How much sharing is oversharing?

“Did you give it away? Did you give it away for free?” —Andrew Bird

When does sharing become over-sharing?

I ask myself this a lot when posting stuff about my life online, particularly as it concerns my children. I know they’re cute (at least to me) and everything they do is incredible (again, to me), but does that mean I should document and share it all online? Who is that benefiting?

(Me, being a kid and not giving an F about instagram because it didn’t exist.)

What would my childhood have been like had my parents shared all my cute shit with every person they’d ever met, and complete strangers? When I think of it that way, I get major heebie-jeebies. I don’t think I would have reacted well to a practical stranger coming up to me and saying, “Looks like you’re sure enjoying the sandbox these days, from what your mom posts on Facebook!” Ick, lady, quit creepin’ and get out of my face, please. So why do I expect my children to be okay with it? Broadcasting their childhoods on the internet seems harmless enough while I’m doing it, alongside my friends doing the same, but am I causing them harm down the line? Who’s to say? Sure, it’s so ubiquitous these days to broadcast our daily motions and receive feedback from all sorts of people, friends and strangers alike, but is that not, at least in a certain sense, a bit screwed up? Like, why would I assume that anyone cares to see my kid filling the bird feeder? Or my new shoes? Or a tasteful table setting? I have posted all of these things in the last month and, as far as I’ve heard, they haven’t changed the world. At best it’s pleasure fodder for grandparents, and at worst it’s making someone feel crappy for one of myriad reasons. (More on that in a minute.)

I wonder, too, if a day will come when we look back in horror at how much of ourselves we willingly revealed online (think Black Mirror AI Elon Musk nightmare soup). Our private lives are precious, and yet there is a never-sleeping social engine in our pocket compelling us to upload these precious moments as they occur in the name of posterity, or community, or whatever sentimental label fits best.

As I scroll through “stories,”  my FOMO meter ticks higher and higher to the point where I discount the value of my own life simply because it isn’t what I’m seeing on the screen. (Hence why I end up posting my own stuff, to insist upon my relevance among my peers within the platform.) I feel my own vivacity depleting and yet I can’t make myself stop, it’s disgusting. It’s like binge-eating knowing you’re gonna puke right afterward; you’re not enjoying yourself, but there’s no turning back now.

Even online content that seems completely innocuous can have this effect. I follow several quilters, clothing designers, homesteaders, and badass moms, and though I enjoy viewing what they share, it often leaves me feeling less-than, regardless of what badasserie I’ve got going on. It’s just the voyeurism of it that bums me out, I suppose; I go from excited to deflated in one fell swoop.

A friend of mine wrote online once that her friend commented on her social media posts, saying they made her feel so shitty about her own life that she had to stop looking at her page altogether. My friend felt awful and explained that this was a curated space intended to evoke feeling the way, say, an art gallery might, and was not an accurate depiction of her real life — in other words, no dirty diapers on her gram. And while that explanation made total sense to me… I know that feeling so well. Inadvertent as it may be, sharing the most beautiful aspects of our lives online can have a negative effect on those who view them. Even balancing them out with more banal content doesn’t seem to make much difference; if anything it just elevates the banal to where you’re thinking, “Damn, even the way she does laundry is exquisite!” I think that’s why trolls exist, because think of how easy it is to feel anger, envy, lust, etc. toward online personae, and to have no other outlet than to spew at them from the safety of your keypad. I feel your pain, trolls, I really do.

Also, side note—based on my own experience and from what I’ve observed in the comment sections of social media over time, we tend to take people’s off-the-cuff musings as if they’d submitted it in their dissertation, and we dissect it as such. Enraged by the arrogance and ignorance of strangers, we unload all our angst in the reply box, giving them a piece of our mind as if they give two shits what we think. (And we all know by now, anyone who tries to “educate” someone in a comment thread will only solidify that person’s point of view.) I don’t know how many times I’ve had to walk myself back from replying to some rando’s “incorrect statement” that pissed me off enough to respond. I’ll tell you this much: I’ve never regretted not getting into an oolong dispute.

Alright, so that leads me to the question of this newsletter, and why it feels different to me than, say, sharing to the other social platforms. Well, for one, no one is reading this! I mean, besides you, of course, and a small smattering of others. But more importantly, unlike the carousel of greatest hits moments you’ll find on instagram, Substack’s selections require active attention, not absent scrolling. This isn’t passively seeping into your subconscious; you are choosing to read it (which I do appreciate). And for that reason, I think, there is far more personal agency in this experience which allows the user to not feel drained of their own mojo at the end of it. I suppose there is still a chance of FOMO rearing its head, but not to the same extent. If anything, I feel that reading people’s thoughts lets me IN — into an intimate, quiet space shared by author and reader.

So if you’re reading this, I hope you feel cozy in this thought bubble I’m swimming around in. I’d love to hear your own perspective on any or all of this matter of online personae and our messy relationship to it, whether in the comment field (trolls be dammed) or as a reply e-mail. Thanks for reading.

Till the next ✨

Ginny