Why I love getting cancelled
a case for growing through online backlash + the science behind it.
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I left a hot pilates sculpt class this morning and it was basically the same temperature outside. We are SO back and I am SO ready for a summer in Miami. I am learning Miami is now being called ‘Wall Street South.’
Speaking of, I have been getting really into the markets lately so I’ve been feeling a little richer and irrationally more informed. Have also been making a point to make at least 2 new great connections a week. Besides that not too much is new?
Here’s what’s on my mind this week.
On my side of the internet:
How did I not put 2+2 together that Lena Dunham is a Taurus???? Only someone with a Venus ruled Sun sign could have such a stunning way with words.
I was gripped by her sit down with David Marchese for NYTimes’ The Interview on my weighted walk yesterday. I’ve listened to it twice and it’s my favorite episode. I am feeling this Famesick rollout and look forward to reading.
Not a Summer House viewer, but absolutely, yes. I love a caption that reads as what’s understood ain’t gotta be said!!!! This works for Ciara and Sephora.
If it weren’t for Laguna Beach idk that I would have ever been enticed to move to California or work at Hollister and I definitely wouldn’t have been bullied at my public high school for being an early adopter of the mini skirt x messy bun with Ugg boots.
I’m happy this crew is back on my screen.
On the Alex Cooper x Alix Earle “beef.” Hate that I’m even fractionally invested. Highkey I agree with Les Alfred when she said that it’s just a PR tactic. Ugh I can only dream of getting some real mess. Isn’t that Alix’s whole schtick anyway? “Hot Mess” ?????
I’m team Earle in the drama because I love the way Alix is spelled with an “i” instead of an “e.”
Speaking of PR — I almost wanted to believe that Alix’s Reale Actives launch doing $5M in revenue in mere hours was a spin, but it really is grounded in reality. If the brand hit $1 million in sales in under five minutes, it would have only taken 8,500 people to buy a full kit at $118. That’s less than 0.5% of her total IG and Tiktok audience.
Bitch, let me get my camera out 😭
I have been exploring the idea that I have genuine brand fatigue. I haven’t had the desire to keep up with all of the happenings at Coachella even though it’s lowkey my job. I am so worn down by the endless insistence of being screamed at by brands. Everywhere I turn there’s an ad and a partnership. It’s like there’s no version of real life that isn’t trying to convert me. Unless I upgrade to no ads, obviously. Literally, I’m so drained. Idk how long this feeling will last for me!
Don’t be shy. Get yourself cancelled, already!
I find that two of the biggest misconceptions about me are:
A): that I’m extroverted and B): that I’m fearless about being hated online.
LOL.
The truth is that I care deeply what people think about me, or at least I have up until very recently in my life. I have a habit of keeping score and have always found it challenging to let things roll off my back. I am also quite shy and to myself (unless the moment is unequivocally about me) and I’m definitely not the person to walk into a crowded room and start introducing myself (unless I’m tore up) — I tend to wait for the invitation. I tell this story sometimes about myself in kindergarten when I was so nonverbal, my teacher went behind my mom’s back and put me in ESL — best case scenario to her was that I just couldn’t speak English.
There’s no question that these things have held me back more than they should.
I often find myself irritated when people react surprisingly to how I view my true self in this way. They’re responding to my masked up outward-facing self.
The reason I’m so passionate about the subject is because when it comes to overcoming visibility there is no greater case study than me. I wrote the book on the visibility wound.
But I can finally say, I don’t let it hold me back anymore.
You wanna know one of the biggest shortcuts in helping me get there?
Allowing myself to be cancelled online.
Hear me out!!!!!!
Obviously there’s cancelled (Lizzo or Kendall Jenner for Pepsi), then there’s cancelled cancelled (Daniel Caesar) and then there’s my version of cancelled— which is when people disagree with me in my comment section in a vitriolic way. I haven’t reached Reddit thread status about me yet.
For most people, the sheer idea alone of facing public backlash is the stuff of nightmares. That’s why most people who create on the internet vie to stay within the lines of “acceptable” discourse.
Most of us aren’t as afraid of having a difference of opinion as we are afraid of being disagreed with or unliked over it.
I was that way for a long, long time.
You’ve gotta understand there was a time when I was FROZEN and felt completely incapable of creating anything to be shared online. Although I never fully envisioned the insidious ways that online hate could show up for me, I just knew that if it did come, it would actually kill me. I couldn’t even fathom hearing one single negative comment about myself — I didn’t want to test my self-esteem or temper. I knew as I grew, some friction would become inevitable, but I wasn’t ready for all of that. So I shaped my voice and content around things that would lead to the least amount of friction like making lifestyle content without myself in frame and taking videos of like….flowers and the clouds and shit.
OR I’d spend hours recording a video and then multiple days picking it apart before it finally left my drafts, if it ever left my drafts.
When I first found flow with creating content I was surprised to find it a rare happenstance to run into comments I didn’t like. Then I expanded past my existing audience and I would get a few ‘you look like this celebrity’ (who I think is cute enough, but not someone I aspire to look like) comments and that would bug me out and discourage me.
Then I’d find it in me to pick back up again and it creating wouldn’t be so bad. Then I’d get a worse comment (still not awful), but enough to ruffle my feathers that I’d be thinking about it all day. Suddenly the celebrity lookalike comment didn’t seem so bad.
There’s a psychological concept called stress inoculation — the idea that prior stress exposure can induce resilience to later stress.
In this context, by surviving a wave of online vitriol, you essentially “vaccinate” yourself against minor criticisms.
