the 'influencer ick' is spreading (and no one's immune)

hiiii friend,

i think there's a pandemic going around right now and i'm calling it the influencer ick. everyone's talking in the same tone, the same cadence, the same little vocal tics that started with one person and now belong to no one and everyone at once.

"cOmE wItH mE tO..."
"GeT ReAdY WiTh Me!"
"GuYs i CaN't BeLiEvE wHaT jUsT hApPeNeD"

((( picture the voice while you read those, you know exactly which one i mean )))

i think there's a pandemic going around right now and i'm calling it the influencer ick. everyone's talking in the same tone, the same cadence, the same little vocal tics that started with one person and now belong to no one and everyone at once.

don't get me wrong, i love what the internet does when it brings people together, cultures forming, even internet ones, is kind of amazing to watch. but there's something happening underneath the fun of it that i think is worth naming.

it started with the first vlogs. remember those? they were amazing to us. ahead of their time. brave. so interesting. and now the same format doesn't have anywhere near the same shine, because everyone's doing it.

the same thing happens across a lot of media if you zoom out far enough. high fashion puts out a design, mass retailers replicate it within months, and high fashion has to move again just to stay individual. once upon a time silent films were out of this world entertainment. now almost no one makes one, not because the format stopped being valid, but because filmmaking got more advanced and more accessible, and that shine wore off.

content's going through the same thing. it's been democratised (idk if that's even the right word lol) to the point where the things that made the creators we know and love actually famous aren't going to hit with the same impressiveness anymore. but because that's still the version of success we all know, we copy it. and the more people become content creators, the more that influencer ick personality gets absorbed. not everyone. but it's definitely a thing.

to be clear, i'm not saying don't use formats that work. formats get copied because they're genuinely useful, they give people an easy way in. i actually think there's a learning curve everyone goes through where you naturally arrive at copying what you've seen while you find your feet. that part's normal, expected even.

the problem is what happens after that curve. when people never circle back to ask what's actually them and what they just picked up along the way.

because the creators who skyrocket, the ones people stay loyal to, aren't the ones who invented something brand new. they're using the exact same blueprints as everyone else. what they've done differently is make it unmistakably theirs. being yourself is the biggest moat you have.

i don't think you ever fully get rid of the ick, honestly. it's human nature to lean on what's proven, to reach for the thing that feels less risky. the worst version of it for me personally is when i don't know what i'm about to film. i'm not confident enough yet to just execute, so i lean on what i've seen before, and the second it comes out of my mouth i can feel it. it feels incredibly performed.

here's how i know when i've actually landed on unmistakably me instead. i watch the video back and i don't cringe. not even a little. i'm not scared, i'm not embarrassed. it's usually the footage where i wasn't thinking about the best thing to say, i was just doing whatever the moment actually needed. all of my content this year has genuinely felt like that. the more you try to rig your own personality, the worse it gets. the best version of you is the one that doesn't need any consideration at all.

i've started running a pre, during, and post check to catch when i've slipped into borrowed territory instead of mine…