#70: what happens when you share yourself vulnerably online?

lessons in self-expression and the pros/cons of putting yourself out there

Hello and welcome or welcome back to Caught Up in Char’s Web!

If you are new here, my name is Char and I post about once per month - you can expect to find reflections on personal growth, meaningful connections, how to get creatively unblocked, and finding wonder in everyday moments as we navigate the very messy, beautiful journey of becoming more ourselves.

When I started writing this newsletter, it felt very scary and vulnerable to share so much of myself with friends, family, and strangers online. But the benefits that it has delivered in the form of rewiring my relationship to validation and fulfillment have been nothing short of life changing. So, on this episode of Char’s Web, I am answering the question of… What happens when you share yourself vulnerably online?

If you feel like your relationship to social media is trapping you in a validation loop instead of helping you reach creative liberation, then this one is for you.

Alright… let’s get into it!!

PSA: I started posting these on YouTube!!!! Click here to watch instead.

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Salmon Toor, "The Joke," 2024

Above is an audio recording of me reading this post for those who prefer listening. Thank you, Philipp Kaspar, for the intro music!

It was a hot summer day in the middle of the pandemic. I pulled out my laptop and rolled out my mat to do yet another 30 minute YouTube workout by myself.

And that’s when a video titled “All In” by Stephanie Buttermore popped up. I didn’t know who she was at the time but something about the thumbnail and title prompted me to watch.

Little did I know, this video by a stranger would change my life.

“All In” was a challenge that Stephanie was doing in which she committed to gaining as much weight as necessary in order to get her period back. It had been 2 years since I had my last period and I knew I needed to do this too. And for god knows what in the simulation reason, this video found me at the exact moment that I was ready to listen. Gaining an undefined amount of weight at the time was probably my biggest fear.

But through the vulnerability that Stephanie shared, I felt connected enough to this random woman on the internet that I was able to commit to undertake one of the most challenging things I had ever done. I joined a Facebook group of other women doing this at the same time. I bought books about hypothalamic amenorrhea and read them all. I learned about the female athlete triad (under-eat, overexercise, too much stress). And I decided that I, myself, was going “All In.”

The reason I am sharing this personal information with many strangers, family, and friends on the internet is because it’s helping me to answer one of the biggest questions that I have been asking myself lately. That is, what happens when we share our vulnerabilities online?

Let’s start from the beginning.

I was in 5th grade when I made my Facebook account. I asked my mom for permission to get a Facebook and she said yes, with the ultimatum of… “if you go get me a cloth napkin from the cabinet to put this bread in.” I complied and my Facebook was created. I have been “online” ever since.

But my socials were “a way to keep in touch with friends,” read: a way of getting validation from other teenagers and depleting my dopamine stores on a daily basis. I used Instagram like many other millennial Gen Z cuspers… that is, to get attention. I had a private account in which I would take bikini pictures at the beach with my friends and occasionally post one but more often than not, delete them all off my phone after they had completely destroyed my day.

Social media was a destructive force for my confidence, which came at the perfect time to accompany me through puberty.

This was a time in which Skinny Me teas were all the rage. In which there were a few girls at my high school that were posting What I Eat in a Day’s and becoming early fitness influencers. It was embarrassing at the time but we all secretly wanted to do the same. Now, we worship them all and several are millionaires!

All of this is to say that social media has changed dramatically over the past 15 years. And it is only now, really, that I am taking a good hard look at how I use it and the purpose that it serves in my life.

I have gone through phases of deleting it altogether. When I did my yoga teacher training, I tried posting from a more ~spiritual~ perspective and found myself incredibly embarrassed. I have been public, private, and back and forth a bunch of times.

But through these extremes, I never really took a look at the difference between the way that I was consuming versus how I was creating and it caused a lot of unaddressed cognitive dissonance. I consumed a lot of other people’s self-expression and benefitted from it greatly. But I was still creating from a place of vanity rather than self-acceptance.

Which leads me to the question of: What happens when we share ourselves vulnerably online?

Let’s address the fears first.

My biggest fear for posting online has always been embarrassing myself. I’ve always felt like social media captions and posting in general favors the “cool girl.” The game to be played is one of remaining aloof, saying just enough to intrigue people but not enough to give yourself away. You want to come across as mysterious and desirable. And part of that game requires holding your cards close to your chest. The fear that this has instilled is being perceived as embarrassing for expressing vulnerably amongst a group of people who are doing the opposite.

I often feel like I’ll be perceived as the girl who just wants to bake a cake made out of rainbow sprinkles and smiles in Mean Girls.

