online attention
Never tie the attention you get to your self-worth. Not every type of attention is equal or should be wanted, anyway. The type of content that tells you things to do so others love you, find you attractive, read your blog or whatever do nothing but create arbitrary standards that you can fail and then feel unlovable about.
In a society that prizes attention and the so-called attention economy, it’s cheap and easy und undesirable to get attention. The formula is clear: Overconsumption, rage bait, sex, debating, extremism. Losing your sanity, dramatizing everything that you do and giving up on your values. Giving everyone almost unlimited access to you because you’re a court jester performing for an audience that steers your life via polls, livestream comments, Q&A’s and more. You get drilled into you all the time: What will your audience think? Start appreciating your readership by molding yourself to their needs!
Attention life hack: All you have to do is sign up, filter yourself to death, record yourself and then put a text over it that is either insane self-improvement advice (dump your face in ice at 3am and walk 13km a day) or something you know will generate comments (“the male loneliness epidemic should get worse”). Be in every comment section, be in people’s DMs, stitch popular creators, show off, lie outrageously, interact with hate comments, make your own snark page, post a lot.
Seeing how easy it is to get attention while most of it is so disgusting, why is it worthwhile to you? Why do you still believe that attention is a reward that goes to people who are better than you and worked so hard to deserve it? Many, many people do fuck-all in terms of how hard it was. Doing the above things is not hard. Staying authentic and true to yourself without being swayed by public opinion and attention is.
It’s not like most attention society dispenses is about how great of a human being you are or even seeing all of you, honoring you. It’s one aspect, played up and isolated until they get sick of it and shame you for it instead. Arguably, a ton of attention goes to people that are vile. We love to make people famous that model the worst of us. We don’t tend to know the names or social media presences of important people making a positive difference.
Attention makes you wary, it makes you wanna keep it, and it makes you do stupid things to attain it. Attention might overwhelm you or threaten you. You’re expected to monetize attention - but are you even ready for that? Maybe you crave it, but once you have it, don’t know what to do with it.
People who crave attention don’t know how annoying it is. You don’t actually want everyone in the room to look at you, for everyone to share your posts, or people to give you free food and drinks all the time - it’s inconveniencing, anxiety-inducing and makes you feel like you owe people something. It may increase the odds of harassment, fake friends and predatory deals. Not getting any of this is living a life in peace and having personal integrity.
Very very few people are actually well known for their great work, and if you wanna be that, your best bet is not to focus on a shortcut for getting the attention, but instead getting better at embodying yourself and becoming an expert at something, whether it’s a topic or a specific way you make people feel. You have to be comfortable with yourself whether you are currently in or not, whether you’re just ahead of your time or completely off. You have to let your digital tribe find you.
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Published 18 Jun, 2025