduled, or mined for output is somehow unserious!
That’s why Substack matters to me too. Because it allows for intervals and for work to exist without constant translation into proof.
I don’t think the shift is only from performance to honouring (though I love that language). I think it’s from continuous availability to chosen appearance. And that’s a much bigger refusal than most people realise.
This was thought provoking and well-written, and really encapsulates why I've been resisting posting much on social media, and especially video content. When I'm working on something (for me that may be making jewellery or teaching it) I don't want to have to think about how to document it - I just want to get on and do it! But everyone else in my industry is doing reels and videos of their process or a day in the life blah blah blah etc etc etc. All the content looks the same and it just feels to me like noise. I want to believe there's a way to be successful by simply doing something well.
Hi Soozi, that pull you describe, wanting to stay inside the work rather than step outside it to narrate it, feels absolutely central to this.
Making jewellery, teaching, shaping something with your hands or your attention… those are practices that ask for immersion. The moment you’re also required to document them, you’re no longer fully there. Something fractures!
What strikes me is how quickly all that “process content” starts to look identical. Same angles, same beats, same claims of authenticity and yet so little actual difference. Noise is exactly the word.
I still believe there’s a way to build something solid by doing the work well and letting it accumulate weight over time. It resists the current incentives but it preserves the integrity of the thing itself, and of the person making it.
Quite right. I want to write without feeling pressured to become a brand. Documenting my life (not to mention the life of my family) feels too personal and unnatural. I never got the hang of the social media thing and I've done away with as many platforms as possible. Feels like a necessary evil for an author today.
That idea of it being a “necessary evil” is exactly what I’m interrogating.
Writing is now routinely bundled with an expectation to document, expose, and contextualise our lives, often our families’ lives, as evidence of legitimacy. This isn't out of choice, but as a condition.
I’m interested in what happens when we refuse that condition and let work stand without drafting our private lives in as proof.
Well, I'm drawing up my own terms, although being under contract to a publisher muddies the waters. I change names and never post photos of my kid, which is a start.
Bravo! What makes me laugh is the relentless photographing and posting about their lives is often accompanied with text saying they only work 5 hours a month because they are experts at passive revenue... More like 5 hours a day obviously on social media
“I want interest and engagement based on my work, not my exposure.” Yes yes yes!
I recently told someone, “I want to be successful because I’m really good at what I do.” They responded, “That’s not how you become successful anymore. You become successful by selling yourself.” Well, watch me sell my work instead.
This whole essay speaks to how I've been feeling lately. I love my work, and I want to be successful, but I also want a private life. I'm not bad at showing up online, and I don't have major fears about it. I resent the fact that it seems like women have to "build publicly" and share every detail of their lives to succeed. This read was so refreshing and made me feel seen.
Jennifer, I really appreciate the way you framed this, especially “I’m not bad at showing up online.” That matters.
This isn’t about fear or incapacity. It’s about the slow grind of being told that success and privacy are somehow incompatible for women. That loving your work means surrendering your edges, your off-hours, and all of your interior life.
Wanting a private life alongside ambition isn’t contradictory, I see it as sane.
“Build publicly” has become a kind of shorthand that routinely assumes women will provide narrative, texture, and access in ways men are rarely asked to. And if they are it will not involve the emotional exposure expected of women.
I’m glad this essay felt refreshing — and all the more so because it didn’t offer an answer, but because it let that tension exist without turning it into a personal failing. Feeling seen is often just that: having something named without being told to fix yourself.
Omg. EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. I have scribbled about this without any cohesion and now I simply don’t feel like I have to explain it all because YOU did. I am saving this and coming back to it time and time again, truly, I feel every sentence and notion and just wow. Is this my new favorite piece of yours? I feel like it has to be 😭💜🫶🏻
I couldn’t agree more with your statement. The documenting and broadcasting do come at a great cost, and many of us are content to trade authentic experience for this constant curation of ourselves. I just can’t play the game. If it’s at the cost of being considered a serious artist, well, so be it.
A brilliant essay which is structured of course to encourage real reflection and contribution by others as the response levels indicate, and yet, and rightly, there is no big reveal of personal.events, or family concerns. My experience since retiring from paid employment is one of pivoting from being noticed to being noted. I was never one for lots of self publicity anyway despite running my own business consultancy for 30 years. But now i can take time to reflect on issues that matter to me, and support, listen to, encourage those who share my values. We need to do more of that.