And beyond the fear of embarrassing myself for being more vulnerable online than those around me is a fear of genuinely oversharing. Of putting myself in danger for sharing too much online or later looking back at something I said and feeling remorse for making myself too available on the internet.

The truth of the matter when it comes to embarrassing ourselves is that… sure some people may judge you. The roster of high school boys that comes to mind when thinking of posting something a bit more out there… honestly doesn’t matter. Their goldfish attention spans are too short to care anyways. If they throw you in a group chat and are making fun of you but you are learning to overcome the patterns that have kept you small your whole life… so fucking be it.

The latter part, though, is important to address. While I cannot say how my 45 year old self will feel about 26 year old me spilling vulnerabilities on the internet, I do have the discernment already to be able to know when I am posting for attention versus posting something because I sincerely believe that it will be helpful to others who have also felt alone.

In other words, the biggest differentiating factor between whether you will likely regret a later post or not is the intention with which you post it. If you are sharing your vulnerabilities to get attention, you probably will not feel great about that later on. That’s where we start to feel exploited and lines should be drawn.

But if you are sincerely sharing from a place of wanting your life experience to accompany others who may feel less alone in theirs, I really don’t think your future self will regret that. And I can’t say how you will feel with certainty because I am not you nor am I your future self. But if I look back on all of the things that I have done out of the sincerity of my heart and commitment to my values, I really don’t regret them. I can learn from them for sure and change my style and means of expression as I learn, grow, and mature. But I tend not to regret the things that younger versions of me has done from a commitment to finding and sharing my truth.

Another fear of posting online is related to pedestalization. Both being on the pedestal or looking up to the person that you have placed on there are dangerous positions.

When you are on the pedestal, the danger is related to falling off. Getting canceled. Sharing something that turns other people away. Being perceived as an authority in ways that you do not believe in nor asked to be put in.

When you are below the pedestal looking up to whoever you put on there, the danger is in relying too heavily on someone else’s voice instead of learning to hear and follow your own.

Salman Toor, Three Kissers, 2024

In normal social relationships, there is reciprocity at play. I share something vulnerable with you and you share something back. We build trust overtime and we both have skin in the game. You know things about me that I trust you to hold and I know things about you that you trust me to hold. That balances out the scale. We’ve got each other’s backs. In a parasocial relationship, however, that reciprocity falls by the wayside. You know things about me but I know nothing about you and therefore if I say something that you don’t agree with, you have little to lose by chucking me by the wayside. I am just a random girl writing a newsletter. Next!

I’m using myself as the example here but I am guilty of doing this with all of the people that I follow too. There have been countless times where someone I am obsessed with and follow religiously says something that I moderately disagree with and I internally cancel them. My perception is soured and I move on. In a normal friendship, this would not happen so fast. I would be more forgiving in our differences in opinion and there would be more wiggle room to learn from each other’s differences.

This is why the internet is an echo chamber - because as soon as someone expresses a subtle difference in opinion from us, we unfollow and move on to the next. We can’t do that as easily IRL. And that is one of the dangers of sharing vulnerably. This will happen. There will be some people that are turned off by something that you say and you will lose their respect. But such is life and the nature of the game.

I also hope that overtime, people become more aware of this tendency and aren’t so quick to throw people away for slight differences in opinion. Of course, there are cases in which people certainly should be canceled and the accountability of that online is a good thing. But writ large, I think we’ve overdone it and the force behind this is parasociality and not having skin in the game in our relationships. They are unidirectional and it’s made it easier to fall from the pedestal than it is to get placed on there.

I love how Elizabeth Gilbert handles this. Gilbert wrote Eat, Pray, Love to share her story and vulnerabilities with other women who had gone through similar journeys of settling for the wrong qualities in partnership and purpose early on and embark on a journey to find themselves after. At the time, this was pretty revolutionary. Women were not solo traveling around the world and having these types of experiences. She really paved the way for a lot of female empowerment and I, myself, have benefitted from “Eat, Pray, Love” being part of our rhetoric.

Gilbert tells a story of being stopped at customs and being asked what she does for work. “I’m a writer,” she says and is then asked what she has written. “I’m best known for my book, Eat, Pray, Love.” The TSA agent’s eyes widen and she calls over all of her colleagues. “This is Eat Pray Love,” she exclaims!! The agent then says to Liz, “you wouldn’t believe how many women come through customs every single day saying that the purpose of their travels was “Eat, Pray, Love.” I share that to indicate the level of impact that this book has had on our culture, whether you like it or not.

