Be Weird, Not On-Brand
On niches, contradictions, and remembering who I was before the internet told me to pick one.
I am 27 years old. My whole adult life has been spent online. In the time when I was supposed to figure out more about myself and who I wanted to be, I instead got caught up in a web of noise. When your whole life has been algorithm serving you things, you at some point ask the question, who am I? What do I like and what are my values? What am I passionate about?
I think some important background information here is that I have often been really insecure. It took me a lot of time and reflecting to stop being so insecure and I still have not fully figured it out.
Earlier this year I decided to take a small step back from algorithms and instead focus on physical stuff. Physical media, notes and planning. I started collecting things again and fell back in love with journaling, pens and pencils. Journaling has been something I have been caring about for a long time. I started journaling back in 2019 and I have journaled every day since. Some days it has been a line or two, other days it has been a page or two. But I fell out of love with the hobby. As someone who has productivity as a hobby I have to differentiate between what I do for productivity and health reasons and what I do as a hobby. The hobby of notebooks and analog tools disappeared. I lost the love for it and that is okay, we fall in and out of love with stuff. We change, that is just how humans work.
But earlier this year I went back. Not to become more productive but to reflect. I find that it is easier in a notebook because of the slow nature of it. That is when I fell back in love with writing, but not only that, I remember how many things I loved doing, but stopped because I was told that I was not good at it. Things like my terrible handwriting, painting, drawing, making stuff with my hands and coding. Things I wanted to do, but I was told as a kid or when I was younger that I was not good at it and therefore I stopped pursuing it. Like we have to be good at all of the things we do.
I recently posted a note about connecting with your inner child and it resonated with a lot of people. This is what I mean by saying that I am connecting with my inner child. I am doing all the things I was told that I should not do because I was not good at it. I learned that I am creative and I am deeply passionate about things most people do not care about, and I am passionate about a lot of things. I am a wandering contradiction. I love fashion, design, drawing and notebooks. But I also love sports, politics and poetry. I love playing sports, but I hate strength training. I love Gossip Girl, but I hate Grey’s Anatomy.
With the rise of the internet we got used to the idea of a niche. People on the internet are one thing. They are a lifestyle influencer or a productivity influencer. They are a business coach or a sports writer. They love reading or they love movies. On the internet humans are one niche and they are stereotypical to that niche. That is where I lost myself. I felt that I had to be one thing in my real life. I am either a sports nerd or a technology nerd. I use digital productivity or I use analog tools. I thought that I was one thing, but I am many. I contain multitudes.
Not only that, I change. What was interesting 5 years ago is no longer interesting, or at least not as interesting. Opinions I had last year changed this year. I am human, which means that I am not one set of interests, ideas and values. I think that is what would make me interesting. The fact that I am a nerd in so many areas of my life. The fact that I listened to forty minutes about pencils, then listened to another podcast about markdown and I could not be happier. I listen to Paul Simon and then to Sabrina Carpenter. I listen to Pink Floyd, then Tate McRae. It might seem like contradictions, but I think that is what makes me interesting.
To answer the question, who am I? I am not one thing and the person I am is always changing. So instead of going back and forward with myself and trying to decide a niche for myself in real life, I have decided to remind myself that the internet is not real life. My niche on the internet is mainly productivity (I am changing it a little), but my life is about more than productivity. It is about running, watching sports, collecting CDs, testing productivity apps and more.
Moving away from digital tools reminded me of that. It reminded me that I am more than what I show on the internet. It has also opened my eyes to living a contradictory life. A life where I listen to songs that do not match. A life where I don’t fit into the personality traits people think come with my interests. It reminded me that the internet is not real life and I should live more of my life outside the internet.
I also learned that it is okay to be me. That even if I am not good at something, or something does not seem to fit me, it does not mean that I should stop. Going offline reminded me of the things I loved when I was a child before the internet and what everyone else said mattered. Back when I did not care as much. That allowed me to accept the contradictions that I might have found in my interests. As well as accepting that me being passionate about Sabrina Carpenter’s new album or pencils might seem silly to some, but it does not matter. It is my happiness and not theirs. They don’t have to live my life and I don’t have to live theirs. With that being said I will still cry over mean comments because I am way too sensitive. (Something I am working on.) In theory though it is my life and not theirs, and they don’t have to live my life, so they should not be able to decide the things I like. That is up to me, because it is up to me to try to find happiness.
With that being said, if you are someone who loves the same things and fits into boxes, that is okay too. I am telling you this story to remind you of being you. However I do personally believe that people have different and even contradictory interests and ideas. I think most people have that if they just allow themselves. There is this cliché quote from Tumblr, I don’t actually know who said it, but it says something like “be yourself, everyone else is taken.” I really believe in that, but I would rather say “be weird, so that you are not cosplaying as someone else.”