Everyone's Playing a Character (And You Should Too)
The most authentic people online are the most strategic about what they amplify
When I was a journalist, I once watched a colleague lose their mind at a press conference once.
The guy didn’t have a meltdown and flip a table.
He just made an off-the-cuff joke that landed wrong.
A curse word that slipped out.
In exactly the wrong place to be curing or joking.
It was the kind of normal human moment that would've been forgotten in a private conversation but became a whole thing because cameras were rolling.
Later, at the bar, he was still beating himself up about it.
"I just wasn’t thinking," he said. "Just being myself."
That's when it clicked for me.
The problem wasn't that they were being themselves.
The problem was that they were trying to be all of themselves, all at once, in a situation that demanded curation.
Most people think authenticity online means showing everything.
Every mood swing.
Every passing thought.
Every dimension of your personality turned up to full volume simultaneously.
They're wrong.
The people who seem most authentic online.
The ones you feel like you really know.
They aren't showing you everything.
They're showing you something specific.
They've made a choice about which parts of themselves to amplify and which parts stay behind the curtain.
They're playing a character.
And that character is doing specific work.
The Strategic Self
Alex Hormozi wears the same clothes in every video.
Baseball caps, flannels, tank tops.
That signature nose strip.
It's not an accident.
It's not because he owns one outfit.
It's because visual consistency makes him instantly recognizable.
It reduces cognitive friction.
When you see him, you know exactly who you're dealing with before he says a word.
He's also built his brand around transparent vulnerability.
He shares failures, strategic pivots, mistakes.
But watch closely and you'll notice something.
The failures he shares are always instructive.
They're never just messy.
They're never the kind of vulnerability that makes you uncomfortable or questions his competence.
They're curated to build trust while maintaining authority.
This is the game.
Take the parts of yourself that serve your message and turn them up.
Take the parts that don't and turn them down.
Not because you're being fake, but because focus is how people actually connect with anything.
Chris Williamson does it too.
That intellectual curiosity, that genuine fascination with ideas, is real.
But so is the editorial decision to keep certain opinions to himself,
To avoid topics that would fragment his audience.
To maintain a kind of philosophical neutrality that keeps people from all sides listening.
Money Twitter is full of people who've figured this out.
They're not lying about their success or their methods (well, some are.)
But they're absolutely making choices about which success stories to tell.
Which struggles to mention.
Which parts of their financial reality to display and which to keep private.
You probably do this already without realizing it.
You don't post about getting your car serviced.
You don't share details about your extended family drama.
You don't document every boring Tuesday.
That's curation.
That's character work.
You're already doing it.
You're just not being strategic about it.
When the Mask Slips
Luke Belmar's story started to fall apart when people started checking the details.
The background narrative that supported his brand started showing cracks.
Not because he was playing a character.
But because the character's origin story included claims that didn't hold up under scrutiny.
That's the thing about mask slips.
They don't reveal that someone was playing a character.
Everyone's playing a character.
They reveal that someone wasn't honest about which parts were amplified and which parts were invented.
The exhaustion you see online when someone's "authenticity" implodes usually comes from the same place.
They claimed they weren't curating when they absolutely were.
Then the curation became unsustainable.
The real stuff leaked through.
The gap between the claimed self and the actual self became too obvious to ignore.
I've done this myself.
Dropped curse words that turned people off.
Made jokes that went too far.
You know what I learned?
Doubling down is itself a character choice.
That’s my go to move when someone shows offence at a joke.
Because the easiest way out of what could be an awkward social moment is to treat the other person like a weirdo.
“I’m hilarious and normal, you need to lighten the fuck up.”
But I’ll fully admit that my "I don't apologize, I double down" stance is a persona.
It usually works out well for me.
It engages the right people and alienates the wrong ones.
It’s a choice.
That's the point.
The mistake isn't making those choices.
The mistake is pretending you're not making them.
WWE Gets This
(No I won’t stop talking about wrestling)
Wrestlers will tell you their character is just them dialed up to 1000.
Stone Cold Steve Austin's anti-authority rebellion wasn't invented from nothing.
It was a real personality trait amplified into a storyline.
John Cena's "never give up" intensity exists in the actual human.