But Gilbert didn’t expect it to soar like it did. This book has sold over 12 million copies and made it into many of the wrong hands. This book was not meant for certain people to read. Its reach extended far beyond its intended audience, which led Gilbert to fall from her pedestal after her initial leap to success. Eat Pray Love was revered and then gawked at. It’s now found its way back to a second wave of success as being kind of camp. Her confidence through it all was admirable and I love this as an example of the power of putting yourself out there.

I found myself wondering how Liz Gilbert was able to maintain her sense of self when her book was on blast. While someday I hope I get to ask her that directly, here is my current hypothesis based on my own experiences and ideas.

The reason I think Liz Gilbert was so resilient in handling so much negative attention from her book after it soared to such heights is because… she did not get her validation from other people’s perceptions of her work - she found her worth in the process of creation itself. She was at a point where she was able to stay anchored in how beneficial her message had been to those that it was for, which made weathering the storm of it reaching those who it was NOT for far more tolerable.

And there is a bigger lesson at play here. One that actually relates to my eating disorder to bring this back to the top. That is, redefining the sources from which we seek fulfillment.

Salman Toor, Ward, 2020

One of the things that helped me most in healing from my ED was doubling down on other things that brought me joy. Instead of keeping all the eggs in the basket of how my ass looked in size 24 jeans, I began leaning into the things that gave me real dopamine - writing, painting, making friends who shared in my values, hosting dinners, starting Reading Rhythms and CANDID, and so much more.

What this did for me was rightsized the amount of time I was spending thinking about my body/food/exercise. At their core, EDs and other forms of perfectionism stem from a desire for control and a perverted relationship to validation/attention. We create these overly simplified systems in our head that help us understand if we are on track or not. Social media can be used for the same thing. Calorie counting in an ED can be akin to likes/comment/stats on socials.

So if the pathway out of an ED was to find other sources of fulfillment, the key to avoiding the pitfalls of social media comparison is to ensure that it does not become a means for seeking validation.

And how do we do that? One might ask… By enjoying the process of creation itself and using socials as a tool for self-expression instead of a chamber for self-obsession.

When we create from a place of joy rather than a sense of duty, obligation, and keeping up with the joneses, it is a lot easier to keep these things working for you instead of the other way around.

Which leads me - finally - to the benefits of sharing online.

When people share their struggles on the internet, others are able to see themselves in strangers and feel less alone. As previously mentioned, there were troves of women that I followed who helped me greatly in feeling less alone while my body changed and I overcame my eating disorder — to name a few: Kate Noel, Milly Goldsmith, Natacha Oceane, Spencer Barbosa, Celeste Barber, Florence Given, the list goes on.

There is something about the anonymity of a stranger sharing their story that makes it so much more… relatable. I had many friends, a mother, and sister that all could relate to body struggles. But something about being able to find strangers online that knew nothing about me and therefore were not coming in with a bias, was incredibly helpful in making me feel seen, connected, and capable of making real tangible progress. If they could do it, I could too.

I wrote last week about the benefits of asking better questions and holding yourself accountable to writing out their answers. And one of the main benefits that I mentioned was the relationships that you develop with other writers, thinkers, creators through the process of exploring your own curiosities.

In order for you to have access to those people, they have to have shared their works. Not necessarily online, but in some way shape or form. While the virality of social media and quickness of it all feels new, parasocial relationships are not.

Liz Gilbert calls Mary Oliver her best friend that she has never met and likely never knew of her. By that Gilbert means that she reveres Oliver’s work and perspective on the world, which she was only able to find through her books and materials about Oliver’s life that are publicly available.

In order for us all to benefit from being able to put ourselves in conversation with others, those others have to share themselves. If they had withheld their stories, vulnerabilities, and art, we would be lesser in our own expressions and remixes of works around us.

One important thing to call out here, though, is that there are many different forms of sharing our work and expressing ourselves. Social media is not for everyone nor should it be. This brings me back to the point about being discerning as to why you are sharing. And I think form or rather, platform, plays a big role here.

There are many different platforms for us to share ourselves in this day and age. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Substack, Youtube, personal websites, podcasts, self-published books, the list goes on. And the reason I think that medium matters is because we all have preferred mechanisms for self-expression. I have always preferred writing out long winded answers to questions (SHOCKING i know!). I find it hard to capture what I am trying to say in short form clips and more importantly, the feeling that I have in creating them just pails in comparison to writing.