I so appreciate this comment particularly your line about the shift from being noticed to being noted.
That’s a transition many people never make, and it shows a maturity the culture doesn’t always reward.
And yes, the work you describe…reflecting, supporting, listening, aligning with values rather than attention…is exactly what strengthens the type of conversations we urgently need.
I have no social media. I had it 13 years ago, until my eldest (my twins), were about 6 months old. I had a blog too, which felt like journaling at first but then quickly started to feel “off” to me. I didn’t love the idea of putting my sweet girls on the internet without their consent…even then, even as babies. So I closed up shop and I spent the time I would look at my screen being present with them. I’ve never regretted a second of it.
Thank you for putting this very thoughtful piece out into the world. ❤️
Wow, I need to save this and read it over and over again as required quarterly reading. This is so much of what I’ve been thinking about when my husband asks if I want to go full content creator. I don’t want to become my content, I want to exist outside of anything I do behind a screen and I want these two things to be completely separate entities. I really need to read this again and take notes.
Thank you for putting all of this into words. This is all so powerful to read! ❤️
Marina, this means a lot and I’m really glad you named that distinction so clearly.
“I don’t want to become my content” is such a precise line. That’s exactly the edge I was writing from. It’s nothing to do with a rejection of creativity or visibility but a refusal to collapse the self into output.
I find there’s something profoundly stabilising about insisting on a life that exists off-screen, untouched, unoptimised, not waiting to be turned into a lesson or a post. Especially when the pressure to “just go full content creator” can sound so bloody reasonable, and inevitable.
You’re naming sovereignty, really. The right to have thoughts, relationships, seasons, and identities that don’t need an audience to be real.
Thank you for reading this with that level of care and for trusting your instinct that some things are meant to stay separate.
As an artist who also has to market, I have been thinking and writing about this. Your take is very thoughtful and interesting. We are running businesses, but in the wake of marketing, we have cheapened ourselves. We are no longer magical. I’m seeking to find that place where artists are mysterious and a little bit weird, but where we can also make a living. It will take work, and I don’t have all of the answers yet, but I appreciate that there are those of us out there asking the questions and trying to find the answers.
I love your questions. I find mystery doesn’t come from hiding, it comes from not explaining everything on demand. From letting work be work before it’s turned into any kind of performance. But it requires firm boundaries and intentional timing and a willingness to ignore advice that assumes constant access is the price of being taken seriously and/or success!
I'd love to hear more about the lost magic of artists.
Love this! Thank you. I've always been very private in my work. Even when the pressures of social media are at play I've resisted. It's part of the reason I love Substack.
I don't want to document every moment of my life for capitalism, and be pathologised for not wanting to as a 'being seen wound' by the pain point culture coaches.
I’m with you especially on the way reluctance gets reframed as pathology. As if not wanting to narrate your life for capitalism must mean something is wrong with you, rather than that something is wrong with the demand.
Privacy isn’t a wound. It’s a boundary, right?!
Lovely to meet you Chris.
Absolutely love this piece Danusia!
As an entrepreneur and introvert who built a business on social media—not entirely by choice—I also reached my “Enough.” That’s exactly why I migrated to Substack: a place where attention spans stretch longer than five seconds, and readers can actually settle into long-form thought without feeling breathless.
So bravo for calling it out!
I particularly love this sentence 'I share in intervals, rather than feeds — irregular, deliberate, refusing the demand for constant availability or narrative continuity.' We aren't built like 9-to-5 machines, made to churn out content like factory spaghetti. And honestly? I’ve grown tired of being told how many posts my business needs—advice I never listened to anyway. 😉
As we step into a new era governed by an entirely different universal energy—the expansive, untamed Fire in Chinese metaphysics—it is time to return to heart and spirit.
No more performing.
Instead, honouring.
Ebb and flow, as they may.
So here’s to:
Not timelines, but frequencies.
Not algorithms, but rhythm.
Not performance, but presence.
What we’re pointing to is that a lot of this advice isn’t just about visibility, it’s about obedience to tempo.
The pressure isn’t simply “post more” — it’s post on command, stay narratable, and remain extractable. As if a life that can’t be skimmed, scheduled, or mined for output is somehow unserious!
