I am blogging now

In the past, I've always kept a low profile and left my thoughts to myself.

I deliberately maintained a low social media presence. No profile pic, no posts - even avoiding liking or commenting on other people's content.

I rationalized this behavior by telling myself that I'm a private person and that I like to stay off the grid. And that, to a large extent, is still true.

I don't like sharing fragments of myself that can be easily accessed by anyone at anytime. I like the fact that, to know more about me, you need to interact with me in person. Having no online presence supports both of these characteristics.

But if I really peel back the layers, keeping such a low profile wasn't just about being private. It was also about the fear of judgement.

I think I'm a smart person - I tend to pick up on patterns and draw conclusions from those patterns pretty quickly.

When I started using social media (right around junior high), I noticed a pattern pretty early on:

Creating public content = opening yourself up to judgment.

If you were ugly, you could get flamed. If you said something controversial, you could get flamed. If you kept a perfect image, someone else having a bad day meant you could still get flamed.

Who wants to get flamed? I don't think anybody does. Young Will Zhong certainly didn't.

So the obvious solution was to not post, comment, or do anything that could open myself up to getting flamed.

No presence = no kindling for the flames.

And this strategy worked! Since I had no content, I had no way of getting exposed. Since I left no likes or comments, I had no traces of activity. I was impenetrable.

But as time went on, I started to get this nagging feeling in the back of my head:

My lack of social media presence was just a shield for my insecurities.

Because I internalized early on that putting yourself out there meant opening yourself up to judgment, I thought the obvious solution was to not open up in the first place.

But there's always good in the bad. There will be folks who come out to flame you. There will also be folks who come out to support you.

I will not let other people's opinion of me dictate my actions. I will create content for myself. I will post what I want to post.

I am blogging now!