So, for me, I love to write and want to explore the platforms that allow me to sit my ass down and enjoy the process of what I am doing here. As a result, that is where I give most of my attention. AND there is a part of me that is deeply curious about short form and upgrading my relationship with social media in particular from starting out as a bikini posting validation seeking tween into the self-expressive, no fucks given woman that I am becoming today. So I will continue to experiment with short form in hopes of sharing messages that find others that may feel the same. And even more importantly, in pursuit of answering the questions that I am most curious about.

But the intention there remains. If there ever is a time in which I feel myself wanting to hit post in order to get attention, I will refrain and do something else with that thought instead. And I will keep my focus on making heavy things instead of getting swept away in the creation of too much noise.

So in answer to my initial question of what happens when we share ourselves vulnerably online:

1. We connect with others who have shared similar experiences and feel less alone

2. We develop our confidence and refine our curiosities by holding ourselves accountable to answering our own questions and sharing what we find

3. We put ourselves in conversation with others who are asking similar questions and create a core sense of intellectual community, which is one of the most rewarding parts of life

4. We get the fuck over the fear of embarrassing ourselves by realizing that no one really gives a rats ass what you are doing - their attention spans are too short anyways - and those with whom you do resonate, are so WORTH IT for sharing in the end

5. And through the confidence that we develop in self-expression we are able to move away from making content and towards making art - the difference there is that art moves us to tears, it helps us feel connected to parts of ourselves that we couldn’t otherwise access, it makes us better than we were before. Content, on the other hand, zaps our dopamine and steals our joy. Make art.

So, in conclusion, yes. I am keenly aware of the dangers of sharing yourself vulnerably online. But I am more acutely interested in the benefits that come from self-expression.

And I will end on this note, NOT EVERYTHING THAT YOU THINK OR BELIEVE NEEDS TO BE SHARED ONLINE. Do not share with urgency. Do not make content. Make art!!!!! And I don’t mean that to be pretentious either - make bad art too!!! For the love of god, the last thing we need is more perfectionism. I just mean that the difference between art and content is that art is made for creative liberation and content is created for validation.

Share the things that feel fucking good to get off your chest. And then don’t be afraid to keep some small parts in the crook of your elbow - as Maya Angelou says.

So share what frees you. Keep what protects you. Make it honest. Make it weird. Make it yours. And above all, create like no one’s watching, because most of them aren’t. But the few who are? They might need it more than you know.

And when you’re done, log off, take a walk, delete the apps off your phone, and go do something that doesn’t need a caption.

That’s all for today!

Thank you for getting Caught Up in Char’s Web with me this week - I will catch you here again sometime soon.

With love,

Char

Salman Toor, Waiting, 2024

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Xandra’s Curation Corner

Xandra Beverlin is an incredible art curator at Pace Gallery, co-founder of PULSE, and dear friend, who so generously pulls pieces for this newsletter each week. I text her a few short bullets about the main themes of Char’s Web and she replies with the most thoughtful articulations of the artists that come to mind. This is my favorite part of writing my newsletter. Do yourself the favor of reading her curator’s notes!

I love the theme this week, all the more poignant as we seem to sink into what often feels like an echo chamber of omnipresent posting and subsequently, endless noise. As cynical as I can be these days about this (pointing my finger mostly at Reels and TikTok), I agree that there can be irrefutable value in sharing our inner worlds online when there is something at stake. You’re speaking to vulnerability that isn’t performative: content that doesn’t immediately reside within the clutches of The Algorithm, and may take a bit longer to nurture and grow. Patience, even doubt, neutrality to validation.

Rumor has it that it took Salman Toor nearly two years to develop his most recent body of work in what is his biggest gallery debut yet following a watershed show at The Whitney in 2020 (New Yorkers can check it out at Luhring Augustine in Chelsea and Tribeca). I remember stopping in my tracks seeing just a few of his paintings at last year’s Venice Biennale, enthralled by brushstrokes that felt like they were in literally in motion, and compositions with variety unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Toor is enacting the exact vulnerability you’re speaking to here by blending his public / private life in Brooklyn and his native Pakistan on canvas. The work fuses elements of queer identity with the immigrant experience, bringing in motifs from Indian court paintings and Muslim prayer mats…all with a cheeky nod towards the conventions of European painting. There’s a raw honesty within these works that clearly doesn’t shy away from subjects not always conventionally depicted. Artwork like this is heroic, undoubtably opening doors of relatability beyond even my own comprehension. Perhaps it’s only by deliberately seeking out work within our endless media consumption that holds such feeling — such risk — that we can begin to discern what may actually be worth actually remembering.

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All past issues of Char’s Web are available for reading here. A few samples below…

#1: A first of many.

#43: the slobs I peeled off the street

#48: it’s not that serious

#49: we have to be orderly on the instant