Just not at that cartoonish volume every single moment of his life.
The Rock's charisma is real.
But the eyebrow and the catchphrases are the productized version.
This is what people miss about personal branding.
You're not creating fiction.
You're taking something true and making it consistent, recognizable, and functional.
You're asking: which part of me does the work I need done?
If your work requires authority, you amplify competence and results.
If it requires relatability, you amplify struggle and learning.
If it requires provocation, you amplify contrarian takes and sharp edges.
These aren't lies.
They're editorial choices about what gets the spotlight.
The boring stuff, the contradictions, the parts of you that don't fit the narrative.
Those don't disappear.
They just don't make it into the broadcast.
The Exhaustion of Total Authenticity
Trying to be 100% yourself online, all the time, in every context, is not only impossible, it's counterproductive.
People don't want all of you.
They can't handle all of you.
Hell, you probably can't handle all of you.
We're all contradictory, inconsistent, contextual creatures.
We're different people depending on whether we're in a work meeting or at a bar with friends or alone at 2am scrolling our phones.
The persona isn't about deception.
It's about coherence.
It's about giving people a version of you they can understand, remember, and decide whether to trust.
When you try to show everything, you show nothing.
You become a blur.
This is why the most relatable people online often feel like characters.
Because they are.
They've done the work of deciding what are and are not about.
And how to show up consistently within those boundaries.
The exhaustion comes from pretending you're not making these choices.
From telling yourself you're "just being real" while actually curating constantly but refusing to admit it.
The tension between the story you tell yourself and the reality of what you're doing creates cognitive dissonance.
And that's what burns people out.
If you’re constantly pretending that you’re a 9-figure business owner.
If you rent Lambos and Patek’s and return them a month later.
If you post about the “brokies” and “wagecucks” and “escaping the matrix.”
But really you’ve still got your McDonald’s job (just in case) and have less than 6K in your bank account.
You’re going to be laying awake at night in fear.
Of being found out.
Of your curated self image falling apart.
Because it’s not authentic.
Because you’re trying to be something you’re not instead of amplifying what you are.
The First Decision
If you're starting to build a brand, the first question isn't "how do I get more followers" or "what should I post about."
It's "who am I when I'm doing this work?"
Not who are you in general.
Who are you in this specific context, for this specific audience, doing this specific thing.
Are you the person who's three steps ahead, showing people the path?
Are you the person in the middle of it, figuring it out in public?
Are you the skeptic, the cheerleader, the translator, the disruptor?
Pick the true thing about yourself that does the work.
Then turn it up.
Make it consistent.
Make it recognizable.
Let everything else fade into the background.
This doesn't mean you're one-dimensional.
It means you understand that a brand is not a person.
It's a signal.
And signals work best when they're clear.
The Pushback
Some of you are reading this and thinking "but I don't know who I am."
That's real, and that's a different problem.
You can't amplify what you haven't identified.
If that's where you are, the work isn't building a brand yet.
The work is getting clear on your actual personality, values, and patterns first.
The brand comes after.
Others are thinking "but this feels manipulative."
I get it.
Except you're already doing it.
You already choose what to share and what to keep private.
You already adjust your tone depending on context.
The only question is whether you do it randomly and reactively, or whether you do it strategically in service of something you're trying to build.
And some of you are thinking
"I just want to post whatever I'm thinking without a plan."
You can.
Absolutely.
But don't be surprised when it doesn't build anything coherent.
When people don't know what you're about.
When your audience stays small or confused.
That's not a moral failure.
It's just math.
Consistency compounds.
Randomness doesn't.
The most authentic people online aren't showing you less of themselves.
They're showing you the most useful version of themselves.
The version that serves their message, their audience, and the change they're trying to create.
That's not manipulation.
That's respect.
Respect for your audience's attention.
Respect for the work you're trying to do.
Respect for the idea that communication isn't just expression.
It's strategy.
You're already playing a character.
The only question is whether you're playing one that works.
This piece really made me think, especialy about how we naturally evolve our 'online characters' without even realizing it. It makes you wonder, how much of this strategic self is a conscious design versus just an organic adaptation? Such an insightful article, you've truely captured the nuance of online authenticity.