That’s why Substack matters to me too. Because it allows for intervals and for work to exist without constant translation into proof.
I don’t think the shift is only from performance to honouring (though I love that language). I think it’s from continuous availability to chosen appearance. And that’s a much bigger refusal than most people realise.
So full of fire!!! And seriously what is up with domestic voyerism...
Right? It’s presented as intimacy, but it’s really surveillance dressed up as wholesomeness. I don’t think we’ve interrogated that nearly hard enough.
This was thought provoking and well-written, and really encapsulates why I've been resisting posting much on social media, and especially video content. When I'm working on something (for me that may be making jewellery or teaching it) I don't want to have to think about how to document it - I just want to get on and do it! But everyone else in my industry is doing reels and videos of their process or a day in the life blah blah blah etc etc etc. All the content looks the same and it just feels to me like noise. I want to believe there's a way to be successful by simply doing something well.
Hi Soozi, that pull you describe, wanting to stay inside the work rather than step outside it to narrate it, feels absolutely central to this.
Making jewellery, teaching, shaping something with your hands or your attention… those are practices that ask for immersion. The moment you’re also required to document them, you’re no longer fully there. Something fractures!
What strikes me is how quickly all that “process content” starts to look identical. Same angles, same beats, same claims of authenticity and yet so little actual difference. Noise is exactly the word.
I still believe there’s a way to build something solid by doing the work well and letting it accumulate weight over time. It resists the current incentives but it preserves the integrity of the thing itself, and of the person making it.
Quite right. I want to write without feeling pressured to become a brand. Documenting my life (not to mention the life of my family) feels too personal and unnatural. I never got the hang of the social media thing and I've done away with as many platforms as possible. Feels like a necessary evil for an author today.
That idea of it being a “necessary evil” is exactly what I’m interrogating.
Writing is now routinely bundled with an expectation to document, expose, and contextualise our lives, often our families’ lives, as evidence of legitimacy. This isn't out of choice, but as a condition.
I’m interested in what happens when we refuse that condition and let work stand without drafting our private lives in as proof.
Well, I'm drawing up my own terms, although being under contract to a publisher muddies the waters. I change names and never post photos of my kid, which is a start.
That makes sense. Publishing brings its own systemic constraints, and everyone finds their own ways of managing them.
Thanks for sharing how you’re navigating it.
Bravo! What makes me laugh is the relentless photographing and posting about their lives is often accompanied with text saying they only work 5 hours a month because they are experts at passive revenue... More like 5 hours a day obviously on social media
The work hasn’t vanished, it’s just migrated into self-surveillance. And it’s rarely counted as work at all which, of course, is the trick.
“I want interest and engagement based on my work, not my exposure.” Yes yes yes!
I recently told someone, “I want to be successful because I’m really good at what I do.” They responded, “That’s not how you become successful anymore. You become successful by selling yourself.” Well, watch me sell my work instead.
“That’s not how it works anymore” is such a tell, isn’t it. I’m far more interested in backing the work and seeing what follows 😉
Oh my goodness, wow. THANK YOU for this. For putting this icky value system into words that I can now clearly register and confidently REJECT. 💓🙏
You've made my day Jess. Happy this landed for you! 🙏🏻
This whole essay speaks to how I've been feeling lately. I love my work, and I want to be successful, but I also want a private life. I'm not bad at showing up online, and I don't have major fears about it. I resent the fact that it seems like women have to "build publicly" and share every detail of their lives to succeed. This read was so refreshing and made me feel seen.
Jennifer, I really appreciate the way you framed this, especially “I’m not bad at showing up online.” That matters.
This isn’t about fear or incapacity. It’s about the slow grind of being told that success and privacy are somehow incompatible for women. That loving your work means surrendering your edges, your off-hours, and all of your interior life.
Wanting a private life alongside ambition isn’t contradictory, I see it as sane.
“Build publicly” has become a kind of shorthand that routinely assumes women will provide narrative, texture, and access in ways men are rarely asked to. And if they are it will not involve the emotional exposure expected of women.
I’m glad this essay felt refreshing — and all the more so because it didn’t offer an answer, but because it let that tension exist without turning it into a personal failing. Feeling seen is often just that: having something named without being told to fix yourself.
