Just Be Authentic 🙃

...wtf does that even mean?

Andy Warhol, Ethel Scull 36 Times

Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard the advice: just be authentic.

It sounds generous. Encouraging, even. But I’m not sure we know what that word is asking of us anymore.

A few weeks ago, I hosted a panel at BroadwayCon that was organized by my pals at And That’s Showbiz, with six other performers who also post content online. We talked about algorithms and pressure and boundaries. But we kept circling something more subtle.

Each person, in different words, described the same strange pattern: the posts that connected were rarely the ones they labored over. They were the ones made without too much thinking. Without calculating. Without trying to win.

That stuck with me.

Because in theater (and most creative work) managing perception is a big part of the gig. You learn to read the room. You learn to adjust in real time. You learn how to stay in it.

So what happens when that instinct follows us offstage? When the same reflex starts shaping how we present ourselves online?

That’s what I want to untangle this week.

Geronimo!

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The Reflex

There’s a habit theater gives you that’s hard to unlearn.

You learn to sense reception in real time: the temperature of a room, the micro-shifts in attention, the moment a moment lands (or doesn’t). It’s not manipulation. It’s how you survive auditions, rehearsals, long runs, interviews, talkbacks.

Over time, that fluency turns into reflex. You start adjusting before anyone asks you to. You smooth the edge. You offer the version of yourself that feels most legible, most like it will keep you in the room, or get you the job. And because the room is always changing, you get good at changing with it.

The internet rewards that same reflex. Not just for performers—for everyone. It quietly trains us to edit. To anticipate the comments. To curate the caption. Sincerity gets caked in strategy. You learn to manage first, express second.

And the strange part is how normal it starts to feel. Like this is simply what “showing up” requires. Like the cost of being seen is staying a step ahead of how you’ll be perceived. Until one day you realize you’re not just sharing—you’re steering.

And you don’t steer unless there’s something you’re trying to avoid.

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The Risk

Rejection is sneaky.

That small drop in your stomach when you hit post. The heat-flush after you rewatch a video and suddenly hate the sound of your voice.

You’re not crazy. Being liked isn’t some shallow modern craving. It’s old hardware. Your lizard brain can’t distinguish between “this didn’t land” and “I don’t belong.” It just registers threat.

So yes—of course we steer.

We steer toward being palatable. Likable. Toward what we think people want because the alternative is sitting in the raw uncertainty of not knowing whether we’ll be chosen, or misunderstood, or quietly dismissed.

Steering lowers the odds of embarrassment.

The problem is what happens when that protective reflex becomes the default setting. When you start performing your honesty the way you’d perform a song.

And that’s the moment the steering stops protecting you and starts costing you something.

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The Split

There’s a specific feeling you can clock in a performer—on stage, in a meeting, on a date, in a TikTok—when their attention splits. Part of them is in the moment, and part of them is hovering six inches above it, monitoring. Tracking. Adjusting. Watching the room watch them. It’s subtle. It can still be impressive. Still “good.” But it’s no longer fully alive.

And people can feel it. Humans are absurdly sensitive to effort that’s trying to hide itself. The second a moment starts auditioning for approval, the air changes. You don’t think, this person is calculating, but your body registers a kind of distance. Like you’re being guided toward a reaction instead of being invited into an experience.

Online, steering does the same thing. It introduces a faint layer of defensiveness. The post is technically honest. The caption says what it means. But there’s a pressure behind it—a desire for it to land. And that pressure flattens something. It keeps the moment from surprising even you.

This is why the panel kept circling the same strange reality: the content that connected wasn’t necessarily “better.” It just felt less managed. Less concerned with outcome. It had that clarity that shows up when someone stops trying to win and simply shares.

And once you notice that difference, it gets uncomfortable—because steering is the thing that’s kept you safe. But it’s also the thing that keeps you disconnected, slightly outside the moment.

Which raises an annoying question: if surrender is what makes the work land, why does it feel so impossible to access on command?

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The Release

“Let go” is, unfortunately, not a technique.

On stage, you don’t surrender by deciding to surrender. You surrender because you’ve rehearsed enough that your body stops negotiating every beat. Because you’ve run it enough times that your attention can stay in the moment instead of hovering above it. Preparation makes presence feel safe.

That’s why “just be authentic” feels slippery. It skips the only part that matters: the conditions. You don’t stop trying to win because someone told you to. You stop gripping so tightly because you’ve done the work. Because you’ve failed enough times to survive it. Because you know you’ll be okay either way.

So what does loosening your grip actually look like?

Less confession. More commitment. Make the thing. Shape it. Craft it. Care about it. Then release it without fixating on the reaction.

The irony is that that willingness reads as confidence. Not performance confidence. Actual confidence. Everyone can feel the difference between a person offering something and a person begging for it.

By the end of that panel, no one had uncovered a secret formula—and no one seemed particularly interested in one. There was no hack. No posting schedule revelation. Just story after story about repetition. About flops. About hitting “post” again anyway. About stepping onstage (or online) enough times that the fear lost some of its volume.

The moments that landed weren’t engineered to win. They were the ones where someone trusted the work enough to stop steering.

So I think the biggest thing I’m carrying with me from our panel is this:

Make the thing with care.
Then give it away like you mean it.

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If this resonated and you want to read One last thing—where I share more personal reflections on all of this—you can unlock it by becoming a paid subscriber.

For $5/month, you can directly supports the time and care that goes into The Fourth Wall.

Either way, I’m grateful you’re here.

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One last thing…

Momentum has a strange side effect.