Post Your Shit!
We misunderstand what people are doing on social media.
We look at it like everyone’s trying to hustle — build an audience, become an influencer, monetize every post, every thought, every breath. And sure, those people exist. They always will.
But here’s the thing:
The best people online — the ones who actually blow up — aren’t really trying.
They’re just posting the modern version of home videos. Except instead of collecting dust on a VHS tape in your mom’s basement, they’re living online for everyone to see.
Our jokes.
Our skits.
Our good times.
Our disasters.
Our heartbreaks.
Our dumb little moments.
And is that so wrong? Does it automatically make us vain?
There’s an entire generation of grown-ups who were raised on the internet — their parents documenting every milestone, every lost tooth, every birthday — and somehow when they do it, it’s suddenly a problem?
I don’t buy that.
I think it’s great — this tiny bit of voyeurism into other people’s lives.
It’s entertaining. It’s fun. It’s sad. It’s triumphant. It’s messy.
It’s humanity, raw and unfiltered.
Little glimpses into people we’ll never meet, never really know…
but somehow still understand.
Because their stories aren’t any different from ours.
We love to think we’re all unique — special little islands — but our relationships all parallel each other. Women are from Venus, men are from Mars, and all that old cliché shit. But the clichés exist for a reason: because they’re true.
If our experiences were completely different, relationship books wouldn’t sell.
Comedians wouldn’t have material.
Nobody would laugh at the same jokes.
Think about it — how many comedians do nothing but point out the obvious?
The tiny relationship quirks and patterns we all share?
Our experiences are not what make us unique.
It’s the combination of them.
A bunch of tiny similarities, common threads, shared heartbreaks, familiar joys — the same building blocks recycled through billions of people over thousands of years.
And somehow, from all that sameness, each of us comes out one of a kind.
Not because we’re entirely different.
But because we’re perfectly, beautifully mixed.
And sometimes social media brings us teachers — people who just want to share what they love. A lowly karate teacher, maybe, who just wants you to try hard, be your best, and leave the world a little better than you found it.
We call that vain?
We look at people like that and say they’re doing it for attention, or the wrong reasons.
But do you have to already be somebody to tell a joke?
To sing a song?
To teach something you care about?
So what if you do it badly.
Half the charm is doing it badly.
It’s allowed to be sloppy.
It’s allowed to be imperfect.
Sometimes it’s even better when it’s bad — the kind of bad that makes you smile because you know it’s real.
Sometimes you post for others.
Sometimes you post for yourself.
Sometimes you don’t even know why you posted — you just felt like sharing a moment that would’ve died quietly if not for the internet.
So why do we put so much importance on the gatekeepers?
Why do we act like someone has to “approve” our voice before we can speak?
The internet was imagined long before the first microchip.
Long before computers.
Long before any of this technology existed.
The printing press was the start — the first time regular people could spread ideas without begging for permission.
The internet is just the next version of that.
A giant, messy, chaotic printing press where anyone — a comedian, a musician, a painter, a dad, a kid, a karate teacher — can say, “Here. I made this. Want to see?”
I watch a fat kid online going through his weight-loss journey.
I don’t know who he is.
I don’t know where he lives.
But I send him likes.
I tell him, “You go!”
I follow his progress.
I celebrate his wins.
I feel it when he struggles.
He’s some stranger on my screen —
but I care.
And isn’t that the whole point of being human?
But then you see the comments.
People telling him he’s not worthy of being seen.
Not worthy of posting.
Not worthy of taking up space on a goddamn screen.
But don’t we all want to be seen?
Isn’t that one of the deepest human needs?
To be witnessed.
To matter.
To say, “I’m here,” and have someone — anyone — reply, “I see you.”
And how are we supposed to know what people are all about if we never let them outside?
If we tell them to hide?
If we shame them for being real, being vulnerable, being in progress?
We forget something simple:
People become better when they’re allowed to be seen.
That’s where accountability comes from.
That’s where courage grows.
That’s where connection happens.
If we keep everyone in the dark, how the hell do we expect anyone to bloom?
We love underdog stories — always have.
And the internet is full of them.
It’s millions of Hollywood blockbusters just waiting to be made.
Books.
Stories.
Movies.
Songs.
Paintings.
People turning their lives into art without even knowing they’re doing it.
And the connections — oh, the connections.
You end up finding people who share your sense of humor, your weird jokes, your timing, your heart… even if they’re on the other side of the planet.
Someone laughs at the same dumb thing you post, and suddenly you’ve got a bond with a stranger in Singapore, or Belfast, or São Paulo — someone you’ll probably never meet, but somehow understand perfectly.
Connected by fibers and signals and ones and zeros.
Ask my son how it works — it’s too much for my brain.
But it doesn’t matter how it works.
What matters is that it does.
That we really are connected in ways we couldn’t have imagined a generation ago.
The internet took the underdog — the overlooked, the awkward, the quiet, the kid in the back who never raised his hand —
and gave them a stage.
And it gave the rest of us a front-row seat.
So what if you don’t know shit about photography?
A nice picture can still lighten someone’s day.
I see people I don’t know — who I almost want to call friends — doing things I wish I had the courage to do myself.
They inspire me.
They push me toward the things I can do.
That’s the whole point.
But if your feed feels like sewage, it’s not because the internet is rotten —
it’s because you haven’t found the right corners yet.
The internet isn’t one singular place.
It’s not one room, one vibe, one crowd.
It’s millions — maybe billions — of rooms.
Each one filled with people of every shape, size, dream, fear, talent, flaw, joy, heartbreak.
Rooms where you can learn.
Rooms where you can create.
Rooms where you can express yourself.
Rooms where you can laugh your ass off.
Rooms where you can cry in the dark with strangers who somehow understand you better than your own family.
The internet is infinite rooms in an endless hallway.
You just have to open the right doors.
So go ahead — post your shit. The good, the bad, the crooked, the blurry, the brave.
The world is big enough for all of us.
And the right people will always find you.