Thank you for saying it out loud. 🥰
Omg. EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. I have scribbled about this without any cohesion and now I simply don’t feel like I have to explain it all because YOU did. I am saving this and coming back to it time and time again, truly, I feel every sentence and notion and just wow. Is this my new favorite piece of yours? I feel like it has to be 😭💜🫶🏻
What a gorgeous message Violet — thank you.
This piece came from a very long internal conversation, trying to give shape to something so many of us feel without having language for it.
I’m honoured it clarified something you’ve been carrying. Much love xo
XOXO ❤️
I couldn’t agree more with your statement. The documenting and broadcasting do come at a great cost, and many of us are content to trade authentic experience for this constant curation of ourselves. I just can’t play the game. If it’s at the cost of being considered a serious artist, well, so be it.
The documenting can start to eat the life it’s meant to honour, right?!
I’ve watched women trade their marrow for a curated persona : beautiful on screen, hollow in the IRL room.
If refusing that makes you the “difficult artist,” fantastic. Difficult women make better art anyway 👯♀️
A brilliant essay which is structured of course to encourage real reflection and contribution by others as the response levels indicate, and yet, and rightly, there is no big reveal of personal.events, or family concerns. My experience since retiring from paid employment is one of pivoting from being noticed to being noted. I was never one for lots of self publicity anyway despite running my own business consultancy for 30 years. But now i can take time to reflect on issues that matter to me, and support, listen to, encourage those who share my values. We need to do more of that.
I so appreciate this comment particularly your line about the shift from being noticed to being noted.
That’s a transition many people never make, and it shows a maturity the culture doesn’t always reward.
And yes, the work you describe…reflecting, supporting, listening, aligning with values rather than attention…is exactly what strengthens the type of conversations we urgently need.
Thank you for naming it so clearly.
I have no social media. I had it 13 years ago, until my eldest (my twins), were about 6 months old. I had a blog too, which felt like journaling at first but then quickly started to feel “off” to me. I didn’t love the idea of putting my sweet girls on the internet without their consent…even then, even as babies. So I closed up shop and I spent the time I would look at my screen being present with them. I’ve never regretted a second of it.
Thank you for putting this very thoughtful piece out into the world. ❤️
That’s such a clear call Julie. You trusted the off-feeling and closed the door.
Naming consent there is huge too. And “never regretted a second” says everything. Bravo ❤️
PS. I’m always glad to meet another multiples mum.
Wow, I need to save this and read it over and over again as required quarterly reading. This is so much of what I’ve been thinking about when my husband asks if I want to go full content creator. I don’t want to become my content, I want to exist outside of anything I do behind a screen and I want these two things to be completely separate entities. I really need to read this again and take notes.
Thank you for putting all of this into words. This is all so powerful to read! ❤️
Marina, this means a lot and I’m really glad you named that distinction so clearly.
“I don’t want to become my content” is such a precise line. That’s exactly the edge I was writing from. It’s nothing to do with a rejection of creativity or visibility but a refusal to collapse the self into output.
I find there’s something profoundly stabilising about insisting on a life that exists off-screen, untouched, unoptimised, not waiting to be turned into a lesson or a post. Especially when the pressure to “just go full content creator” can sound so bloody reasonable, and inevitable.
You’re naming sovereignty, really. The right to have thoughts, relationships, seasons, and identities that don’t need an audience to be real.
Thank you for reading this with that level of care and for trusting your instinct that some things are meant to stay separate.
❤️
As an artist who also has to market, I have been thinking and writing about this. Your take is very thoughtful and interesting. We are running businesses, but in the wake of marketing, we have cheapened ourselves. We are no longer magical. I’m seeking to find that place where artists are mysterious and a little bit weird, but where we can also make a living. It will take work, and I don’t have all of the answers yet, but I appreciate that there are those of us out there asking the questions and trying to find the answers.
I love your questions. I find mystery doesn’t come from hiding, it comes from not explaining everything on demand. From letting work be work before it’s turned into any kind of performance. But it requires firm boundaries and intentional timing and a willingness to ignore advice that assumes constant access is the price of being taken seriously and/or success!
I'd love to hear more about the lost magic of artists.
DANG YOU HIT THAT NAIL ON THE HEAD. Thank you for the reminder that we have autonomy over our own damn ankles. Because woah is this all so true.
Autonomy is the whole point. Once it’s framed as optional rather than obligatory, the spell breaks!