I didn’t at first see online criticism as training wheels to upholding visibility because contrary to belief, I don’t post things just to stir the pot for sport. I hope by now you have a firm knowing that I am simply just this insufferably opinionated. Oddly every time I’ve gone negatively viral, it was over a mundane, throwaway post that left me genuinely surprised by the scale of the reaction.
Like how I think that as an attractive woman I could be meaner, or that Jo Malone used my former brand’s likeness for their body oil, or that Leonardo DiCaprio is a terrible actor.
I’ve been ripped to shreds over these comments.
Seeing things you don’t like either about yourself or your work is no fun. But I’m here to report that your threshold for it really does expand (and quickly) with more momentum.
Even if initially, an online backlash led me to tuck away in bed for 2 days and feel genuinely awful and full of anxiety (wondering how many people are seeing it, if it will ruin your life, your career; you tend to catastrophize) — those feelings pass so quick and hard. I have only ever come out on the other side of a backlash feeling more self absorbed and powerful than ever.
I was out to dinner at a gorgeous North Italian restaurant with my cousin a few weeks ago. She is a Pilates instructor and Maternal Wellness Coach. Over several glasses of wine, octopus and the Chef’s Special pizza, were talking through her feelings of stuckness as they relate to her showing up more online. She just didn’t know why she was so in her head and in such post paralysis, despite knowing what her obvious next step to success is (showing up more online!)
God, I felt like I was listening to my former self.
We were rehashing the viral Philly Pilates Tiktok drama and my cousin said that being one of the two girls involved in such a public thing would literally be her worst nightmare.
I let her get her feelings out before I deep exhaled and said this:
Honestly…? If you wanna make your bones you’re unfortunately gonna have to allow yourself to be cancelled a little bit. It sucks, but it’s the best thing to help you get over yourself.
A star has never been born that hasn’t been cancelled first, I fear!!! A humiliation ritual, if you will.
“It just builds character” I told her. “It’s soo hard, but it’s just the like the best way to get out of that.”
I told her about a journalist girlfriend of mine whose Buzzfeed post about White people went viral in 2020 and made it over to Fox News. She began to receive some of the most hate one could ever muster up. I can only imagine how she navigated that in the moment. But today she remains gorgeous, thriving and well. Imagine being in her shoes! She is a huge inspiration to me for this reason.
Lastly I told her about how a past therapist opened my eyes to the distinction between self worth vs. self esteem: “Self-esteem is: you have a test and you know you’re gonna ace it because you’re amazing at that subject; you’re confident in it because that’s your thing. Self-esteem is you just KNOW that you’re great at something — but it’s variable, because you might be good at this, but not good at that and your opinion around yourself might change based on how good at that thing you are. Self-WORTH is: whether or not I’m great in this scenario I’m still worthy. Regardless of any outcome or opinion, how I feel about myself is absolutely unwaverable.” It is important to not conflate the two.
I could see that I blew my cousin’s lid back, just like my therapist did me when I was introduced me to this concept.
Then I left her with a serious personal question she wasn’t obligated to answer: What are you afraid people will say about you?
This idea of deliberately creating tension through momentum, navigating online criticism and coming out the other side signals to your brain that you that you can do hard things and are willing and to put yourself out there to increase your surface area for opportunity by way of being seen.
It is a brutal, but high-speed catalyst for growth and I’d honestly say it has made me more consistent and excited about creating (and sharing!!).
When I say allow yourself to be cancelled I don’t mean go looking for it. But when it comes, just let it be. Allow it to rattle you and test you. Allow yourself to be in it then get past it. There are greater outcomes ahead!!
The result is that you get more comfortable with people misunderstanding you. You don’t take things as personally. You learn to separate your self-worth from a notification. You also realize that the internet is not a monolith, but a collection of loud (mostly stupid) voices that quickly move on to the next topic. For perspective, the average American reads at a 4th-grade reading level. Are you really going to allow yourself to be so offended over what Joe who lives in his mother’s basement in Tuscaloosa thinks about your looks?
Personally, I don’t need my feelings dictated by people I wouldn’t think twice about respecting IRL. No happy, sane, successful person has ever come to my page hating!
The truth is, you have to be sooooo comfortable with yourself to be fuck you successful. You really have to drink your own kool-aid!
Revisiting the what are you afraid people will say about you question, my fears were that someone would say something about my looks or my race.
I hate to ruin the fantasy and I certainly don’t want to discourage you with what I’m about to say, but I won’t sugar coat this. Unfortunately, I have at this point received comments on both. But I might surprise you (and I certainly would surprise my former self) when I say, truthfully? It hasn’t gotten under my skin! And in the grand scheme of things, nothing I’ve read about myself has ever been THAT bad. I almost hate to say this, but you’ve probably heard worse things growing up. Especially if you were brought up in the 90s.
At this point, I’m kind of so obsessed with myself that none of these comments even register to my reality.
Self-esteem vs. self-worth.
At the end of the day, visibility isn’t just about being liked, it’s about being known. And being polarizing is often more effective than being safe.
Being the best isn’t about sounding like everybody else.
Imagine my surprise when I learned that there are people that disagree with my takes here on Slutty Founder. It often doesn’t occur to me the people who read let alone form and pass along opinions around what I’m doing — good or bad — because my responsibility is to just show up and talk my shit. I don’t even think about who could be on the other side anymore. I used to wonder how famous people were so comfortable with being famous and being in front of millions, but I’m seeing now that it’s in that “talking to nobody” feeling.
When you’re just doing your thing absent of the expectation of others it genuinely doesn’t occur to you who’s paying attention.
So who even cares?
Endnote:
Ashokan, A., Sivasubramanian, M., & Mitra, R. (2016). Seeding stress resilience through inoculation. Neural Plasticity, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/4928081