The Price of Being Seen

I started Instagram in April 2022, and if you've read the previous story, you already know how that happened.

By the beginning of June, I found myself being invited to give a workshop about branding, and somehow I already had more than 6,000 followers.

Suddenly, I realized I had ended up in the exact position of the guy who had inspired me to start Instagram in the first place.

Life really does come full circle sometimes.

Now, 6,000 followers might not sound like much today, but the engagement was insane.

Not because I was doing anything special. In fact, I barely shared anything personal.

The difference was that the information I shared was practical. It came from real experience, and I packaged it in a way that anyone could understand, apply, and see results from.

And that's exactly what happened.

The account kept growing almost entirely through word of mouth.

Soon enough, invitations started coming in. Events. Workshops. Universities. Schools.

To be honest, I said no far more often than I said yes.

Instagram wasn't my job.

I had clients, projects, and responsibilities. If I accepted every invitation that came my way, I would have stopped focusing on the people who were actually paying me to do the work.

On top of that, I've never been a big fan of those school events where they bring in ten different speakers and everyone gets fifteen minutes to say something inspirational.

Most of the time it ends up being surface level. A lot of talking. Very little substance.

As both a speaker and an attendee, I've never enjoyed that format.

I prefer having a proper session where people are genuinely interested in the topic and where there's enough time to explore ideas properly.

But that's not the point of this story.

Let's go back to the guy who annoyed me so much back at that workshop and who indirectly started this entire adventure.

Because after giving my first workshop, I finally understood him.

I understood why he had ended up in that mindset.

And I understood how all of it happened.

The truth is that people are not entirely to blame.

When someone reaches a certain level of visibility and starts providing information or value, people naturally become excited to listen.

Especially in an environment where knowledge is often packaged and sold.

The moment you offer information for free, people automatically assign value to it, regardless of whether it's good information or bad information.

For me, though, there was always a responsibility attached to that.

If you're going to teach something, it needs to be accurate.

It needs to be factual.

Because sooner or later, someone is going to act on what you say.

And if that advice damages their career, their business, or their life, part of that responsibility belongs to you.

At least that's how I've always looked at it.

Now let me tell you what Instagram actually did to me.

There were positives.

But my God, there were also so many negatives that I eventually found myself wondering why I had ever decided to enter this world in the first place.

Let's start with the positives.

Actually, there's only one.

The people.

Instagram introduced me to people from different cities, industries, and backgrounds.

It created opportunities that I genuinely never imagined would cross my path.

And for that, I'm grateful.

Without question, that's a beautiful thing.

But at what cost?

The first consequence was exposure.

Suddenly, relatives, acquaintances, and people close to me who had no idea what I actually did for a living were discovering me through Instagram.

And once they did, things got weird.

Some people started behaving in ways that I still don't fully understand to this day.

But that's a story for another time.

What I really want to talk about is the downside that affected me the most.

The one that completely drained me mentally.

The one I didn't recognize until much later.

My relationship with people on social media.

Let me explain.

When you meet someone in real life, they get to know you gradually.

They see a human being standing in front of them.

There are no major expectations.

The relationship develops naturally through conversations, situations, experiences, disagreements, and shared moments.

You learn about them.

They learn about you.

Sometimes the relationship grows.

Sometimes it doesn't.

And that's perfectly normal.

Instagram works differently.

The first time someone discovers you, they don't meet you.

They meet a version of you.

A version built entirely from your content.

And no matter how authentic you try to be, your content is still curated.

It's still a highlight reel.

It's still the best version of what you've decided to share.

Add likes, shares, praise, and public validation on top of that, and people start constructing an image of you that has very little to do with reality.

They place you inside standards you never chose.

They judge you through contexts you never created.

Eventually, there are thousands of different versions of you living inside thousands of different minds.

And none of them are actually you.

The strange thing happens when those people meet you in real life.

You arrive with no expectations.

They arrive carrying a complete character profile they built themselves.

Without realizing it, they're expecting you to match the version they've imagined.

Meanwhile, you're simply being yourself.

If the real human being standing in front of them doesn't match the character they created in their head, the disappointment begins immediately.

And suddenly you're a fraud.

Even though you never claimed to be any of those things.

Even though you tried your best to be authentic online.

The reality is that no human being can ever match an imaginary version built from curated content.

It's impossible.

And unlike real life relationships, where misunderstandings usually fade over time, something different happens online.

The people who once admired you the most often become your strongest critics.

Why?

Because they weren't attached to you.

They were attached to the character they invented.

They defended that character.

They admired that character.

They talked about that character.

And when reality challenged the fantasy, the easiest explanation became that you were fake.

That you were deceiving people.

That you were somehow a hypocrite.

The truth is that the game was lost before it even started.

The moment you become visible online, people start creating versions of you that you will never be able to satisfy, no matter how authentic you are.

And that was probably the biggest struggle I had with Instagram.

It created problems in my personal life.

It affected how I saw myself.

And it definitely affected my mindset.

And that's before we even talk about another strange reality of social media.

For people to listen to you, many of them need to believe that your life looks impressive.

You need the lifestyle.

You need the image.

You need visible signs of success.

Because if you're just a normal person living a normal life, many people automatically assume your opinions matter less.

As if expertise is measured by appearances.

As if the value of an idea depends on the car parked outside.

Which explains why gurus and scammers thrive on these platforms.

The entire system rewards perception.

And when you combine all of that together, it slowly starts wearing you down.

You begin with a simple goal.

You just want to share knowledge.

Then, without realizing it, you find yourself playing a game you never agreed to play.

A game you didn't even know existed.

Little by little, it pulls you deeper until one day you wake up exhausted.

Alhamdulillah for self awareness.

Without it, I probably would have ended up somewhere I had no business being.

Maybe in another post I'll share more stories from my Instagram years.

For now, that's enough.

May Allah put baraka in whatever comes next.