@alicia.c.lewis: If we’re going to make peace with ourselves and the creative lives we’re living, and continue to enjoy what we create despite being asked to perform for social media, I’m quite sure we’re going to have to find some equilibrium in our modern lives. Are you drowning in the performance part of your creative life? If you are, please follow as I talk about the ups and downs and everything in between of the emotional part of the creative journey. #authorsoftiktok ##authortok #authortokfyp #creativejourney #authorjourney

Megan Montgomery | author :

That’s both a timely and timeless theme, and necessary! We rarely acknowledge how much we (especially women; especially introvert women; especially introvert women who communicate best in writing) perform—on social media and in life. I flat out come across as untrustworthy on social media, and I think there’s something to that. As I speak, I’m usually thinking about how I’m failing to articulate my true meaning, getting to the point faster, why my hair looks so flat and my face looks so long on camera… so even if it’s not nefarious, it’s still inherently untrustworthy, I suppose. I also wonder how much performance (IRL) is a modern epidemic. You can certainly walk back through history and understand different ways people have masked aspects of themselves. But I also remember watching adults as a child and they all seemed so weird and free. I feel like before social media “communities,” if you wanted friends, you pulled from whoever was in your physical proximity. It benefitted everyone to accept the little weirdnesses we all have. And knowing your neighborhood koffee klatch would still bake you a pie, even though you overshared at the last get-together maybe made you a little freer to be yourself. But then social media broke us into tribes where toeing the line (and one-upping each other’s dogmas) became default, and we’ve gone back into hiding/performing. (It’s also possible I just knew a lot of really cool adults in the 80s-90s and they skewed my perception.)