Can We Stop Selling “Authenticity” Packages?

It’s absurd. From “protect your content from AI” to selling people another formula for how to share, speak, and exist online. How about we stop selling people instructions for how to be human?

I keep seeing these ads saying, “Don’t let AI steal your work. Here’s how to protect it,” and then proceeding to teach people how to share their personal stories in the “right” way. And I’m watching this thinking, THERE IT IS AGAIN. We’ve somehow turned even protecting ourselves from AI into another opportunity to tell people how they should present themselves, what to reveal, what to withhold, what’s too much, what’s acceptable, what might make them “overshare.” It’s the same old policing of self-expression dressed up as strategy.

Curate yourself. Filter yourself. Soften yourself. Make yourself palatable.

But for who?

I understand being cautious and mindful about how we share our personal lives, but honestly, I’m tired of the constant pressure to curate, perform, soften, filter, and mask ourselves. Be more palatable.

I also enjoy simply being.

There will always be pros and cons to the ways we choose to live, communicate, share, and connect, whether that involves people or technology. Personally, I love when people are just themselves. I appreciate people sharing the honest, raw truth in whatever way feels authentic to them. I can appreciate the imperfections, the messiness, the details, the emotions, and even the flaws.

And I don’t really believe in labeling the way someone expresses themselves as “oversharing.” Who gets to determine what “over” sharing actually is?

 It’s personal.

Someone might be completely comfortable sharing something that another person would never share publicly, and that’s okay. They’re allowed to have different boundaries. But if someone else’s level of openness makes you uncomfortable, you also have the choice to tune out rather than assigning a negative label to their way of communicating.

Maybe some people “under-process.” Maybe they don’t have the capacity, interest, or emotional bandwidth for the amount of information someone is sharing. I try to frame it differently: “I’m not interested in what this person is sharing,” or “I actually find this interesting, but I’m overwhelmed and don’t have the mental capacity for it right now.”

Both are okay. 

I honestly love, for lack of a better word, people who “overshare.” People who talk a lot. People who tell you the details. People who don't constantly edit themselves into something more palatable for everyone else. 🫶🏽

There’s something beautiful about people simply being themselves.